The public service has no memory

July 12, 2024

In about one month 100 years of operational experience left the Department I worked for when 3 people retired. They have been unable to replace them.

Just prior to that the department was concerned about the age profile of the department (another consultant report with KPIs ) So they recruited University graduates who expected to rapidly rise through the rank because they had a Degree and they expected to be payed according to their degree.

One of the many problems with the old public service was that it took time to rise through the ranks. While the criticism of the old Public service systems was the slowness of change, one of the advantages was institutional memory. To off set the loss of institutional memory expensive consultants were employed (A consultant is someone you get in to tell you the time and they borrow your watch). Without institutional memory no one knows where the watches are. So at taxpayers expense the consultant and the graduate spend a lot of time partying and looking for watches.

In the end the consultant own the intellectual property and just keep getting their contracts renewed and employing the graduates from the department.