Officials from the Mississippi Development Authority paint a picture of vital Hurricane Katrina-relief projects still snared in federal bureaucracy almost three years after the storm.

But members of the MDA Disaster Recovery Division met with the Sun Herald on Thursday and they said much progress has been made in recent months.

The story goes on to report that each project must meet with the approval of up to fifteen (15) different agencies–and many of those agencies require several appointments each.

I wonder if anyone has crunched the numbers on what the cost is of all the time that goes into those multiple approval processes? And what about looking at how much duplication there is in all those processes and consolidating them across bureaucracies? How many more housing units could be built with the money saved by eliminating duplications?

Oh, I know–that’s hoping for a lot of reasoning power to be brought to bear on the situation, but I have faith in the human capacity for change. And also the wisdom to not hold my breath waiting.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

The operative word there is “apparent.”

Time will tell the story, of course, but there’s a news item today–or technically, tomorrow, given that it’s now tomorrow in Australia–that gives pause regarding Rudd’s position relative to his bureaucrats. The Down-under Herald Sun informs us that Rudd has rejected the advice from bureaucrats in four of his departments in favor of accepting the advice of one of his agencies.

A leaked Cabinet document revealed that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was warned by his own department that FuelWatch could lead to “a small overall price increase” in the pump price.

Three other departments — finance, resources, and energy and industry — also argued against the scheme.

Treasurer Wayne Swan went into damage control, arguing the advice was “academic”.

He said the Government preferred the advice of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

“We backed it because there was strong advice from the ACCC — the consumer watchdog,” he said.

“It is true there was some bureaucratic advice against FuelWatch. I don’t believe it was well-grounded.

What makes this so interesting is the speech Rudd delivered not long ago to his senior bureaucrats about the importance of a professional bureaucracy, and its operating in [my words] a way that serves the public before any political ideology. Granted, there was the suggestion, however subtle or blunt, that Australia’s bureaucracies have not operated the last several years in a non-partisan fashion and that it needs to become grounded in sound, non-partisan policy and procedure. So perhaps there is a failure in four of the five agencies involved to be thus grounded.

But one must wonder about Rudd’s going against the advice of four of his senior bureaucrats, when he extols the value of a properly professional bureaucracy.

As I said, time will tell. For now it’s a very interesting wrinkle in the realms of bureaucratic reform efforts.

UPDATE 5/30/08: The Rudd administration has backed off its earlier stance. From AdelaideNow:

THE Government has backed down on parts of its controversial FuelWatch scheme, giving rural and regional areas the chance to opt out.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said local governments in the bush were free to disregard the price monitoring service.

“FuelWatch works best when you’ve got lots of petrol outlets,” he told radio 3AW in Melbourne this morning.

“In rural and regional Australia, where you have less petrol outlets, they have an opportunity to opt into the FuelWatch scheme if they want to, through their own local authorities, or remain outside the scheme.”

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

Two somewhat different takes on Rudd’s speech are found in Melbourne’s The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, though both Ross Gittins in the SMH and Michelle Grattan in The Age seem to agree that the passing of the John Howard approach to bureaucracies and bureaucrats is a good thing. Even so—and perhaps I’m not reading him correctly—Gittins seems to suggest that Rudd’s commitment to building bureaucratic processes that aren’t driven by ideology is questionable:

A clear message to emerge from that speech is that Rudd is more a bureaucrat than he is a politician. As a consequence, he – and his Government – is low on ideology, but high on bureaucratic “process”.

On some of the touchstone ideological issues, Rudd is surprisingly uncommitted. “Policy design and policy evaluation should be driven by analysis of all the available options, and not by ideology,” he told the assembled troops. “I do not have an ideological preference for the public sector, nor for the private sector,” he said.

A bit later he refers to Rudd as “lacking ideology.” As a student of bureaucracies and the history of bureaucracies, I don’t see his commitment to policy and process based on “all the available options” rather than ideology as a negative. That is, after all, what we wish to see return to the likes of the U.S. Department of Justice–policy and process that are consistent across the board, rather than favoring one political ideology over another. I would suggest, however, that while we prefer our bureaucracies not be ideologically driven in the way the Bush administration departments have been politicized, advancing the idea of policies and processes that are responsive to their constituencies, as Rudd seems to have done, is expressive of an ideal, and in that way is putting forth a non-partisan ideology. Lacking a clear partisan ideology doesn’t mean that he’s “lacking ideology” altogether.

While Grattan awaits the proof in the pudding, she seems less concerned than Gittins:

A major difference between Rudd and John Howard is their attitude to the bureaucracy. When Howard became PM, he immediately got rid of one-third of the departmental heads. He was suspicious of the public service. His brother Bob once told me this went back a long way. “Our family in the 1940s and 1950s was very anti-public service … If he has a grudge against two groups, it’s the public service and academics.”

Rudd is just the opposite. He sees the public service as a strong source of ideas — albeit one that has been beaten down recently. He insists (the proof of this pudding will be in the eating) that he wants robust advice, not just what the bureaucrats think the Government wants to hear. That doesn’t mean he’s fully happy with the current service. He has made it clear he wants a more creative, in-touch bureaucracy, with new blood.

While both Grattan and Gittins write of Rudd’s wanting to see greater professionalization of Australia’s bureaucracies such that they become responsive to those they are meant to serve, Gittins does make note of an important omission in the list of stakeholders whom Rudd mentioned as being necessary to that process: labor unions. I would agree that labor unions are one of the constituencies that ought to be heard during Rudd’s reformation of bureaucracies.

May it be so there and everywhere else in the world, as well.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

A FEW years back, for a bit of a laugh, I invented a character for this column. I dubbed him “Clipboard Man”.

The idea was to lampoon petty officialdom that has reached ridiculous levels in the UK.

Oh, were the UK the only place the likes of Clipboard Man runs unfettered! Carmichael cites some amazingly dotty adventures of Clipboard Man from years past, and reports that Clipboard Man has recently re-surfaced, “more intrusive and creepier than ever.”

Ahhhh…sounds like Clipboard Man has been taking lessons from his counterpart on this side of the pond, “Counterintelligence Man,” so dubbed because he exhibits true counterintelligence; and on this side of the pond, in cooperation with the big telecoms, he specializes in “more intrusive and creepier.”

Counterintelligence Man has quite the little tussle on his hands these days, however, but still hasn’t given up on the idea of retroactive immunity for the telecoms so the he may produce ever more that’s counter to intelligence. As TPM reports, despite the Democratic leadership in Congress declaring that immunity is off the table, the Republicans are still pushing the idea. TPM quotes John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) spokesman, Michael Steel, delivering a bona fide fox-guarding-the-henhouse line. Referring to Blue Dog Democrats, he asked, “Will they choose to protect their constituents or will they back the Democratic leadership in kowtowing to trial lawyers and liberal special interests?”

So far it seems the Blue Dogs are choosing to protect their constituents–from Counterintelligence Man! May it continue to be so.

Carmichael ends his Clipboard Man segment thus:

These bureaucrats should remember – they are there to serve the public, not the other way around.

Reminding them of that is our unending duty, and I thank Mr. Carmichael for doing his bit.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen