As a saying, Still waters run deep dates back nearly 2,000 years although. As it’s Latin rather than Greek, it may not be entirely reliable. Nonetheless, your eloquent silence may be better than sticking both feet in your mouth like he who shall be nameless. No doubt you’re using the current recess to come up with some bright ideas – and where the public sector is concerned, they’re certainly needed.

Some appointments are still made for the wrong reasons and it’s hard to believe that it’s nearly 2,500 years ago that Pericles remarked, “When it’s a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.” In selecting MPs, ability seems to be the last thing taken into consideration, while ministers still use their positions to dole out jobs to like-minded chums. The Wong Academy doesn’t seem to be having much impact, not surprisingly when the blurb talks about selecting officers to follow “generic competency-based training courses.” If that’s as clear as mud, the talk about how computers will improve performance seems highly optimistic as mal-functionaries are likely to infect their systems with Inertia, the next global virus Moscow and Pyongyang are planning to launch.

The ship of state is difficult to steer, especially in stormy seas, so ministers need effective civil servants. But how many postholders are either civil or effective, let alone interested in serving the public that pays their salaries? Coming up with ideas for administrative reform is the responsibility of heads of public bodies and ministries, but most seem content to let things tick along as they’ve done for the last 49 years or so until they collect their pensions, the reward for their hard labour, sweat, tears and other heart-rending terms for work. When was there last a decent head of the Civil Service, or the police for that matter? What’s needed are juggernauts, not poodles. It would avoid pathetic excuses like «Tout ce que j’ai fait, je l’ai fait parce qu’on me l’a demandé. Je suis une professionnelle». Mind you, even we had to employ slaves to police the city – they had to be professional and incorruptible or they’d be for the chop. Now there’s a thought…

It would be nice if the ladies who’ve broken the glass ceiling in the public sector had made a difference but their presence doesn’t seem to have produced any change of mentality. They may be as good as men in using their bottom drawers but the ladies in the Company Gardens are more proactive and provide greater public satisfaction, even if it’s to a select clientele.

Meanwhile, it’s time the PRB properly analysed all the benefits mal-functionaries get. They are better paid at many levels than their counterparts in the private sector, although it’s the latter that creates wealth. You’d think ministers would be happy to cut out waste when they change the landscape and form new organisations, but they seem terrified of making anyone redundant. If Government wishes to govern, it needs to decide what’s in the country’s long-term interest, rather than scrambling to placate potential voters. Instead, it seems bent on following modern-day Greece, as public debt spirals to new heights. Presumably politicos reckon they’ll have made enough money by the time insolvency arrives, forgetting that Greece has had to slash pensions – even for ex-deputies.