Amongst my peers I’m well-known for my vociferous condemnation of many public sector management failures, in particular those within the police and other emergency services…

Despite the recent events making national headlines, those issues still show no great sign of diminishing, at least not anytime soon. Yesterday, commenting on the fallout from the phone-hacking debacle, I suggested that “dishonesty and a distinct lack of integrity are (unfortunately) likely to prevail” within many of today’s management structures (see here).

Whilst reading around the blogs today, it appears I’m not alone in my current observations. In a post about ‘Integrity‘ over at Allcoppedout (and quoting me as it happens), the following comment made me smile…

Police service is like monkeys climbing a tree; Those at the top look down and see smiling faces those at the bottom look up and see arseholes.

It’s still early days however, I think we’re finally starting to see fissures appear in many of our self-promotional political and organisational management structures. Perhaps we are actually reaching a point whereby more of those who live by the sword, leaving unemployment insecurity and mistrust in their wake, will start to fall on their own swords more readily? As ACO says, it’s not such a bad thing, after all…

The Met will go on without Yates and Stephenson – what we have to come to realise is that we could lose all of our “top people” and find we didn’t need them either.  All they do is manage image, so much so they couldn’t be seen rummaging in bin bags for the real evidence! (Allcoppedout Blog)

That may well be closer to the truth than many would care to admit however; as the latest high-ranking police officer quits (see here) as a result of the News International phone hacking debacle, it reminded me about the speed at which the Berlin Wall eventually fell back in November 1989… Arguably another fine example of the ultimate strength displayed in ‘people power‘.

It is something of continuing personal dismay however that Maxwell appears to lack the spherical integrity to do something similar. I suppose we’ll just have to await the outcome of the impending no confidence motion this week, maybe that will finally provide a solution to abate the growing public mistrust and disgust?

But I am also a little worried… Too much ‘people power’ can however be a worrying concept, and ultimately have dire consequences; we need to be guarded that the strength of our public ‘opinion’ is based wholly upon fact and not supposition, rumour or innuendo. Failure to recognise this, and apply the brakes sometimes, is a dangerous and slippery slope towards total anarchy!

So long as we keep chipping at the management wall though, perhaps it will eventually fall?