Sunday, 17 January 2010

What we love about bureaucracies

Mobility, lift A friend of a friend suffered some difficulties which consigned him to a wheelchair and made it hard for him to get work. Seeking to register as unfit, he was told he'd have to go to a town about 15 miles away, for his disability to be assessed.

When he got there, it turned out the assessment office was on the fifth floor. Sure there's a lift. But, they asked, would he be able to make a quick exit on foot in the case of a fire? Ah no, obviously not. I'm afraid we can't do the assessment here, you'll have to be assessed at our office, er, in your home town.

17 Jan 2010 20:37:34 | Vignettes

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Informal local support in severe weather Two cheers for CLG who have rushed out a short document called Volunteering and neighbourliness: helping out in severe weather. It's an odd mixture of advice about hypothermia and frostbite, some useful suggestions from Volunteering England, and encouragement to 'call in regularly on elderly friends, neighbours and relatives to see if they need help staying warm or getting provisions'. It feels like some of the content should be on posters in shops, banks and post offices etc; some belongs in press releases so that local newspapers and other sources reproduce it; and some might even belong in leaflets for more general distribution. Perhaps it's also worth thinking about a more considered version in advance of the next cold snap. Things like neighbours placing a home delivery order with a supermarket for an older person who may not have internet access; thinking about the welfare of their pets, which often worries them; walking in the house with an older neighbour - up and down the hall to get a bit of exercise can be very important. And CLG could be thinking about getting messages like these out through hyperlocal sites: by next winter please.
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Room in the city This looks good: the Room in the City Conference, based around George Square in Glasgow, 'an opportunity to explore issues relating to the urban square as a vital component of a healthy city'. Glasgow, 22-24 April 2010. 'The conference is for anyone interested in the challenge of re-imagining and re-designing dynamic urban spaces for civic engagement, and will enable all those with an interest in George Square and other civic spaces to engage in an invigorating open debate.'

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