Only the crassest and the most shallow minded consider that everything costs and therefore everything must pay its way. A way of thinking as befits a grocers daughter or some similar philistine banal mindset. We have to lift our heads up out of the mud our feet are wading through to see higher aspirations, to have hope for a better future, to be inspired by the achievements of those around us and most of all to have a vision for how all on this planet can experience a better life. Big dreams. In the real world there is not unlimited money and there are a thousand competing priorities. Put cost as your first and overriding starting point and the dreams will never even emerge. But without dreams we can never realise a better quality of life no matter how that quality might be imagined. Cost and payback are not the determining factor in a civilised society. Never to be ignored, always with a watchful eye but not the bottom line criterion that they have become.
I am ranging way beyond culture the obvious candidate for cost cutting. Yes culture of course to lift the spirit, to raise the hope even just to endeavour to reach beyond the immediate now, we need arts, we need crafts, we need music, we need graphics in all its forms to give shape and meaning to otherwise vague ephemeral glimpses beyond the mundane over familiar present day. Can we agree that culture, with its high costs and indeterminate payback, is a given must have, that frames us as civilised and not savages? If you think it is a no, then this site really is not for you, you must look elsewhere.
What I want to promote is the concept of service as an aspirational tool to achieve a better quality of life, for all. 'Service' this word is heavily overworked and has an extraordinary wide range of meanings and connotations. The common usages I want to focus on is, according to the sOED, 'Service' as conduct tending to the welfare or advantage of another and 'Service' as a branch of public employment of such body concerned with some particular work or the supply of some particular need. Service in today's climate is denigrated and demeaned, seen at best as a charity cause to help out those pitiful people too poor to do better. It didn't use to be like that, service industries were once seen as the powerhouse to lift and raise our aspirations as a nation and power us to a better more modern way of life. These are not bad or irrelevant objectives even in today's world? Being able to offer service to an individuals must be the hallmark of a democratic civilised society. Helping those in their moment of need until they can strike out confidently on their own again. Sounds like the sort of place I would like to be.
Maybe a ticket office manned to help cut through the complexities of tariffs, timetable and alternate conflicting options. Maybe a visible approachable and friendly policeman able to calm, reassure or direct, that would be nice. Of course the more obvious of a nurse with time to reassure, talk and to really understand what is troubling a patient. Or a teacher able to spend time one to one to help that one child overcome their confusion about some new topic. Service providers who are not seen as cost centres, who are required to prove their worth on a daily basis, who are not required to complete offers of help to some predetermined timeslot. The worth is there in payback dividends but not in profit returns the bean counters understand. So the list can go on, Tax Collectors able to spend time to understand the exception's and find more fitting rules, or JobCentre Advisers with the skills and time to actually understand a seekers capabilities with the realistic knowledge of local opportunities. Indeed wherever we as individuals interface with the providers of our wants or needs then there is an essential service input, an input which may not show a profit but certainly oils the wheels and helps society to move smoothly. What price do you put on that?
Services also include all the utility services, water, electricity, gas, sewers, telephones, refuse collection and the mail. Once state run they were sold off, amid a great fanfare, to companies whose driving force is profit first. Yet they are essential services, services that are at the foundation of the wellbeing to our UKplc. If any of these cinderella services are not there in place with the right capacity our ability as a nation to grow and develop is hampered. Look no further than the stranglehold the provision of highspeed broadband has on any commercial enterprise that is not located in a major conurbation. UKplc is held to ransom because it is 'not profitable' to provide in these smaller communities. Utility Services sold off because in some naive tunnel vision view of some other fantasy world, competition equates to efficiency. No. Equally, state run enterprise does not mean inefficient and extravagant. So make your choice, do you run them for profit for the benefit of shareholders, or, run them well for the benefit of the society that relies on them?
Finally, Public Service, another broad wide ranging category, now much maligned and held in disdain. Once the pinnacle of UKplc governance, held in esteem around the world, for its expertise, for its detachment and for its impartiality. What happened? Did we run out of good enough scholars to enter the civil services. No, of course not. A deliberate decision was taken to politicise the output of the civil service, overturning centuries of impartial advice. In this new way of thinking, unless civil services responses fully reflected the political aspirations of the government of the time, it was rejected and overturned. Such a small seemingly innocuous step but having catastrophic impact. Now there is no government edict, no report, no forecast, nothing emanating from government that can be trusted or relied on. Everything has to viewed with suspicion for political bias. There is no objectivity, there is no impartiality, everything is tainted with political expediency. Not any way to run a company let alone UKplc.
One woman overturned centuries of governance evolution and wrought chaos. Benefits? Once the initial feeding frenzy for the 'free' goodies on offer had subsided, are we better off, driven by profit for shareholder benefit? Have we totally lost the concept of service to the people to enable them to grow and blossom? Bring back Service to the People, bring hope for a better future for us all.
