Letter: No accounting for ideals

Jolyon Kay
Sunday 06 February 1994 00:02 GMT
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YOUR leading article 'Rolling back accountability', and Alan Watkins's commentary 'Two cheers for those who do the state some service' (30 January), struck a chord with me, and I am sure with many who have spent most of their working lives in the public service.

We have watched the ideals we were proud of denigrated. Probity and fair dealing are old- fashioned. The need to measure output has led to a distortion of values, so that only 'output' that can be measured is worth doing. The result is the topsy-turvy statement by the Home Secretary that offers catching criminals rather than keeping the peace as the chief duty of the police. You get no bonuses for preventing crime.

It is ironic that just as it is becoming widely accepted that published company accounts are an unreliable guide to a company's affairs, the principles that underlie them - the emphasis on 'the bottom line' - are now being regarded as the yardstick of national welfare. The metaphor of 'UK Limited' has gone mad.

Jolyon Kay

Blewbury, Oxon

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