Tony Boyd, a columnist for The Business Spectator, has dished up a commentary on the recent merger of the Office of the Protective Commissioner and the Public Trustee NSW. The article "Would You Trust NSW?" is definitely worth a careful read.
Boyd questions both the politics and the apparent lack of any long-term planning by the NSW Attorney General Mr Hatzistergos surrounding the merger:
"The forced marriage of the Office of the Protective Commissioner with the NSW Public Trustee has echoes of a hostile takeover by a cash strapped company desperate to its hands on the target company's surplus investment assets. The deal looks headed down the same path as many failed corporate mergers that put short-term financial objectives ahead of long-term planning."
Read the whole article here.
Funny how this story didn't seem to have any press coverage before the merger occurred.
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What a pity that your state government has chosen to take this route. Did they forget to pay attention to what happened here in England? In 1987 the Public Trustee, Court Funds Office and Court of Protection were amalgamated into a "super" organisation called the Public Trust Office. It was heralded as a panacea. Public services would improve, the organisation would be efficient, red-tape would vanish. By 1994 the new organisation was drowning in a sea of chaos, inefficient, poorly funded, poorly resourced. By 1999 everyone was screaming mad about the disaster. Finally in April 2001 the whole thing was disbanded. What a waste of time, money and resources. The probate/trust work of the Public Trustee basically went the way of all flesh.
ReplyDeleteIncredibly, after this entity was dismantled, they decided to put them back together again. So in 2006 the Court Funds Office was hooked up again to the Official Solicitor and Public Trustee. The current organisation is now known as Office of Court Funds, Official Solicitor and Public Trustee. The probate work is essentially zilch!
Boyd's dire predictions may well come true. It has happened before and it will happen again because senior bureaucrats and politicians live in an artificial world that is divorced from the daily realities faced by civil servants.
I wonder if anyone has joined the dots between the political lobbying to pass the merger, and the concurrent collapse in support for Labor from the Shooters Party.
ReplyDeleteThat merger bill was the last piece of Government business to get through, and it did so minus the Shooters. The Shooters were counting on their own bill about shooting in National Parks proceeding.
Labor's withdrawal of support for that national parks bill from The Shooters happened in the same week that power brokers were desperately trying to sell the merger to The Greens. Since The Greens gave their support to the merger, that must have come as a trade-off with Labor to stop the Shooters bill. The Greens had said all along the line they would not support the merger. Suddenly they changed positions.
There's a story lurking in the details. Wouldn't it be hilarious if the break-down on 24 June in the Legislative Council happened because of the vain lobbying tactics of John Hatzistergos and Laurie Glanfield? Hahaha!