Lord (Chris) Smith must go

The chairman of most companies/agencies does not necessarily have expertise in the company that is usually the CEO or in the EA case the management team. His tenure is up in June and undoubtedly a Tory will be put in his place, just as there are Tories being given other high profile jobs in place of Labour bods. The new person will be just like Smith and only a head with no actual knowledge of the subject or if they do only at a low level. I think really the question is "Do we need a chairman at all?" The staff know this and so do not look to the chairman for leadership. Saying that, they are pleased that he spoke up for them after the Pickles debacle.
What matters to the EA staff is the leadership shown by their management,who aka have a high level of expertise and I think that you will find a good level of satisfaction.
POGS To also suggest that the EA put more emphasis on wildlife compare to people is nonsense. Why let the truth get in the way of a good yarn?

So what is the purpose of the Chair/Chris Smith in your view * Whitewave* ? And I mean that as a genuine question.

That is the question I think we need to ask ourselves and is true of other government agencies. We may for instance think them necessary as a representative of a particular organization, this of course does not require detailed and specialized knowledge. However I am not convinced and think that the function should fall to the department minister, who after all is responsible for and should be held accountable for all due processes. Having a chairman deflects anger from those truly responsible - as we have so graffically seen in the past few days

Can I just interject here - a little late? Of course the floods in the Thames area will get more attention, and, I bet, more money. That is middle England and that is where the votes and the money are.

Interesting article in "The Times2" today on the history of the Somerset levels.

I think the wildlife before people remark was directected more towards the previous incumbent, whitewave, ie Baroness Young, not at EA staff.

It would interesting to know that. I certainly wouldn't expect the Chair to be responsible for claiming matched funding, though. I was an Ofsted inspector for many years and I was quite surprised to hear that there was a Chair of Ofsted. It certainly wasn't an executive role (if it existed in my day).
Whitewave, I just wanted to send best wishes to your son, who is doing a very difficult job in trying circumstances.
The problem is that media and ministerial attacks on Chris Smith impact negatively on the people on the ground. Not fair.

Oh I see, but hopefully we have established that the chairman has no real power, so what Baroness Young suggested, and I have no knowledge of that, would not have held any up, unless the government department directed it so.

Thanks mamie

The chair of an organisations does not normally have executive power. Combining the roles is seen as bad idea in the corporate world. It is not the role of the chair to write the business plan, decide priorities, motivate staff, cheer up the customers etc - the chair is there, along with other board members/governors etc to oversee the work of the executive, challenge their plans and their budgets and monitor their performance against plans and budgets.
All this blaming is getting very tedious. On the BBC last night they were marvelling that some communities in the Thames were helping themselves, ordering a lorry load of sand, filling sand bags, helping weaker members of the community etc. The implication was that "they" should have been doing this. In Australia the self-help mindset is the prevailing one not the whinging that someone else should be doing it. After the Brisbane floods thousands of young people turned out with mops and brooms to help flooded households and areas clean up. A small rural community had got out their diggers and built banks to protect the town from the flood waters in the southern part of Australia. The press there emphasise the way communities pull together and help themselves.With budget cuts on local authorities continuing to bite deeper and deeper it is no use expecting that they will be able to be a bottomless resource of help in times of trouble. It does not help people to cope I think, all this blaming and complaining - rather the reverse, it makes them feel more helpless in the face of natural disasters.

In Australia there is no rural fire service, all the local farmers are local fire wardens and are expected to turn out to fight fires in their area. It would be different in or near major cities and in major incidents, but it would not be feasible to cover such huge areas so the locals have to look after their own interests to a large extent.

Mamie of course it wouldn't be Chris Smith who would do the leg or paperwork, but it was quite clear from the interview I saw that he was responsible for setting the wheels in motion for claiming match funding. This he neglected to do. It was put to him quite firmly by the interviewer when he attempted to bluff his way out by claiming he was only allocated £400,000 for this area, He tried to bluster his way through but the very astute woman interviews had him cornered.

As the Chair he (with his Board) is expected to have a strategic overview.

The Chairman's job is to provide leadership and oversight of a company/organisation. He/She sets the tone and influences policy but is not responsible for the day to day management, responsible for strategy but not necessarily tactics. This is why when companies hit the headlines it is the Chairman who is in the fore, and when a big problem happens it is the chairman who makes the site visit, talks to the survivors, accompanies the government minister

The reason the EA has a chairman and does not report to a minister directly is because it has been government (both parties) policy for at least 10 years to float off these quangos into agencies operating at arms length from government. Think the DVLC, passports, Pensions Agency. All these have chairman and chief executives. To change this requires a major change of joint political policy which I do not think is likely.

If Chris Smith is visiting flood areas assiduously and talking to those affected then it certainly isn't making the media, which under the circumstances it almost definitely would and he is never seen with David Cameron, Eric Pickles, or Owen Patterson, they understandably have read the writing on the wall and do not want to be associated with failure, of the chairman, not the EA. Any chairman of any other company or organisation who has behaved as he has over the last month would be sacked.

Was it about this Aka?

Smith also blamed Treasury funding rules for the failure to dredge rivers, saying his agency had offered money for dredging, but matching funding had not come from local government, or other local bodies.
Pickles admitted in the Commons he had done nothing at the time to encourage local councils to take up the agency's offer to dredge rivers or to change the Treasury rules. He also tempered his enthusiasm for dredging as a blanket solution and said bespoke solutions were required.

Partly Mamie

I have experience of obtaining match funding as I put in, and had accepted, two lottery bids totalling over £5.5 million pounds. I had to show that I could access another £5.5 million in match funding.

To get match funding you do have to do a lot of legwork, chivvying, nagging, etc.. You cannot just get, for example, a local council to agree in principle to match fund, there has to be paperwork put in place, funding streams identified, finances agree etc. usually with the Chief Accountant. My point is, if those in charge of strategy do not push the 'go' button and then appoint a senior person to implement it, then have that senior person report back then nothing gets done. It's all about lines of communication. These people at the top are paid enough FGS.

It's the same principle as the Director of Children's Services getting the sack over the baby P affair. No one expected her to have first hand knowledge of that case, but there ought to have been put in place a chain of accountability that went UP as well as down.

Yes I have dealt with matched funding too, both claiming and allocating. I still think it is an executive role and responsibility would ultimately be with Chief Exec not Chairman.
The quote above suggests that it was Pickles who admitted to not doing what he should have done.
"Pickles admitted in the Commons he had done nothing at the time to encourage local councils to take up the agency's offer to dredge rivers or to change the Treasury rules" - seems to suggest a different interpretation?

In a nutshell there is too much bureaucracy for any work to ever be carried out effectively.

Well I wouldn't quite agree with a sweeping statement like that, Margaret. I think you would need a bit of evidence to back it up. I do think that there are too many tiers though and that the agency / quango idea is not always helpful.
Did you read the Guardian article that I linked to, up thread? I think Simon Jenkins has some interesting things to say about the results of centralisation of power. Would be interested to know what you thought.

Didn't mean to teach you to suck eggs Mamie but am aware that others on the thread might not know how it works. I was told off yesterday for assuming that everyone knew that it's potentially dangerous to aneastethise a giraffes .

Can't win!!

That's fine Aka, I understood.
(I didn't know that about giraffes).

Lots of people don't know that about giraffes. I didn't notice you being told off, aka - it wasnae me!

No it wasn't you Elegran perhaps it was more of a comment than a telling off. I just thought that everybody knew about giraffes.

Anyway we digress....

Yes of course, it was a generalisation which was wrong. Having worked for a government agency I am aware that a lot of good work is done, but that a lot of work which could be done is hindered by bureaucracy and constant change arising from new directives.

Aka wasn't told off. She was told by me that I didn't know something and that I didn't think I'd be the only one who didn't know. That is all.

As you were...

Am i invisible?