Val Marriner
17-06-2010, 06:20 PM
Government regulation is unsatisfactory because so often it is badly designed, and unreasonably imposed.
We have seen the MPs struggle this week with the forms and box ticking of their new expenses systems. If it leaves them with a healthier respect for what they have imposed on us, the small businesses of the UK will benefit.
I showed the kitchen diary I have been asked to maintain to my MP and a local city councillor. They were both amazed - horrified - sympathetic - not only that we are asked to take the time to make a daily record of common sense good kitchen practice (to prove what? teach your grandmother....)but that there is money to pay a grown up civil servant to come out and read it.
Good sensible regulation should be a useful support in an industry. Everyone can benefit from a visit by an experienced and knowledgable industry expert who offers sensible counsel and good advice. If the expert knows his business, he/she doesn't need a stack of box-ticked paper to wade through to evaluate healthy, safe practice in a business. We want their expertise, not their interference, unless they have identified a genuine problem.
I suggest government officials be required to impose the same level of silly, ill thought out activity on themselves for a year before they are allowed to ask a citizen to comply.
I also suggest that the new minister balance his own books by making a bonfire of dumb things we're asked to do with expensive civil servants wasting their time and our money on it. The civil servants will enjoy their jobs again, the minister will impress his political masters, and the rest of us can get on with building businesses which meet the needs of our guests, our employees and Cumbria.
We have seen the MPs struggle this week with the forms and box ticking of their new expenses systems. If it leaves them with a healthier respect for what they have imposed on us, the small businesses of the UK will benefit.
I showed the kitchen diary I have been asked to maintain to my MP and a local city councillor. They were both amazed - horrified - sympathetic - not only that we are asked to take the time to make a daily record of common sense good kitchen practice (to prove what? teach your grandmother....)but that there is money to pay a grown up civil servant to come out and read it.
Good sensible regulation should be a useful support in an industry. Everyone can benefit from a visit by an experienced and knowledgable industry expert who offers sensible counsel and good advice. If the expert knows his business, he/she doesn't need a stack of box-ticked paper to wade through to evaluate healthy, safe practice in a business. We want their expertise, not their interference, unless they have identified a genuine problem.
I suggest government officials be required to impose the same level of silly, ill thought out activity on themselves for a year before they are allowed to ask a citizen to comply.
I also suggest that the new minister balance his own books by making a bonfire of dumb things we're asked to do with expensive civil servants wasting their time and our money on it. The civil servants will enjoy their jobs again, the minister will impress his political masters, and the rest of us can get on with building businesses which meet the needs of our guests, our employees and Cumbria.