THE GAS NETWORK

In an idle moment, I made the mistake of picking up Partnerships West’s July bulletin.  Apparently it’s been a ‘busy’ month, partly because 180 of them attended an inaugural conference to consider some of the ‘big issues’ facing us.  It seems that was the ‘first opportunity for a wide range of partners from across the wider partnerships framework to network and explore opportunities for collaborative working on local issues and priorities to improve quality of life in the area’.  Not actually doing anything then, just talking about how to talk to each other.  If you don’t believe me, then CWACC’s Chairman reportedly said that the meeting demonstrated ‘the opportunity we all have to work together to address local issues and deliver exciting new ways of working’.  No actual work there, either; just talking about ways of working.  That’s alright then.

Anyway, the first of the ‘top emerging issues of concern’ is addressing the economic downturn.  If that’s an ‘emerging’ issue, then I must have imagined all that business about Northern Rock et al. last year.  But at least we can now take comfort from the fact that CWACC and its acolytes are talking about the recession and once they’ve solved that small problem, they’re going to move on to ‘narrowing the gap on a range of inequality issues.’  What about the inequality of us being forced to stump up dosh to subsidize a bunch of gas bags talking about ways to get us to earn more of the folding stuff so that we can fund their Zeppelin-scale aspirations? 

I can’t be bothered with ‘local peoples (sic.) influence on decision-making’ because that’s pure nitrous oxide but the final ‘emerging issue’ is a real quacker.  It’s ‘the need for joined-up and collaborative working’.  Since work equals talk in CWACC-speak, attempts at joined-up talking must be the explanation for the unintelligible garble they come out with.

Not wishing to labour this subject too much, the ‘Safer and Stronger Communities Thematic Partnership’ has identified ‘alcohol abuse and harm reduction’ as a priority issue (whatever ‘harm reduction’ translates to in English).  So, guess what?  They’ve agreed to set up a ‘multi-agency task and finish group’ to develop an ‘alcohol strategy and action plan’.  No doubt they, in turn, will set up some mono-agencies to tell them what their task is and how that task might be finished to the point that they can commission a quango or six to develop a strategy that they can talk about at great length (not to mention tax-payers’ expense).  ‘Action plan’ seems a bit ambitious to me.

Theoghinus Nuttors, 19 August 2009.