Friday 8 February 2013

The Friday Joke - How many people does it take to change a lightbulb in the Brave New World of One Barnet

With the advent of One Barnet, I started to ponder the question "How many people does it take to change a lightbulb at Barnet Council". The Council claim that in the One Barnet world money will be saved and the council will be super efficient. In the good old days, if the bulb blew on Richard Cornelius's desk, he'd ring up the caretaker and the caretaker would change the bulb.
With One Barnet, presumably he'll ring a call centre, raise a fault, they will then initiate a process, call out a "lightbulb replacement operative", who will be assigned the ticket, do a full risk assessment, put in a purchase requesition for a lightbulb, eventually collect the lightbulb, install it, then report back to the call centre that Richards bulb has been fixed. The call centre will then contact Richard to ensure that the lightgbulb has been satisfactorily changed. 
There will have been a team of lawyers to draw up the contract, a team to manage the stock of lightbulbs and health and safety team to ensure that the whole process is risk free. There will be lawyers and accountants to ensure the contract to manage the change is done properly and that the council hasn't been overcharged. 
As I didn't know the punchline, I thought I'd ask. It may (or may not) be quite an illuminating reply ! (boom boom)
----- Original Message -----
From: Roger Tichborne
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 11:46 AM
Subject: Freedom of Information request

Dear Freedom of Information
When the brave new world of One Barnet comes into action, there will clearly have to be a process to manage the changing of a lightbulb in the Leader of Barnet Council's office.
Please can you inform me how many people it takes to change a lightbulb in the Leader of Barnet Council's office. Please break this down into :
1. The number of people actually involved in the process of managing and implementing the change of lighbulb
2. The number of people involved in drawing up the contract to manage the changing of the lightbulb.
3. The number of people involved in monitoring the contract to manage the changing of the lightbulb.
4. The number of people involved in health and safety/risk assessments to ensure the lightbulb is safely changed.
5. The number of people involved in procurement of the lightbulb.
6. The number of people involved in storage of the lightbulb.
7. Any other people involved in the changing of the lightbulb who are not covered by ny of the previous six categories.
Please can you also provide estimated costs of changing a lightbulb in the leader of Barnet Councils office, taking account of all of these costs.

Regards

Roger Tichborne

1 comment:

Morris Hickey said...

Very interesting problem. Can somebody shed some light on it?