Communication breakdown

NOW that the weather has returned to just normal winter rather than the extremes, it is time to reflect on all the disruption. One lesson needs to be learned by major companies everywhere: the importance of communication.
Recalling the disruption to flights, car and train journeys and facilities supplies, the same message came from customers everywhere: why couldn’t we be told what was going on?
Whether it was passengers stranded at Gatwick, trains abandoned in Peterborough (and elsewhere), or the good people of Ulster unable to have water delivered, it wasn’t so much the interruption to normal service which upset people, it was the inability of the companies to keep a good stream of information flowing.
When heads eventually rolled, it was usually for the short-comings in informing customers, rather than for the interruptions themselves.
It is amazing that in the 21st century, business has still failed to grasp how important good communication is.
It’s not as if it is hard to prepare for these emergencies. Most firms have a business continuity plan, or disaster recovery plan, or whatever else they call it.
They just forget to build in a section to deal with telling customers what is going on.
All they need are lists of clients to hand; staff on standby to man a communication centre and a good supply of the latest information.
There may be issues over mobile phone reception, which is particularly important in real life-threatening circumstances, but these can be overcome with the right planning.
There may be issues about accurate weather forecasts, but an open and honest admission of when this is likely to be the case will overcome these.
In short, there is a lack of commitment to put resources into communication. It would be cheaper to prepare than face frustrated, angry and litigious customers after the event.

Media outside the law

THERE is nothing new about national news organisations working beyond the law.
When I was a reporter on Fleet Street in the 1980s news rooms routinely had clandestine copies of what were known as reverse directories.
These were compiled for telephone companies to trace faults quickly. They were listed by addresses, with the names and numbers of every household and company phone identifyable by address, and listed alphabetically by streets.
They were strictly controlled, but newspapers got hold of them by bribing telephone engineers and they were hugely useful.
If an incident happened at an address, reporters could look up the addresses nearby and then phone the people who lived there to get eye-witness accounts.
This was in direct contravention of telecommunications legislation. But who was going to know?
The new technology opens up all sorts of potential transgressions of the law as demonstrated by the News of the World mobile phone tapping saga, which just won’t go away despite former Editor Andy Coulson’s resignation in the wake of jailings three years ago.
It has now been revealed that one of their senior executives has been suspended over phone hacking claims involving the actress Sienna Miller.
News of the World executive Ian Edmondson was suspended after the new claims emerged.
A document lodged in the High Court links Edmondson with the interception of voicemail messages from the phones of Miller and Jude Law.
Solicitor Mark Thomson has said paperwork and other records seized by police from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire implied Edmondson was linked to the hacking.
Mulcaire and former News of the World reporter Clive Goodman were jailed at the Old Bailey in January 2007 after they admitted intercepting messages.
A News of the World spokeswoman said: 'A serious allegation has been made about the conduct of a member of the News of the World staff. We have followed our internal procedures and we can confirm that this person was suspended from active duties just before Christmas. The News of the World has a zero tolerance approach to any wrong-doing.'
Miller is suing the News of the World's parent company, News Group, and Mulcaire, accusing them of breaching her privacy and of harassment.
This is highly embarrassing to the newspaper world in general and Rupert Murdoch’s empire in particular. The fact that Mr Coulson now works for the Conservative hierarchy as a communications director adds spice.
If he didn’t know that intercepted mobile phone calls were the source and justification for running news stories, then he wasn’t much of an Editor. How else could their veracity be ensured?

Murder hunt reveals strained relations

Joanna Yeates's landlord, who was arrested over the disappearance of the landscape architect and later released, may yet be compensated generously for his public humiliation and ridicule.
Former English master Chris Jefferies has already announced that he is considering suing police for wrongful arrest. But far more lucrative will be the writs he could issue for libel against practically every media outlet in the land.
The rawest trainee reporter is taught that you don’t imply guilt against anyone until arrest and trial are over. Otherwise you can be at risk of contempt of court and defamation.
But hardly had he been questioned by police than TV, radio and newspapers were calling him Mr Weird, reporting alleged instances of alleged bullying against pupils at schools at which he taught, and even suggesting he might have been involved in another death of a young woman a generation previously.
If he gets his hands on a decent lawyer, he could have pay-outs that would dwarf a national lottery rollover.
Many nationals have been quick to try to minimise the damage, quoting friends as saying he expects to be cleared of any involvement in the death 'within days'.
The 65-year-old, who was questioned by detectives for three days before being released on bail, wrote in an e-mail that 'the ordeal is almost over'. The ordeal may only just be starting for Editors and their minions who allowed such prejudicial reporting in the first place.
This no doubt adds to the stresses in the relationship between police and the media, which culminated in officers investigating the murder of Jo Yeates to ban ITV News from a press conference.
The move came after reporter Geraint Vincent suggested detectives were not carrying out routine inquiries properly during last night's News at Ten.
Bristol and Avon police hit back by complaining to Ofcom for what it called 'unfair, naïve and irresponsible reporting' during the piece to camera.
Detective Chief Inspector Phil Jones - who is described as a highly experienced officer -has come under increasing pressure to make a breakthrough in the 'complex' investigation.
During the contentious report, a former murder squad detective suggested that 'certain routine inquiries' such as a new painstaking search of the scene where the body was found had not been carried out.
Meanwhile, the police officer in charge of the investigation took an apparent side swipe at a national newspaper by rubbishing the significance of CCTV pictures published in The Daily Mirror.
Days after her body was found, Miss Yeates' father David claimed his family were being kept in the dark by police investigating the killing.
It is all very unsavoury and unhelpful to the investigation. Behind the rows lie around quarter of a century of worsening relations between police and the media.
Ever since the Human Rights Convention was adopted by Britain and Data Protection laws were introduced, police have tried to control what the media report and filter information through media departments instead of letting officers form relationships with journalists they believe they can trust.
A generation of police officers treats the media as untrustworthy, unscrupulous and intrusive. A generation of journalists treats the police as obstructive, unhelpful and hostile.
It is no wonder they fall out so spectacularly.

Time for Greater Westmorland

ANOTHER step will be taken in the New Year to create Greater Westmorland. It’s about time too.
The disastrous local government reorganisation by the Conservatives back in 1974 has been damaging for democracy and the standing of Town and County Halls throughout the land.
Now that we have a Conservative-led coalition, which also includes those champions of local democracy, the Liberal Democrats, there is some hope that traditional boundaries and the authorities that matched them can be restored.
There is already a grassroots movement behind the installation of traditional county boundary signs. The politicians need to catch up with this band wagon.
Two days before Christmas South Lakeland District Council crowed that its Cabinet has given the go-ahead to plans for a second shared service with Eden District Council.
Councillors backed the creation of a business plan for a shared Revenues and Benefits System following a successful trial of a shared IT service between the two councils.
Eden’s IT Manager was officially appointed as the shared IT Services Manager earlier this month in a move that will save SLDC £54,000 per year.
The full shared IT service will officially launch on 1 April 2011 saving an estimated £378,000 over the next seven years.
Brought together under the one manager the shared service will offer a more efficient, resilient and improved service both internally and externally. Staffing costs will be reduced with staff able to share their skills and knowledge across both authorities, said a statement.
Although this decision was driven by the Government’s cost-cutting agenda, it actually should be seen as a step towards the merger of the two authorities.
Eden’s Chief Executive is coming up for retirement so the obvious move is to appoint a joint chief officer for Eden and South Lakeland who will drive forward the merger.
There would be no need for new redundancies. Natural waste and retirements should do the job. There would be massive savings on back-room services and buildings, so that front line services could be protected.
Better still the old Westmorland County can be reinvented. By the time that is ready, say in five years time, all links with the Carlisle-centred Cumbria County Council can by severed and we can be back with a single-tier local authority which matches the loyalties and connections of the people who live there.
What a great thought to take into the New Year.

Why police keep media in the dark

ANYONE who wonders why newspaper sales are declining and why the public believe crime rates have risen, when they demonstrably have gone down, should have a look at a tremendous story on Hold the Front Page.
Here is the relevant link: http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/foi/101123incidents.shtml
First credit where it is due to the Yorkshire Evening Post who used Freedom of Information legislation to find that police had responded to more than 2,000 incidents over the weekend of England’s departure from the football World Cup Finals, yet gave out just three statements to the media.
The story quoted the police as saying it was not their job to provide a news release service and they evaluated every incident before deciding whether to give it publicity.
The comments below the story are even more interesting, lifting the lid on years of frustration and anger from the media about how police attitudes have changed over the years.
Icons of the regional press, like former Editor Barrie Williams, joins the debate pointing out that in a democratic society police do indeed have a duty to inform the public through the media what they are asked to get involved in.
He is largely supported on a media-targeted web-site, but there are contributions from those who say it is the fault of the Media that they have come to rely on press offices and have run their own staff down so far that they couldn’t find their stories by more traditional direct means.
They are all right, of course.
For twenty years or more there has been a campaign among human rights lawyers and data protection zealots to stop the police and other authorities from giving to the media personal details of accident and crime victims and everyone else involved in public incidents. Largely the police have caved in to this pressure.
All they needed to do was say that releasing details helped them solve crimes and helped them winkle out information crucial to the background of accidents. These considerations should over-ride all bogus claims of privacy.
Instead careerist officers preferred to play the anti-media card and join in the pursuit of the individual’s rights. Never mind the rights or benefits of the community.
One day society will learn that the latter are more important than the former. Until then the media have no chance of being told what the authorities decide in their wisdom to keep to themselves.

Powerless in the world-wide web

TECHNOLOGY is great when it works. When it doesn’t, it is a mind-numbing, business killing, debilitating nightmare.
None of these thoughts is very original, but I am prompted to utter them because of a chain of telecommunications challenges that have dominated my week.
First the landline in and out of our house went dead, overnight Monday to Tuesday. I used my mobile to telephone BT who supply the service and found myself talking to a nice young lady, by the sound of her, in Bangalore.
I pointed out I was paying for the phone call, so she agreed to ring me back. When she did, and while she had me on the phone, she did a diagnostic and found that BT had an “underground” problem. It could not be fixed straight away as a contractor had to be called in.
I had no choice but to accept this, forgetting that the internet line on which both my, and my wife’s, businesses depend used the BT lines. So that jacked up the scale of the problem.
I phoned Bangalore again. They repeated there was no hope of repair until Friday. Then we started getting phone calls on the landline. But when we tried to ring out the line was so crackly that it was impossible to conduct a conversation.
The internet was lost most of the time, although flickered on tantalisingly now and then.
On Wednesday morning my mobile stopped sending SMS messages, commonly known as texts. All attempts met with the little red cross that means a message has not been sent.
I couldn’t use BT to phone the company which supplies my mobile service, Vodafone, as recommended, so had to ring on the mobile. That meant they had to talk me through the procedure, then ring off and then ring me back to see if it worked.
The SMS had apparently lost network connection, although how it could do this and still make calls was beyond me and the nice young man, from Cairo in Egypt this time, who talked me through the process. We ended up shouting at each other, in an entirely friendly way, across the world’s airwaves down my crackly BT line.
The solution worked, although the Vodafone signal continued to be weak and remains so.
On Thursday the telephone man arrived and used all his clever gizmos to find the fault, which turned out to be a tree interfering with the line 60 metres from my property. It was too high for his ladders so he, and we, had to wait for a cherry picker from another job.
This finally arrived Thursday tea-time and the BT line was restored, along with the Internet and no more crackly phone calls.
Two hours later the electricity went off all together, so the family stumbled around in the dark with torches, making frantic phone calls and being updated on the fault, which turned out to be caused by a fire in a sub-station. Electricity was restored two hours later.
By then I had given up all hope of getting any work done. From Bangalore to Cairo to Britain there were people tried to solve my telecommunications problems.
I lost three days all together. I couldn’t even post this blog until BT had sorted the “underground” cable, which turned out to be so over-ground they couldn’t reach it.
Before rural England gets too uptight about broadband speeds, perhaps it should insist that fundamental modern services, like mobiles, telephones, Internet and even electricity actually work at all.

The real threat to BBC journalists

THERE is something about being employed by the BBC which shields employees from the real world. That sort of naive idealism is part of its charm and also why it sometimes has a head-on confrontation with the Government, whichever party is in power.
But I fear that its journalists are about to get a rude awakening. The National Union of Journalists has warned the BBC it faces a fresh wave of disruption to news broadcasts that could affect programmes over Christmas.
But in this household at least we actually preferred the presentation of the news by bosses as they battled over the weekend to keep programmes on air during a 48-hour strike organised by the NUJ in a row over pensions.
Perhaps that was because high-profile presenters such as Nicky Campbell, Fiona Bruce, Bill Turnbull and Huw Edwards supported the walkout, leaving the way for less histrionic replacements. Perhaps it was because the facts were given without the endless verbiage of one journalist interviewing another.
The next 48-hour strike, is planned to take place on November 15 and 16. But the NUJ really needs to warn its members what would happen if the BBC was run as a commercial organisation.
The bean counters would be saying to the editorial managers: “Well you managed quite well without those journalists. Why do you need so many?”
Someone in accounts would be measuring the number of stories filed without the journalists and comparing the number with what happens when the journalists are at work.
Quality would be out of the equation. The time taken to research or interview contacts or monitor sources would be ignored.
And next budget time, the head count would be queried and the number of journalist jobs would be cut.
There would be no redundancies, no announcements, no high-profile confrontations. Vacancies would be left unfilled. Journalists would be allowed to retire early.
Particularly vulnerable will be the producers and desk heads who monitor reports to ensure they are accurate and relevant.
Already the war of words has started. BBC chiefs said only one in six employees had joined the strike and that its output was not as badly affected as it feared.
In an email to staff, director general Mark Thompson said: ‘No BBC services have been blacked out or gone off air. However, a few programmes have been lost and our ability to deliver the normal scale and quality of news and journalism to our audiences here and around the world has been impaired.’
Mr Thompson knows that if he doesn’t admit some impact during the strike, he will be undermining his own case when he goes into battle with the bean-counters.
But in austerity Britain with a Government bent on cutting costs, the journalists will not be sure of him winning those battles in the wake of their own strike.
If the BBC doesn’t tackle a £1.5billion pension deficit by putting a cap on rises in pensionable pay at one per cent after April they will have to cut costs elsewhere. It will not have escaped those who hold the purse strings that a deal had been agreed with the other major union, BECTU, which represents camera crew and technicians.
It is only human nature that when the cuts come, the journalists will be in the front line.