A link in a chain

A society, such as ours, is an interlinked network which should work fine, but which, when one or more of the links are broken, simply does not function.

The experience of many of us, not to say all of us, is that while the organization of our society is as it should be, at least on paper and ideally, there are many missing links or links that do not work as they should.

The end result is things not working properly, dirt and rubbish on the streets, a chaotic traffic, and government paperwork failing to deliver.

We all can tell many examples of this: • The chaos at the hospital where files (still paper files after all this time of computerization) get lost, appointments are not registered and people sent from pillar to post thus ensuring delays and long waits. • People going to police stations to lodge a report and then finding that the police have no intention of proceeding. The people who obey the laws and pay taxes find out that the police actually protect the criminal or at least are afraid of confronting him or them. • Associations suffer while non-members defraud the public and give a bad name to the whole sector without the association bringing itself to name and shame the miscreants. And so on and so forth. It is clear that on paper we have a system that should be able to ensure that life on our island is pleasant and wellbehaved. But it is equally clear that the system in all its ramifications is not working, sometimes it is irremediably broken down and as a result there is mayhem out there on the streets and the criminals get away with anything.

The first line of defence of the population is the police force and the common opinion of people of whatever political belief in our islands is that the police leave much to be desired.

They would know who the miscreants are but they seem to develop a peculiar lethargy when it comes to enforcing the law. Unless something bad happens and public opinion clamours for steps to be taken.

Along with the police force, we may also name many local councils from whom not all citizens are happy with the service they get. Again, many would tell you the local councils of their experience are weak with the strong and strong with the weak.

When it comes to the government service and paperwork, (because even here, for all the computerization we have had, we still rely on paper) there are as many gaps as can be and the problem does not seem to be getting addressed.

There was a time when many government departments blamed austerity and a reduced manforce (or womanforce) but the recent massive intake of people into the government service should have remedied this. Only it has not and one is left wondering why the heck were all these people taken in.

Of course, the above does not mean that the private sector is immune to all this. On the contrary, it suffers from much the same faultlines. If the captains of industry and of enterprises know how their enterprises look from outside and at ground level they would probably despair of ever getting things right.

But getting things right is not all that difficult. It only requires application and focusing, not relying on paper designs and checking to see that what should be a deliverable is actually delivered.