From a presentation I'm preparing right now:
"European governments have mostly rejected having (OR LISTENING TO) in house reality-based expertise" - am I wrong? Are there countries doing better? The impression I get is that governments prefer consultants they can ignore when they give unfavourable advice, or make sure they only get favorable advice. #mazzucato

@bert_hubert It is more that having expertise is a career dead-end. There are roughly three viable career paths for civil servants in government:

- operational work: not well-paid, but very good benefits and typically lifetime employment;
- policy: still not well-paid, but you get to sit at tables where really important decisions are made. That said, you are supposed to rotate to a different policy area every four years or so and there is serious salary ceiling;

(1/2)

@bert_hubert ...and there is someone to blame if an accepted advice turns out to be wrong

@bert_hubert Also the underlying reason why government fails at developing (and maintaining) its own software. It cannot see the means of production as essential to its operation... which begs the question, what in fact does government see as its core product?

@fschaap policy.

@bert_hubert not always true.

@aart you’d be in the not mostly part for sure!

@bert_hubert The expertise exists within many European governments but does it reach where it's needed when so many factors are in play?

@circl @bert_hubert exactly.

I'm radicalizing on this: "If you are in charge of XYZ you should know all about XYZ!"

@bert_hubert Pournelle Was a bit a libertarian asshole. He was not always wrong, mind you.

@whvholst well aware

@bert_hubert one caveat: thinking that you know everything can be worse than knowing nothing. Understanding, listening and learning are imo superior traits to raw personal expertise. Individual experts can be wrong and often are.

@aristot73 I've yet to see proof that the generalists do better though. Most companies led by generalists do not innovate & leave most of the real work to other places. Which also means they can't innovate. A generalist can mind the shop perhaps.

@bert_hubert tbh, was thinking more about public sector

@bert_hubert i dont think government deliberately ignores inhouse advice, yet the C-level selling of commercial companies combined with high percentage of insourced consultancy (due to budget cuts and an outsiurcing strategy) weakens the internal expertise voice.

@tsmeele The definitely do that, I'm afraid.

@bert_hubert for instance, universities that used to successfully run a full stack of services inhouse for ten thousands of staff and students less than 10 years ago, no longer trust themselves to run e.g. standard course management services in house, they are concerned about being able to *maintain* the level of expertise, even if currently still present. As interesting IT projects (innovation) get outsourced, these management fears actually become self fulfilling prophecy.

@tsmeele Also see https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/your-tech-my-tech/

@bert_hubert we hear so much about „decluttering bureaucracy” and so on. If you reduce bureaucracy, you necessarily remove institutionalised specific learnings. Every bit of bureaucracy exists for a reason. Cutting it without understanding what this means or worse, trying to cut while trying to maintain the same results is futile. The discussion shouldn’t ever be on bureaucracy, it should be about the desired outcomes. Only then can you figure out what changes to bureaucracy are needed.

@jmovs @bert_hubert https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/

@bert_hubert I would even go so far that politicians who claim to „cut red tape and bureaucracy“ are either naive or very sinister in using that as a populist idea to push unpopular policies in the interest of „reducing bureaucracy“