David Levy – Risk Adverse : Who Are They Kidding? – Apr 15

All Government Departments, Agencies and Organisations now try to deliver a world that is risk adverse. To facilitate this utopian dream tick boxes have been introduced, and they now replace common sense and the ability to give a better service.

When I was faced with customer-service employee who found that my circumstances did not fit in with his check-board, he was lost.

I kid you not. He stumbled around constantly trying to hammer this round peg into his squared world. It did not work, and left both parties frustrated.

In these and other functions we are clearly receiving an inadequate service.

This makes me question whether this procedure is an intelligent device to dumb-down opposition and those kind of questions that are uncomfortable? Or, is this just the plain stupidity of overstretched organisations?

I know when Marinet has asked questions of the MMO or of DEFRA, we are amazed at the poor responses we get back from them. Then when we pursue detail, we find they do not have the original data or the expertise to answer.

In truth the detail and analysis is frequently farmed out to outside commercial companies whose integrity is compromised by the duality of their role because they have to satisfy both the regulator as well as the applicant company who employs their services. One cannot name and shame, but the public should be given the reassurance that they are dealing with a totally independent body.

As a realist, I am aware that most decisions made come with a risk or a negative. Light and dark. I also perceive that the solutions that are provided expedite economic and social outcomes, whilst conservation is so far down the list in their thinking that this daily preoccupation with economic and social outcomes barely acknowledges its existence.

To realise that government simply don’t get the benefits of doing the right thing, I would advise that all readers look with respect at the work published by the New Economics Foundation.

The message is clear and unequivocal. Some risks are pointless, as the outcome will be inevitable. And burying your head in bureaucracy is equally pointless.

The meaning of “accountability” by those who regulate is seen by them as facilitating the day to day business of marine industries. That is what they think they are there for, and that is the arena where they fear legal cases. From their perspective, to stop those practices that are damaging to the environment would take courage that they do not believe in or have.

The question which has to be asked is, what direction have they been given by their financial masters, Government? The answer would be informative.

We would suggest we know — because of the actual decisions they have made.


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