GovernmentExecutive.com

Return to Article: Stretchier Red Tape

• 18462
  

  The economist's recommendation that privitization is the "only real solution for better disaster relief and rebuliding functions" is a pathetically lame excuse for inept leadership and betrays how weak economics frequently is in handling real-world problems.

  First, as the article doesn't remind people, FEMA worked pretty darn well in the 1990s - without massive privatization. It handled commendably, LA Northridge Earthquake, the MidWest Floods, the Red River Flood, Hurricane Fran, etc. You replace competent leadership with a director of a horse racing group and a lawyer with no management background - and gee, everything fails. Wow, you would have thunk?

  Second, if you privatize a function, that contract still must be managed by federal employees - adding another layer. And now you've also added another interested party, whose corporate interests might not mesh with the government's.

  Third, note the complete lack of specifics in Mr. Leeson's recommendations. That's all nice in theory - but what does he know about bureaucracies reacting in a crisis situation? The 1990s again are littered with failures of the privatization model - the former Soviet Union, Latin America, etc.

  Fourth, note the slippery wording, "the only real solution". Really, the only real solution? Well please give an example of where that's worked in disaster response. And pray tell - wouldn't appointing competent disaster managers to run the disaster agency be a "real solution".

  Full quote: "The only real solution, Leeson suggests, is to circumvent bureaucratic decision-making by privatizing as many disaster-recovery tasks as possible. "There is no way, within the framework of government, of directing the response effort and simultaneously eliminating bureaucracy," he says. "Bureaucracy is government's way of doing things properly. It disciplines their internal decision-making process. But it also stalls or slows things -- or completely stops them, in some cases."

  Please excuse my rudeness in the above paragraphs, but economists too often just assume that they know better, and that all their assumptions are true. So we get dumb recommendations that real people pay for.

  Samuel Knight Posted August 28, 2006 9:42 AM
• 18456
  

  Interesting theory but not true.

  Yes, there is an incredible bureaucratic nightmare in the federal government. But shifting this to the private sector doesn't solve the problem because every private sector company I know of has their own hierarchies as well-- and the government isn't giving up its lever of control so the bureacracy gets only worse and more complicated.

  The solution was evident by the Coast Guard response-- even if the hierarchy tried its best to stop it. The Guard and the Navy violated orders and protocol and saved 30,000 people.

  If you give people the tools and you take away the red-tape and reward people for their innovation and going beyond expectations you can achieve great results. If you slam people by disciplining them for achieving results outside protocol the lesson you teach is the opposite.

  In HR space we are just completely wrapped up in so much red tape that when OPM allows for creativity and innovation, most are too timid to get out of the box-- it is the same whether you are in private companies or in the public sector-- Going against the heirarchy is never easy.

  HR Specialist

  GovExec.com reader Posted August 28, 2006 7:50 AM