1200 words (12 minutes reading) by Colin Weatherby
A recent article in the Melbourne Age by Alan Attwood, entitled ‘Red tape’s strangling volunteering – creating more casualties than you’d think’, is timely in drawing attention to a growing problem in Victorian local government. Risk aversion and red tape are making it difficult for people to volunteer in their own community or even get a job at their council. This focus on playing safe seems to be counterproductive.
As Sidney Dekker and Georgina Poole point out succinctly in ‘Random Noise – Measuring Your Company’s Safety Performance‘, most organisations don’t exist simply to be safe; they exist to provide a product or service. It is unfortunate that many councils seem to be starting to think otherwise. Dekker uses the term ‘safety theatre’ to describe the superficial and often misleading efforts that organisations put into safety. I can’t help thinking that some of the risk management red tape making volunteering more difficult fits that description.
Continue reading
Local Government Utopia 