[Gllug] BBC Open Source: OT

[Chris Bell]

On Sun 17 Jul, Liam Smit wrote:
> 

> 
> Maybe the government should be forced to give better accounts of just
> what it spends the money on, i.e not just by sector but by how much
> each sector provides so we can see if they are wasting money anywhere.
> 
> Cheers
> Liam

   There has to be a middle way.
   Some years ago the BBC was required to start justifying expenditure to
external audits. Commercial investigators measured the exact time taken to
perform every individual function or operation (to within 15 minutes,
regardless of the number of jobs started, in progress, or completed, but not
including the time taken clock watching and filling out forms), all costs
involved including paperclips, while anything not understood by the
investigators usually joined the list of irrelevant or unnecessary
operations. The many intermittent or irregular jobs were ignored. All that
was left was a very small list of run-of-the-mill regular functions, for
which efficient procedures were already well established.
   Each year the BBC was charged a horrendous amount of money, informed that
it was by far the most efficient broadcaster, (although the mechanism was
not understood), and given a small list of suggested minor changes. In
almost all cases this has led to increased costs and a poorer service.

-- 
Chris Bell

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