by Mark Crossley 17.7.08
REVIEWS, focus groups, so-called "consultations"... modern life is littered with them.
Reviews are launched to make it look like someone is doing something about a problem. Politicians love reviews. "Consultations" are used by councils, health authorities and quangos to provide window dressing for the policy they want to introduce.
"You'd soon moan if we weren't asked for our views at all," I hear some shouting at the paper.
But given that these "consultations" seldom change anything, why bother with them at all?
The latest "community consultation" involves police officers asking the good people of Sudbury (again) what their priorities ought to be.
Sudbury Safer Neighbourhood Team furnishes us with a press release, hailing the success of its consultation outside the town hall on Saturday.
The results are the discovery that people's main concerns – and I'm paraphrasing slightly – are drunken, anti-social behaviour and boy racers.
Now there is a saying I am tempted to deploy that begins with "No" and ends in "Sherlock".
Because, as much as it looks good, you don't need to quiz shoppers to know what the problems are in Sudbury – and every other market town.
This paper covers most weeks the results of the actions of the mindless few whose vandalism, bad driving and drunken yobbery on the way home from the pub upset decent people.
And every week, someone is complaining about the police response – or perceived lack of one.
Recent cases include a pensioner's greenhouse and a playgroup smashed by someone on the way home from the pub. In the face of examples like this and the general Wild West feel of North Street on a Friday night, there is a danger that some of the decent efforts police are making to get on top of problems will be undermined.
Undermined by the perception that – as with so much in public policy these days – there is more spin, more consultation, more public relations effort, than there is actual action.
What people want are more officers out there when the problems occur, bringing these yobs to book.
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Weather for Sudbury
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 13 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: East
