ACCOUNTABILITY 'Boy, are you guys ever organized' said a friend the other day as we were having afternoon tea. The cause of this outburst was a three page, closely typed list of spring cleaning chores arranged by room. This was Her Nibs list and at that time many items had been crossed off as completed (even those that were my responsibility). Now, of course, everything has been done and the list discarded, but don't worry it lurks in the computer and will reappear probably as the Fall Cleaning list. - We seem, since retirement, to depend quite extensively on lists. It tends to simplify tasks and aid your memory - which tends to have lapses as we age. This approach for us represents good organization and has the added benefit of dispensing with constant nagging - you just read the list. 1 suppose this is an example of placing accountability and responsibility as close as possible to the delivery of service - an organizational principle that I have found to be most effective. As you know by now both Her Nibs and I spend many years in government service and experienced many differing organizational structures. I spent many years in the Civil Service Commission which was the central personnel agency for the government. It was responsible for all the rules and policies for recruitment, training, classification and pay and insured benefits. It was of course very centralized but as the government grew, alternate forms of delivery were considered. At one time all the jobs were classified by the Commission and thus the employing ministry had to pay the employee rates decided on by the Commission staff. . One of our forward thinking Executive Directors decided to delegate certain levels in the classification structure to § Ministries - WOW. The weeping, wailing and gnashing of § teeth on the part of the commission staff! 'The ministries will run amok, they will overpay everyone, the standards will be watered down and destroyed' were the commonly § heard statements. It didn't happen - WHY - because the § Ministries had to assume accountability for their own payroll costs and couldn't blame increased cost on some § nebulous - THEY made me do it. Some time later in my career I took over a province-wide § program with 1400 employees that to that time had been largely centrally controlled, of course employees were located locally, but the major decisions on funding and programming were made in Head Office in Toronto. This 1 changed so that each region had to make it own program plans and compete with other regions for funding. Placing accountability and responsibility at each service delivery site resulted in vastly increased effectiveness, cost reduction and the ability to take on other programmes that while desirable had not been tackled. My view is that this is generally the way to organize has been reinforced lately as we look at the Health Care situation here. Two hospitals, Picton and Trenton ran effective operations and even accumulated surpluses. The 'experts' obviously unable to cope with success decided to centralize responsibility and accountability in Belleville resulting in horror stories of cleaners having to get job assignments from an 'action desk' in Belleville and supplies having to be sent from Belleville by taxi since decisions on supply levels rested with Belleville rather than locally. The net result of this has seen the surpluses built up by Trenton and Picton disappear into the Belleville maw and a decrease in the effectiveness of local service delivery. Perhaps I should send a copy of Her Nibs Spring Cleaning List - it in a simple way shows the principles of good organization! - John A. Jackson. Country Shears Family Hairstyling 2058 COUNTY ROAD 17 1/2 KM. FROM MILFORD By appointment only. Call Linda at 476-2170 CLOSED TUESDAY & SUNDAY