How many bureaucratic civil servants does it take to change a light bulb? 287.......and an electrician.
A £12,000pa admin assistant has noticed a light bulb is broken and a makes a written request to her boss for it to be fixed. In triplicate of course.
Her boss responds with the formation of a light bulb changing policy committee, which formalizes the setting up of a light bulb steering committee, who advise that a health and safety, tendering, contracts, inspection, management, budget, capital costs, gender awareness, equality in the work place and equal opportunities subcommittees are required.
The subcommittees are setup under the umbrella of a light bulb changing department with an a small budget of £4 million, but in these lean times, you moan a bit and just have to make do. Six months later all of the subcommittees have reported back with their recommendations, three months for all the tenders, six weeks to choose the contractor, who is told to hurry and fix the bulb and get his invoice in, otherwise they will have under-spent their budget by a £1,000 and it could be reduced by that next year.
The bulb changing department have noticed that 4 more bulbs have blown, so have put in a request for the quadrupling of their budget and department to reflect the increased workload. In these cost cutting times they have been told have to make do with a mere £8million, you complain a bit, moan a bit, but in the end you just have to make do. The good news is that it includes the formation of a PR department, to highlight to taxpayers the good work and value for money they are getting from the light bulb changing department and a light bulb changing helpline which is manned 24/7. Nobody is sure what it is for, but the PR committee recommended it and it does sound good. Unfortunately, as part of the budget constraints, the proposed national light bulb changing newsletter won't be sent out to every household, but there are the vital new ethnics equality awareness sub-committee, and ethnic, equality gender awareness steering committee as sadly and alarmingly, last years electrician was none of these at it must not happen again.
What happened to the girl who reported the bulb was blown, with such initiative she is head of the light bulb changing department on a salary of £102,000 last year with an indexed linked pension, but she was in charge of department of 286 people, so its fully justified. With this years expansion of the department to 518 people, her salary has increased to £152,000 with gold plated pension and a possible £50,000 performance bonus, her comment, you complain and moan a bit about these small increases, but in these lean times you just have to make do. Did she get her bonus, of course, as 4 light bulbs were changed this year, on time and within budget, a doubling of productivity, the PR department is just preparing the press release....
I bet your glad your a taxpayer.
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Topic: HMRC are the best (Read 1416 times)