I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
Your CV matches the advertised job description to the letter, your interview goes well and you’re led to believe that you are the perfect candidate. Then, a week later, a letter drops on your doormat telling you that on this occasion your application has, unfortunately, not been successful.
You then hear that the job has gone to a spotty faced juvenile who left school at 16 with two D-grade GCSEs. Why? It has nothing to do, of course, with the fact that the successful applicant’s father plays golf with the managing director. No, that’s a complete coincidence!
This sort of thing does not, of course, happen in the public sector. Local authorities and government departments are paragons of propriety when it comes to ensuring that jobs are filled strictly on merit. Or are they?
A team of external “auditors” who spent a week at County Hall examining how Cornwall county council operates found evidence to the contrary.
“Recruitment and retention practices are perceived by many staff to be inconsistently applied and not compliant with the council’s stated polices and practice,” said their report. “We heard complaints of a tokenistic approach with an undue level of interference and intervention by senior managers not involved in the process, for example sliding temps into permanent positions or processes geared towards favoured individuals.”
What a disgrace! It seems that bureaucrats who enjoy salary levels that other mortals can only dream about are conspiring to keep plum jobs reserved strictly for a “favoured” few.
I can just about forgive a private employer for doing favours when filling vacancies. After all, it’s their own money. If they employ the wrong person and he or she makes a cock-up, it’s the proprietor who personally pays for the mistake.
But bureaucrats have a duty to safeguard the interests of every single taxpayer. There is no room for favouritism of any kind. The best person should always get the job and the revelation that this is not always the case is a scandal of major proportions.
I hope councillors demand a full and open inquiry into the evidence gathered by the review team who produced this report. I don’t know what is meant by “favoured individuals” but if it turns out to be friends or family, heads need to roll.
The problem might be finding “senior managers” who are not implicated by the report to carry out the investigation.

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The same review also criticises the council for something that I have highlighted on numerous occasions.
“A number of commentators describe the quality of reports as poor, often difficult to read, too long and not succinct.”
Reports, say the review team, should be “written in accordance with plain English principles and have clear proposals or recommendations.”
Hallelujah! It’s not just me – unless I’m one of the “commentators” they refer to!
But I could have used even plainer English to describe Cornwall county council reports: they are boring, pompous and garbled.
Some of the reports, in fact, are so incomprehensible that they might just as well be written in Cornish.