A dinosaur dreams of Utopia

 5 News: Dippy the dinosaur

One feature of lockdown has been the proliferation of laws and guidance to the extent that even some police forces have not known which are which. At first sight it seems strange that there has been such widespread acquiescence to the extraordinary restrictions on our freedom. However a conversation last night brought home to me that this has by no means come out of a clear blue sky.

Our society has been becoming increasingly risk-averse and litigious for some decades. With a few brave exceptions, the majority of us tolerate egregious limitations on our freedom of speech and actions, which provide us with the illusion of safety. Every industry, every school, every institution is familiar with having to produce an exhaustive risk assessment to cover every possible contingency. Why? Because a dose of common sense wouldn’t do as well? No, for fear of some jobsworth inspector or some venal lawyer out to find you at fault.

A former NHS worker told me: "In the NHS the amount of policies and procedures is staggering. There are different levels that range from overarching policies down to work instructions. I can see a place for the higher up tiers of the system but I was very much against the lower tiers. I believe it is a culture of fault finding and avoiding liability that has led to telling staff what to do to such a degree. There is no way to completely avoid human error and I even believe that a system that tells people what to do to such an extent could actually be at fault. You have intelligent  people with degrees being told what to do and having their own judgement taken away from them. On the other hand they do have a tried and tested way of doing things and they don't have to re-invent the wheel for every new patient."

 Seek employment at a new firm, and you’re likely to be presented with vision statements and targets, and policy documents. Err from them at your peril. None of these is bad in itself, but they come at the cost of freedom and trust, in the same way that video devices removes responsibility and trust in sports referees.

When I began my teaching career, I taught in a school with a vastly experienced head, who outlined the school’s three rules - which after more than 45 years I still remember. They were courtesy, cooperation and consideration. Who, I wonder, will recall the words of “policies” after even 45 weeks? When I began my ministry, there were equally memorable guiding principles: love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.  

Of course staff and students, clergy and congregations, often went wrong. Simply recalled principles didn’t prevent that. However neither do an infinity of policies, regulations and targets. What I have witnessed is the growth of an inspection industry fed by a parasitic industry of litigation. Before I had retired, the Church of England issued a whole handbook for clergy about how to behave, which I believe has been updated more than once. We live in a tick-box society. I have the impression that the Pharisees had a similar managerial mindset, with the idea that a multitude of rules and regulations (or policies) would keep them on the straight and narrow. However it didn’t work. Jesus didn’t have much time for it.

What a soul-destroying idea that employees should work according to a set of rules, or worse, targets! We see it in the worst industries, such as multi-national warehouses, courier firms - but it has also infected education and social care. Form-filling replaces contact and time spent with individuals. It’s more important that you can prove you’ve completed a risk assessment than you take care of a person who’s tripped over your doorstep.

A major motivator during the pandemic appears to have been the rather vain fear of dying - something we will all have to face, and something which some elderly people would in fact welcome. The possibility of long underfunded NHS being overwhelmed was in my view a more serious fear, which appears to have been avoided although at what cost to those on the ever-lengthening waiting lists remains to be seen.

Do I want to turn the clock back? Not at all. If anything I want to wind it forward. I’m reminded of the implied accusation, that Jesus had come to abolish the Law and the prophets. On the contrary, as Paul puts it, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Which I have to say is easier remembering than the whole Torah.