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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/26/jimmy-savile-fear-bbc-janet-smith
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| Fear and failure flow through the BBC’s hardened corporate arteries | Fear and failure flow through the BBC’s hardened corporate arteries |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Do you go into work afraid? Do you sense a “culture of fear” around you? | |
| That is the phrase thrown at the BBC by Dame Janet Smith’s report on the Savile affair. It is hardly unique. It was used of the fate of NHS whistleblowers. It underlies the police behaviour in Rotherham’s sex exploitation case. It underpins many banking scandals. | That is the phrase thrown at the BBC by Dame Janet Smith’s report on the Savile affair. It is hardly unique. It was used of the fate of NHS whistleblowers. It underlies the police behaviour in Rotherham’s sex exploitation case. It underpins many banking scandals. |
| Any organisation depends on the loyalty of its staff. But when loyalty extends to condoning malpractice and crime, fear can still exert its discipline. | Any organisation depends on the loyalty of its staff. But when loyalty extends to condoning malpractice and crime, fear can still exert its discipline. |
| No one can, or should, be wholly secure in their work. No job should be for life. But security should reward hard work, not loyalty to the boss. The charge against the BBC – and the NHS – is that they reacted to honesty with a demand for deference, on pain of insecurity. | No one can, or should, be wholly secure in their work. No job should be for life. But security should reward hard work, not loyalty to the boss. The charge against the BBC – and the NHS – is that they reacted to honesty with a demand for deference, on pain of insecurity. |
| The BBC’s defence, though it dared not advance it, could have been that sexual misbehaviour at the time of Jimmy Savile’s crimes was ubiquitous in the overheated world of celebrities and groupies. | The BBC’s defence, though it dared not advance it, could have been that sexual misbehaviour at the time of Jimmy Savile’s crimes was ubiquitous in the overheated world of celebrities and groupies. |
| Sexual abuse is terrible, of course, and with minors it is illegal. It should be rooted out. But he was not a murderer. Has £6m of public money and 372,000 words, which few will read, really left us any the wiser? The BBC was not in the business of sex abuse, any more than the NHS was in the business of maltreating people or banks in the business of fraud. | Sexual abuse is terrible, of course, and with minors it is illegal. It should be rooted out. But he was not a murderer. Has £6m of public money and 372,000 words, which few will read, really left us any the wiser? The BBC was not in the business of sex abuse, any more than the NHS was in the business of maltreating people or banks in the business of fraud. |
| Failure seems to lie in the structure and culture of the organisation and its leadership. In truth, the account of the BBC in Dame Janet’s report might be recognised by any who work in big organisations when they are built round rich, talented and often flawed individuals. Sheer size eroded personal responsibility, diffused risk, and eventually condoned evil. | Failure seems to lie in the structure and culture of the organisation and its leadership. In truth, the account of the BBC in Dame Janet’s report might be recognised by any who work in big organisations when they are built round rich, talented and often flawed individuals. Sheer size eroded personal responsibility, diffused risk, and eventually condoned evil. |
| That is the danger in big organisations inflated with hierarchies and corporate self-esteem. Job security at the BBC rose with rank and salary. The gap between the top and the bottom grew ever larger. Likewise, reports of NHS whistleblowers indicated that none has retained his or her job, as the overhead that caused the failings continues to grow. | |
| The case has long been acknowledged for breaking up big nationalised organisations, but it tends to be based on efficiency rather than culture. The BBC and the NHS have become standing jokes for hardened corporate arteries, as well as for resisting all attempts at break-up or decentralisation. We now know it is not just efficiency that is at risk: bigness also produces a culture of deference and fear. That is the real cost of size. | The case has long been acknowledged for breaking up big nationalised organisations, but it tends to be based on efficiency rather than culture. The BBC and the NHS have become standing jokes for hardened corporate arteries, as well as for resisting all attempts at break-up or decentralisation. We now know it is not just efficiency that is at risk: bigness also produces a culture of deference and fear. That is the real cost of size. |