A Salutory Lesson to Civil Serpents...

[tablet_eraser]

With the current (and justified) complaints about Civil Service inefficiency, supply problems and tight budgets, I think that this early C19th poem says it all.

'Twas ever thus!

Red Tape
Anon

Said the Officer Commanding, “’Tis a pleasant Winter day,
And I want a heap of blankets and I want ‘em right away.
And I want a lot of uniforms and overcoats and boots,
To preserve the Martial Vigour of our promising recruits;
For Napoleon, or Hannibal, or Caesar, I am told,
Found that soldiers fought much better when protected from the cold!
And I trust my Observations are in Military Form,
But I love my little Army, and I’d like to have it warm.”

And the Quartermaster answered (with a wan official smile),
“I shall send a Requisition in the Legal Form and Style
To the Acting Tenth Assistant in the Board of Speed Control,
Who will docket it and poke it in the Proper Pigeonhole.
When the eighteenth Under-Deputy has found it hiding there,
He will specify and advertise with Customary Care.
So, it time, they’ll give a contract - though I cannot tell you when
But I think you’ll get your blankets when the robins nest again."

Said the Officer Commanding, as he pulled his graying hair,
“I should like to have some Rifles, if you have a few to spare.
I should like to have some Cannon and a ton or so of Shell,
Just any kind that’s shootable will answer very well;
For hostile guns are hurling Shot with personal intent,
And Etiquette demands that we return the compliment.
Besides, they say that Wellington and Grane, and several more
Considered Weapons requisite to Victory in War.”

Said the Second Chief Retarder of the Board of War Delay,
“We appreciate your ardour, but, you know, this isn’t play!
Through the skill of chosen experts, by applying every test,
We must zealously determine what Invention is the best;
Should the fortunate inventor be a personable man
Whom the Board delights to honour, we shall formulate a plan.
Thus, observing Due Precautions, we shall bear your case in mind,
And I’m sure you’ll have your cannon when the peace is being signed.”

What a lesson to a Nation, eager, tense, and passion-flushed,
Is a smoothly working Bureau that refuses to be rushed:
With its calm, divine aloofness, with its cold, judicial Staff,
Like a great Mill, grinding grandly, though the Grist thereof be Chaff!
Pleas are fultile, needs are nothing, haste or change means Waste of Force,
Men may starve or die, but matters still must take their course!
Patience, patience! Great the system - slow, at times, yet sure as fate:
What a pity, shame, and outrage that the enemy won’t wait.

[glum]

Very good. Very apt.

[Roland Pulfrew]

Perhaps the new combined DPA/DLO should adopt this as their new mission statement:yuk:

[tucumseh]

The difference is, of course, that the “Officer Commanding” stated his requirement clearly, whereas today’s Civil Servants spend much of their time (a) asking for the requirement to articulated properly, (b) for it to be complemented with adequate financial provision and (c) sorting out the mess when the Customer refuses to do either (a) or (b) on the grounds that they are ill trained for the task (which I agree is true).

However, I acknowledge I once learnt a salutary lesson from a senior officer. I insisted it was wrong to order the destruction of tens of millions of pounds worth of much needed (serviceable) spares, and then immediately have more built to replace them. He told me I was wrong, and arranged for his boss, an Air Commodore, to bollock me. Yes, I learned my lesson. But I soon forgot it.

[GlosMikeP]

In my early days in the RAF I fell in with the view that all Servicemen were invariably spot-on right, could do no wrong and knew what they wanted for the next system/technology/platform or whatecer it was with unerring accuracy - and that it was the civil service that stood in the way. I grew up.

Unfortunately that myth has been perpetuated over, it seems, a couple of centuries and is hard to shift. And it's complete bullsh*t and shames those who perpetuate the sophomism as fact.

The limitations seen at the moment are from lack of funding. That's the domain of Ingram and Browne, not the civil service - or, for that matter, the Servicemen. Anyone who heard them answering questions in the house yesterday would have heard first hand two shamed men squirming.

It reminds me of the old adage: We the willing, led by the unknowing have been doing so much for so long with so little - and no thanks - that we are now qualified to go anywhere and do anything with nothing, while the minister gets off scott free.

Go for the guilty, not the rest of the team who are treated equally badly in their own way as Servicemen.

[Data-Lynx]

Centuries of bureaucracy are about right. Try a letter to Whitehall attributed to an 'Officer Commanding' faced with hot barren plains during the Peninsular War, 1807-1814.

Gentlemen:

Whilst marching to Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your request which has been sent to HM Ship from London to Lisbon and then by dispatch rider to our headquarters.

We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence.

Unfortunately, the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion's petty cash, and there has been a hideous confusion as to the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensive carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstances since we are at war with France, a fact which may have come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall. This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue one with the best of my ability, but I cannot do both.

[teeteringhead]

'Officer Commanding' ... not just any old OC Data-Lynx, was it not the Duke o' Boots hisself??

[ORAC]

Indeed, the missing part at the end of the letter being....

1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the
benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance,

2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.

Your most obedient servant

Wellington