An article in the Times on 24.2.26 is headlined ‘Bloated human resources sector “is costing businesses billions”’ and goes on to say, ‘The think tank Policy Exchange says HR industry in the UK is almost twice as big as in the European Union and 60 per cent larger than in the US.’ I can’t speak for business, but this was certainly my observation working in the NHS mental health services. A while back, in another blog, I wrote the following about teamwork in psychiatric hospitals: ‘In my experience, the most successful ideas and initiatives for improving a service are often owned by team members themselves and supported by enlightened and sympathetic local managers. Amongst the least helpful, and even detrimental, are procedures, protocols and regulations that are conceived of and mandated by higher, off-site managers (in the NHS, those working at trust level). These usually involve unnecessary and time-wasting monitoring, paperwork, and general bureaucracy that can be annoying and dispiriting for those in the service. I am including local managers amongst the casualties here. When I’m talking to myself about this, I call it ‘head office syndrome’. I would guess that this expression has already been coined, and I’m sure it applies to other organisations.’

In another post in the same blog, I quoted Michael Maslinski in a Radio 4 interview in which he described his experiences over nine years living in his wife’s care home before she died with dementia (described in his book What Would Maggie Do?). Amongst his nuggets of wisdom was this: ‘We live in a society where we spend so much of our time regulating and supervising each other that there's nobody left … to actually do the work … not just in the care sector I guess.’

How employment is distributed in this country (who does what and how many) seems to me to be completely distorted and to be acting as a drag on our economic prosperity.