School transport costs rising
For the last umpteen years local authorities have been closing smaller schools[1] on the ground that they are not cost effective – and now the Vice President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services complains about the school transport bill.[2]
For the last umpteen years the NHS has been closing acute beds (38,000 in the last 10 years) and now it is complaining about the increase in the number of people receiving NHS Continuing Healthcare (30,000 in the last 10 years).[3]
For the last umpteen years the Government has deregulated the food industry and now it is complaining about the costs of treating an obese population.
Why is it that institutions that create these problems are then allowed to get away with statements of this kind? Industrial trawler owners complaining about the absence of fish: gas guzzler car owners complaining about the price of petrol; tax dodgers complaining about ‘the homeless’.
Moral
Focus only on effects, not causes and on the acute not the chronic.