In keeping with the new 'choice' agenda in public service, civil servants are to be allowed an unprecendented level of choice in their job options.

They can opt to be made redundant or to keep their job.

Should they exercise their free choice to remain in post, then they will have even more choices.

They can choose to be relocated to a disused call centre in Oldham, a former colliery near Bradford, or, in a bid to breathe sustainable new life into old dogs, an oil derrick somewhere in the North Sea.

Naturally everyone loves choice.

I have a cat which, whenever presented with the choice of food or no food, amazingly always chooses the most nutritious option.

Biologically dubious as it probably is to compare civil servants with cats, I expect that most would follow suit.

Voluntary redundancy, however, is not an option for my cat, whom I intend to keep working as a stroke victim until he drops.

So choice would seem to be a good thing.

I imagine that the noble model for the availability of choice in public services is the supermarket.

In my local supermarket there is for example a choice of eighteen different kinds of orange drink.

I thirst for the time when there is a similar level of choice of dentist - at the moment, where I live, there are none at all.

But if there were 18, I have no doubt I would opt for the one which was showing videos of my choice on a screen above the chair and a beautiful, young XXXXXXX servicing me with an optional cocktail of XXXXXX [Sorry we had to edit this sentence - Ed.].

I think this is what most people think of when they think of choice. [Er, no - Ed.]

Or is it? Actually I'm so busy satiating my desires with the cheap and plentiful fruits of globalised capitalism that I don't have time to choose a public service.

Quite frankly, I just want my services to be both Easy and Convenient and Good Enough.

I don't care if I can have a school or hospital in Pursuit of Excellence available for me to use an hour's journey away.

I just want every service to be good enough, and nearby, so that, like the mysterious and wonderful things that happen under the bonnet of my car, I don't even have to think about it because it works.

Who needs choice in such a universe?

savvides@cyberium.co.uk | First published in Public Servant issue 1

back to Savvides menu
© Cyberium 2004 All Rights Reserved
This is a sample of the kind of news and content Cyberium produces. We also produce interactive tools, graphic design and web sites.
For more information, feedback or to commission work of this nature, contact us.