An organisational fad

Subject: An organisational fad

I remember the Grenfell Tower fire from beginning to end. Much like the Twin Towers in Manhattan, those who watched it watched with a sort of macabre fascination as events unfurled, we were fixated by an event unfolding in front of our eyes, like sitting at a peep show watching something grotesque happening, knowing little of the carnage and terror for those inside the building we watched as if it were reality TV
I was in Somerset working when the Twin Towers were attacked and having received a phone call from Andrew to tune into the TV, I watched the graphic scenes eerily play out in what could be described as slow motion, first the plane disappearing into the heart of the building as if it were made of some soft material and then the first of the towers crumbled in on itself and after what seemed a pause the other tower dissolved in front of our eyes leaving a billowing cloud of dust which rolled outwards engulfing everything.
The Grenfell Tower fire was less dramatic but as by chance I had been watching the news at 1am when the camera caught what one thought to be a containable fire up on the 4th floor of the tower block. As the cameras trained their sights on the glow of the fire suddenly it started to spread up and out so that in the space of 15 to 30 minutes the fire had engulfed the whole building. Sitting in the lounge there was no sensation of the heat or the sound a fire makes as it devours its lethal way forward and upward floor floor, flat by flat. No image of the panic or the mayhem inside as the residents hunkered down as instructed waiting to be rescued. Two hours passed before the instruction came for the flat dwellers to leave and escape as best they could, two hours for the fire chief to make up her mind that protocol was not enough and you had to fall back on good old common sense and let the people get out from a fire the brigade had no way of containing. 
I'm sure many of the old lags, passed over by the modern need to put graduates into positions of leadership, would have assumed the correct thing to do based on their experience but in today's world, experience counts for little and those pieces of paper gleaned through book learning was all the female fire chief had to fall back upon. Schooled rather in the art of appearing in front of the press to make a statement she denied that mistakes had been made and confirmed her guilt in my eyes in saying that nothing was to be learned from the tragedy. 
Perhaps that would have been the case if it hadn't been for the rage and the tenacity of the survivors not to let things be swept under the bureaucratic rug. They appeared in front of the cameras and told their stories, they related their calls to Westminster Council about the inadequate fire safety, they challenged the mealy mouthed MPs, including the Prime Minister as they wove their tendentious excuses and promises to seek answers, they threw a spotlight on the inefficiencies of government to do anything when it meant spending money to rip down the cladding on other buildings which clearly was to blame for the speed he fire took hold and which now cover so many flats schools and hospitals, erected as a cheap way to tart up the unsightly buildings which litter our cities. The Government do what all governments do in a crisis they kick the problem down the road by establishing a Public Hearing to look into the matter. Some retired legal beak, usually with a regal title to dazzle us all, is brought to oversee the inquiry, an inquiry which has rigid guidelines on who, or what it can examine and a time scale so long it is hoped that much of the anger and interest will have died down and a benign 'no punch decision' can be made. In other words a whitewash.
The easy target, the men who arrived to fight the fire were largely exonerated, they were acting under orders of a chief and the many sub-chiefs who, reading their manuals couldn't find the page to deal with this event and lacking experience did nothing for two whole hours until it dawned on them that it was every man, woman and child for themselves to get out any way they could. For many it was too late and they died obeying orders to stay in their flats.
Like the military, the police, the fire brigade, the nursing profession, all have been overtaken by the compulsion that only a degree holds any weight, the experience of the bobby on the beat or the nurse who chose nursing because she had a vocation to help the sick rather than spend two years preparing behind a desk in a classroom before she or he could go on the ward.
The fireman who go out on the tenders and risk their lives running into the blazing building or the policeman trying to arrest a knife welding, off their heads with drugs criminal, these are not the material for the top jobs. This material comes from the graduate officers, safe within the womb of the station environment, learning the tricks of cost saving and public awareness, learning to be managers who's experience is largely second hand, learnt from reading the reports from the people on the ground doing the job who will never get a chance at real authority.
Danielle Amara Cotton, schooled in Health and Safety heads up the Fire-brigade, fast tracked throughout she represented the need to give women a higher profile in what previously had been thought to be a man's job due to the extreme rigour attached to fighting fires.  Cressida Dick the Commissioner of Police in London, another female graduate who entered the force and having passed though the Police Collage, was immediately promoted to Superintendent. She is known to have survived more than one questionable command situation, (one being the unlawful shooting of Jean Charles de Mendez for which she came under intense scrutiny) but apparently ear marked for the job she was never the less made Commissioner. 
The trend to fast track women is a suspect practice and we had better understand that the work people do, in all it's facets shouldn't be skipped just because of an ideological fad.