On Wed, 25 Jan 2006 12:59:28 GMT, Tony Bryer
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 23:35:56 +0000 Andy Hall wrote :
I see your point. However, with the exception of a few
professionals such as building control officers, who do seem to
know their stuff quite well and to behave sensibly; most of the
other departments seem to attract those who are unable to do a
real job of work.

I worked in building control at a time when we were constantly having
staff cuts and frozen vacancies, with the effect that lots of work
went uninspected - on new houses it would be foundations, drains, dpc
and completion, probably nothing else. In that time personnel and
management services expanded from a handful of people to half a
floor, and they were never subject to similar stringencies when it
came to appointing staff.


Exactly. I have talked to people in various departments in local
authorities and the situation you describe is widespread.

Certainly every BCO I've talked to is a helpful source of how best to
tackle an issue without imposing unnecessary cost or unreasonable
restriction. When one considers that they have to work with
relatively generalistic legislation plus some guidelines that aren't
always completely sensible, I think that the results are pretty fair
and reasonable.


--

..andy