Showing posts with label cabinet stir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cabinet stir. Show all posts

01 November 2011

The Apprentice #nlpoli

“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.''

It’s a great quote even if it has been misattributed to a raft of people, including someone named Petronius Arbiter who lived so long ago that some people can’t even agree on whether or not he was a Roman or a Greek.

But the quote is still appropriate, especially if you look at the provincial government.

Remember how in an earlier post, your humble e-scribbler noted that last weeks second Dunderdale cabinet was a lot less than it was cracked up to be?

Well, in the Tuesday Telegram Joan Burke gave an amazing insight into just exactly how the Tories came to create this new department Burke is running. Be warned before you go read the whole thing that it is a puff piece of the first order, but do read the whole piece just because of what it tells you about how the current administration functions.

At its core, Burke said the shift is about apprentices, skilled trades and filling the jobs of the future.

“The whole apprenticeship issue has become more and more complicated,” Burke said.

“We have 6,000 apprentices registered in the province, so where are they? You know, we should be well underway of filling all the labour gaps.”

On the very first full day of the election campaign this fall, Premier Kathy Dunderdale promised to do more about apprentices.

At the time she called it a “bottleneck” in the skilled trades process.

It was the apprenticeship issue, primarily, that drove the marriage between Education and HRLE, Burke said.

A single issue led the government to create a whole new department that consumes not only the university but also the entire government apparatus designed to deliver income support to thousands of residents of the province.

Now it is by no means a trivial matter, but sorting out a problem with apprentices is no reason to create a whole new department.  That’s the sort of issue that comes up all the time in government.  What happens?  Well, usually someone gets told to sort it out.  Could be a deputy minister or it could be a cabinet minister or a group of cabinet ministers.

As for the labour shortage, that’s an old issue.  The report mentioned in the article actually just gives the latest description of a problem that’s been identified for a decade or more. 

Again, it’s not a problem that needs a whole new department to figure out.  If the schools that train skilled trades workers haven’t been doing their job in meeting known market demands, a new department won’t fix that.  This is the sort of stuff they are already supposed to be doing. 

And if they aren’t doing it, then that seems to be a high-end management problem:

  • People who are supposed to decide things apparently aren’t deciding., or,
  • There’s a problem getting word out about decisions, or,
  • People who are supposed to decide things farther down the food chain are too frightened to take decisions, or,
  • They are so pre-occupied with chasing their tails that they can’t get on with the job of governing.

Creating this new department is starting to look more like a sign of the underlying problem than an answer to it.  This is, after all, a government that can’t seem to get its capital works done, that has legislation laying about unfinished and that seems to have a chronic problem managing more than one issue at a time.

Re-organizing makes it look like something is going on when it actually isn’t.

- srbp -

Related:

31 October 2008

Cabinet stir

Shake-up suggests a substantive change.

This is more like a minor shuffle, a bit of a stir in cabinet as a few people around the table exchanges files, switch nameplates and scrape their chairs a bit on the floor changing places around the table.

It represents some tactical shifts but the cabinet remains remarkably the same despite the dismal performance of some of the ministers.  Some of the most dismal even got promotions.

1.  Biggest Feature:  Moving Jerome Kennedy to finance from justice gives one of the heirs apparent to the Premier's job some experience in dealing with the full spread of government activities.

2. Old news to Bond readers:  At the same time, moving a strong-willed minister into the portfolio at this point should make it clear that the provincial books are going to be tightened or, at the very least, any groups looking for government cash are going to have quite a racket on their hands.

"We are also shifting gears from a prosperous time to a more stringent time, for want of a better word," said Williams, whose government projected a $544-million surplus in the spring budget, based largely on high oil prices.

"It could be a tough period we're going to go through as well," Williams added.

Could be?  More like "count on it".

3.  No surprise: Kathy Dunderdale, fronting for the premier in natural resources adds the title "deputy premier" to her list of responsibilities.  She's been acting in this capacity and the extra title is recognition of her ability to follow instructions or least be less than forthcoming with embarrassing facts.

4.  Still one short:  Susan Sullivan comes in.  Charlene Johnson takes medical leave, with her portfolio now handled by another acting minister, on a go forward basis.

5. A promotion for what, exactly? Intergovernmental affairs should be a senior portfolio, handled by an experienced minister.  The trend at both the federal and provincial levels lately has been to hand the job to second or third stringers.

In this case, it's Dave Denine whose time in municipal affairs was notorious for its embarrassing moments.

6.  Structured to underperform:  Tom Hedderson as new minister of fisheries likely ensures that Derek Butler and anyone else interested in fisheries renewal will be left SOL by the cabinet stir.

7.   Stay the course:  Ross Wiseman and Joan Burke keep their portfolios despite much speculation  - even within Provincial Conservative circles - that they would be given a rest from their burdens.

8.  Back to the sidelines:  Having come back into the limelight through the innovation and fisheries portfolios, Trevor Taylor - once a high flier  - heads off to look after snow removal. No one is going to intimidate Trevor about road work, but then again, political staff in the Premier's Office have that one under control anyway.

-srbp-