Below is a link to the presentation I did in Ireland in May this year. 
 
To put the issue raised in these slides into perspective: the Grenfell Inquiry has been running for nearly ten months, the Hackitt Review has concluded, as has the Inquiry's Experts Panel, yet so far the actual main cause of death in the Tower has not even been mentioned, let alone investigated. Which is:
 
The majority of deaths in Grenfell Tower were from toxic smoke poisoning and the majority of toxic smoke came from burning upholstered furniture.
 
Adjacent to this is the fact that UK upholstered furniture is three times more toxic than furniture in the EU, the reason being that it contains up to 30% by weight of flame retardant chemicals.
 
Or, to put it another way, flame retardant chemicals were responsible for most of the deaths in Grenfell Tower. Yet they have been barely mentioned either, in the Inquiry/Hackitt Review/Experts Panel.
 
Why? Well, there is big money in flame retardants, as I talk about elsewhere on this site. And there are plenty of people happy to take the FR industry's money in return for falsely claiming that they save lives from fire, even if in the case of fire union officials, that means it hugely adds to rising cancer rates in their own people (and the rest of the population). 
 
Slide presentation, Dublin, May 2018.
 

 
As I've described elsewhere on this site, the Grenfell Fire Forum met BEIS officials recently to discuss the Furniture Regulations. Three of us also spoke at a Fire Congress in Dublin on 31 May and took the opportunity to meet up the day before with officials and others from the Irish government to discuss the same issue (Ireland is the only other country in the world that has the same furniture flammability regulations as the UK). 
 
During my time at BIS/BEIS I had met the same Irish officials many times, both in Ireland and London. We had a good working relationship; indeed, when I spoke at another fire safety conference in Dublin earlier this year, I met two of them for a drink the night before. They are good company. However, I couldn't help notice that they spent the first half hour or so that night talking about their pensions.
 
We met BEIS on 3 May. As I've described on the Grenfell Tower page, they refused to answer our first question, although by the end of the meeting they promised to answer it in writing. Five weeks later, and despite three written reminders, they still have not replied. The question put to them several times at the meeting and in writing was:
 
a)         Do you agree that BIS/BEIS's published documents - the 2014 consultation paper, the 2015 Technical Annex, and the 2016 consultation paper - prove, through testing evidence and scientific reasoning, that the current match test fails in up to 90%* of cases in practice, confirmed by Trading Standards' in-field work, and that UK furniture is therefore unsafe**? Please answer Yes or No.
 
b)         If your answer to a) is 'No' please provide the evidence to justify it.
* "Up to 90%" is based on the fact that Trading Standards report they are finding 84.3% failures in the match test in practice but that figure is based on just two of the failings of the test: undertreatment and stain-repellent spraying. It does not take into account failings caused by flammable materials close to the cover or the presence of a fibre-wrap layer in most sofas - 5.7% being a conservative estimate for these two factors.
** For example, from BIS's Technical Annex (our emphasis): "Consumers are, in many instances, being led to believe that the furniture they buy is match resistant when it is not so in its final form (because it has been sprayed by persistent and flammable materials or has covers which behave favourably in test but not in the finished item or has components near the surface which are flammable) ... The Regulations rely upon a combination of ignition resistance measures; if any one of these measures is compromised it can lead to catastrophic failure of actual final composites."
They managed to avoid answering this question for two hours, in the process displaying a stunning lack of knowledge of the regulations they are responsible for; that, and producing incredibly convoluted and contradictory statements which amounted to them claiming that the evidence they need in order to act has yet to be gathered.
 
Let's be clear about what this means: the people responsible for ensuring the public is safe when it sits on its sofas and when it sleeps on its mattresses are in fact deliberately keeping the entire British public at risk - both from flammable products and the vast amounts of toxic flame retardants in those products used in order to meet flammability requirements that don't even work.
 
They are doing this knowingly. Why? Because, evidently, their pensions and having a smooth career that doesn't cause their senior managers problems is more important to them.
 
The Irish have failed to act, too. And in their case they can't claim ignorance since the same people have been in charge of their regulations for many years more than the BEIS officials.
 
Here are a few of the explanations they gave us for why nothing has changed in Ireland:
 
"We are citizens, too, so we have to face the issue that we may be sitting/sleeping on unsafe and toxic furniture."
 
Our response: But you know there's a problem and therefore can make a choice about what furniture you buy. The vast majority of Irish citizens do not.
 
Their response to that was to say that there had been several articles in the Sunday Times which had alerted the Irish public to the problem. 
 
Our response (leaving aside the obvious point that even if this were true, they should still have acted by now): Those articles were very short and did not alert the Irish public to the overall problem [we have copies of the articles and knew exactly what was in them].
 
"We are short of resources but we have made this subject a priority for 2018."
 
However, they appear to have done nothing so far, five months into the year.
 
We asked why they haven't been working with/consulting anyone on these regulations. Their response was to state that they can't do so when they are forming policy: it has to go to the Minister first. 
 
Our response: Yes, the Minister has to sign off policy but you are completely free to consult anyone while gathering the information and evidence you need to draft the policy (which is exactly what was done at BIS in the build-up to the 2014 consultation on a new match test).
 
"Evidence is often not that important in forming policy."
 
This is ridiculous. Yes, at times some parts of policy may be formed around incomplete evidence but a) all the necessary evidence was in place for the 2014 proposed new match test and b) you don't have any new evidence anyway. 
 
So, once again, we have officials in charge of public safety regulations, knowing that they don't work and therefore their entire population is at risk, coming up with complicated 'reasons' for their inaction when in fact they are simply protecting themselves.
 
Similar attitudes are at play in the Dame Hackitt Review, of course. 
 
The worrying thing is that the same department, BEIS, is handling the Brexit work. The one thing we can be sure of is that every effort will be taken by those officials to make sure their pensions are safe.

From my journal, 30th April 2015
 
Yesterday: all-staff BIS meeting in Westminster Hall. The heads of the CBI and TUC gave talks, and so did Vince Cable. Oh, and also that Jiminy Cricket lookalike Permanent Secretary of ours, Martin Donnelly. Clearly basking in the nice things the others had said about BIS, he waxed on about how great the team working is in his department. He said he would continue his promise (not sure any of us knew he'd made one) that every member of his staff will be respected, treated professionally and listened to.
 
At times like that, I believe myBIS must exist in a parallel universe. In the meeting I had with Samantha later (to discuss my future) I told her that I did not feel respected, was not being treated professionally and was not being listened to. She dutifully logged this in her notebook.
 
Today, myself and Frank my union guy, had our first meeting with Jen Davies, the case officer in my complaint against John and Barbara. We met in a tiny, sweaty room with thin walls, surrounded by other meetings which could easily hear us if they wished to.
 
Jen introduced herself, and said she'd been commissioned by Samantha. Frank and I protested at this, i.e. because Samantha is Barbara's line manager, and Barbara is John's, and there is therefore just the small chance that such an appointment might not be as neutral as it should be. [In retrospect, we should have refused to go on with the case until a case officer was appointed that both sides could agree was neutral. However, the civil service is very good at selling you a dummy early on in the process, when you don't want to cause too much aggro because you want your case to stand a fair chance. Of course, the government did the same thing with the Grenfell Inquiry - chose the case officer who immediately established limiting terms of reference.]
 
I asked what might be the outcomes of the case and Jen said that Susannah would make the final decisions! We protested even more at this, pointing out that Susannah is B's line manager, etc. Jen said she'd look into it but we might as well start. [Again, with hindsight we should have refused to move on until this point was settled.]
 
In short, I only got through half my story in the allotted hour, and we had to agree to reconvene. At the end, I repeated that Samantha should not be making the decision, and if she did, I'd drop the case and go straight to the Civil Service Commission.
 
Back in the union room, Frank reckoned that the Commission would scare the shit out of the Department, especially following on from all those nice things said about it at the all-staff event. I said I was tired of the cock-ups with this case and may just go straight to the Commission anyway. Frank said he'd raise the issue with the union that BIS does not even have a CS Code case officer and no one has a fecking clue how to run a complaint case.
 
I found out later that, incredibly, Jen continued with (separate) interviews with John and Barbara following my meeting with her. This, despite her not even knowing yet what my case is about! Frank and I decided to keep this one up our sleeves for now, but it perfectly illustrates how utterly inept BIS is at - what was it Donnelly said? - oh yes, listening to its staff.
 
Someone asked me later how Jen was and I said, not fucking tough enough. She appears to listen (most of the time) but lacks that incorruptible steely glint in the eye. Instead, I see a dark Samantha-shaped silhouette lurking there.
 
8th May:
 
Steve and I had a chat tonight. He mentioned that Jo Swinson has lost her seat and commented that this had a karmic inevitability to it, after how she'd handled the Furniture Regs. At first glance, I tend to dismiss such views but now, in light of my case at BIS, it may need to be looked at with a more open mind.
 
Steve mentioned Swinson's round table meeting back in February, something he's (rightly) still irritated about. In short:
 

• Steve and I muzzled
• Toni Eldridge set up for a fall by B and J
• The on-the-make villains given freedom to lie their flame-retardant pants off
• John playing toady both to them and the Minister
• Swinson, for whatever reason, choosing darker motives over true ones

 
On the surface, the dark side won. Steve's and my position - built on intelligence, hard work and integrity - was rubbished. I can see now that my tendency in such situations is to seek a re-balance, in this case via the correct channels - complaint case, etc - rather than to allow myself to think about taking revenge.
 
But . . . 
 
In terms of the power of the mind, ours are in fact far more powerful than theirs. Which raises the question of what then should be done with it? In other words, it's a responsibility, not an option.
 
In say five years time, we will see what karma has done to the likes of Barbara, John, Dave Sibert, Paul Fuller, David King, etc. What we may not ever know is how much was down purely to natural karmic anti-thesis. When, say, I make a strong case for public safety, based on facts and moral expediency, and Barbara blocks it, how does she deal with the power of the mind that she is perverting? What does it do to her? 
 
I need to fully realise that I have the power. And that power stems from being right, both technically and morally. This may mean that I need a dual approach from now on:
 

• Outer calm. No need to be drawn into over-reacting or being argumentative.

 

• Inner reliance of the power that I hold, that they are utterly bereft of.

 
Yesterday Samantha had a branch meeting which she based around 'change', specifically the government changes that will stem from the forthcoming election. She told a story about when she was at DWP: how she'd had to cut lots of posts but felt that people wouldn't accuse her of protecting her job because that was being cut anyway. Translation: we all know more cuts are coming so I'm getting it in now that it won't be MY fault.
 
Which reminded me of the time when she (unconvincingly) told me that she'd played no part in any of our end-year box markings (when John gave me the lowest box marking). All of which demonstrates that despite her education, self-control, excellent enunciation, etc, she lacks power. I have far more power than her, even if she ruins my career.
 
I have more power than Martin Donnelly. Why? Because he said he was continuing his promise that every single person in BIS will be treated with respect and listened to when it isn't true and he knows it isn't true.
 

On 27 April 2015, I submitted papers to the case officer handling my Civil Service Code case. The case, put simply, was that I was being forced by senior managers to commit breaches of the Code via their misinforming our Minister. 

The Code states:

As a civil servant, you are appointed on merit on the basis of fair and open competition and are expected to carry out your role with dedication and a commitment to the Civil Service and its core values: integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. In this code:

• ‘integrity’ is putting the obligations of public service above your own personal interests
• ‘honesty’ is being truthful and open
• ‘objectivity’ is basing your advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence
• ‘impartiality’ is acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving equally well governments of different political persuasions

My case officer was appointed by Samantha, the overall head of our unit, who herself was complicit in the breaches. I and my union official objected to this appointment but were told we had to accept it. With what I have learned since I would definitely not accept it, and instead insist on a more independent person running the case. Below is my overview paper.


Terry Edge – Civil Service Case Overview, April 2015
 
 
This case revolves around the Department's largest 'Out' project under the Red Tape Challenge. In essence, it was to bring about a change to the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 that would save industry millions of pounds per year, make UK furniture greener and more fire-safe, as well as put right problems with the current flammability requirements. 
 
Against my better judgement, senior management pressured me to bring forward the money-savings changes, ahead of the overall amendments I'd been working on, so that the current government could claim the credit. Along with Steve Owen (of Intertek), BIS's technical advisor, I brought the changes in on time, under enormous pressure from Ministers, BRT, senior civil servants, etc. 
 
However, following the public consultation, and due to a combination of insufficient knowledge, lack of trust in the experts working for them, professional jealousy and career risk-aversion, Barbara Middlemiss (my Grade 5) and John Lord (my line manager, Grade 6) misinformed the Minister in such a way that the project has now been delayed by at least a year (and probably considerably more). 
 
I believe their actions constitute a breach of the Civil Service Code and their insistence I follow their direction puts me in danger of such a breach; also that their persistent undermining of my work and reputation in order to protect their mistakes constitutes bullying.
 
Examples of misinformation:

• Assured the Minister that extra research work was needed to prove the validity of the test when this wasn't true (and they now admit it isn't)
• Briefed the Minister that negative criticisms of the proposals were valid even though there was no evidence to support them
• Ignored the advice of a group of leading experts who informed them that BIS had proven the case for the changes - and continued to brief the Minister that more work needed to be done
• Gave in to vested interests, criminal in one case at least, that wanted the changes delayed/stopped
• Failed to inform the Minister that stakeholders had lied and/or provided false information at a round table meeting
• Deliberately obscured and withheld the truth in the government response to the public consultation on the proposed changes, in order to mislead the public into believing that more work was needed, and caused other government Ministers to sign off the response without having the evidence required to make a valid decision.
• Deliberately failed to answer a single question raised by consultation responses despite me having provided them with answers to allthe questions raised

 
As a consequence:

• Extra fire deaths and many more house fires will ensue
• Trading Standards cannot prosecute cases (leading to more non-compliant furniture getting into the UK, leading to more deaths and house fires)
• UK furniture will continue to contain large amounts of flame retardant chemicals now known to damage health and the environment
• Retailers such as XXX will be forced to continue selling unsafe products and face damaging public outrage if the media finds out, along with possible huge costs of recalling literally millions of products
• Large-scale criminal activity will continue

 
Because I refused to support their efforts to misinform the Minister, in what I believe is a breach of the Civil Service Code, they have subjected me to bullying in the following ways:

• Consistently undermined my work and reputation
• Sabotaged submissions to the Minister which would have made her aware of the truth behind the proposed changes
• Caused me huge stress by not trusting my work (or that of Steve Owen)
• Damaged my reputation with stakeholders
• Exaggerated/lied about my behaviour towards stakeholders
• Presented falsified evidence at my end-year review to suggest I have a behavioural problem with stakeholders
• Used my end-year review unfairly, and against all the evidence to the contrary, as a tool to build a counter-argument to this Civil Service Code case
• Tried to lever me out of my post (and may still do so)

 
I have evidence to support all the claims made above. 
 
Summary Overview
 
The key point is that all the necessary research and testing work to support the proposed changes had been completed by the time of the consultation launch on 7th August 2014 – as agreed by John Lord and signed off by the Minister. This was further confirmed by a meeting of the UK’s leading test experts at BIS on 21st November 2014. By the time of the Ministers’ round table meeting on 9th February 2015, the majority of stakeholders present had had nearly two years in which to present BIS with any ‘further work’ which those with vested interests claimed needed doing. In the event, all that was put forward at that meeting as further work was that BIS should commission British Standards Institute to spend a further 12 months working on a test foam formula that already exists in the current Regulations and was including in the proposals in the consultation document.
 
Barbara and John originally claimed to believe that extra work could be done. Later, they admitted that this was not the case but that we had to be seen to do something because “it’s what the Minister wants” (but because they had briefed her so). They are now claiming that every view by any stakeholder is valid, even if there is no evidence to back it up; that, if a stakeholder claims there is more work to be done but doesn’t know what it is, that is still something BIS should take seriously and delay accordingly.
 
This view is further undermined by the fact that neither Barbara nor John has sought for or come up with a single piece of additional work that needs doing, despite having had 8 months (since the consultation launch) in which to contact a huge choice of stakeholders. Similarly, they have intentionally and systematically ignored the evidence in favour of the proposed changes.
 
Also key to the case is John Lord’s behaviour in delaying the implementation of the proposed changes. I believe this was motivated mainly by professional jealousy and (self-confessed) risk-aversion. The first delay was caused by him going to private office when the first submission was sent up, to tell the Minister’s Private Secretary, [TB], that “these changes are probably not going ahead”. This act alone meant we then faced a huge uphill struggle to convince the Minister and get the changes through in time. On at least two more occasions, I heard John on the phone to [TB] sabotaging submissions (that had been agreed by him and Barbara Middlemiss): once, to tell her a submission would not be going up (in time to meet a critical deadline) because it “wasn’t working”; another time, she phoned him and he agreed with her that “it just isn’t working; the Minister just doesn’t understand”.
 
Another key delay he caused was with work on the consultation responses. He instigated a complicated spreadsheet which the response team found very time-consuming to fill in. By the deadline for completing the work, only about a quarter of the returns had been processed. I invited Steve Owen to come to BIS and help me go through the responses and we completed them all in two days. John refused to use this work; instead he set up another team – including at least one person with no experience of the Regulations – with the result that the processing work took nearly three weeks.
 
By the time the Minister reached the final deadline to enable implementation in April 2015, she was still being given mixed messages by our team, exacerbated by the delays, with the result she informed other Red Tape Challenge Ministers that she did not have enough information to be able to go ahead with the changes in time.
 
 
 
Terry Edge, April 2015
 

From my journal, 9 April 2015
 
Yesterday, Samantha [the Grade 3] came over to ask me about my holiday in Cornwall (we went to Scotland). She then said she'd like to have a short meeting with me in the afternoon. She's never asked about my holidays before, or anything to do with my life come to that, so I thought oh-oh.
 
She started by telling me that my case [Civil Service Code case against Barbara and John] was going to be investigated soon (case officer appointed by Samantha); that it should be finished within 40 working days and if it isn't her boss has to look into it (which of course is the real reason for keeping to time, not that I get a fair investigation).
 
She then said she had a 'proposition' for me. This involved her speaking solidly for 8-9 minutes at the end of which it was clear that I was expected to just say yes. In short, it's that I should move to another job in another team for 40 days, while the case is going on. Her 'reasoning' was:
 
1)         She wants to be fair to me and it can't be good for me to be working to a policy I don't agree with.
 
2)         She also needs to be fair to Barbara and Phil, since I've expressed my disagreement with them.
 
3)         It will help me expand my whatevers (I forget the exact word but it amounts to bollocks, possibly in both senses of the word), towards furthering my career.
 
4)         I'm very capable (apparently) and this new job is in a priority area.
 
On 1) I said I don't disagree with the policy; just the way it's being managed, the policy being surely that we all want to make the regulations safe. Also, there is a distinction, I said, between the work going forward and the case which is based on the past. Before the case is decided, it doesn't seem fair that I should be the one to have to leave my job.
 
On 2), the same logic says you might as well move Barbara and Phil to different jobs.
 
On 3), I said this is not particularly relevant since I'm already past retirement age and the only reason I'm staying on is to see these regulations put right.
 
As for 4), it hardly seems fair to expect a new line manager to have to train me just for 40 days work. [My gut feeling that she was lying about it being just for this period was confirmed later when she made similar 'propositions' to me. In short she is a bully of the most cowardly sort. Instead of simply telling you that you will do what she wants, she tries to pretend that you made the choice. I now know damn well that the first day I'd have turned up in the new job the line manager would have had no idea at all it was just for 40 days - either that or he/she would have played along with Samantha's lie.]
 
At this point, I recalled that Barbara and Phil were both on leave this week, i.e. she probably promised them a Terry-free unit upon their return.
 
She also specifically mentioned FW/6 [the British Standards Institute's working group on furniture flammability, on which I represented BIS] and asked me what I would do there regarding BIS's proposal. My instinct pinged at this, suspecting a trap.
 
[Which it was. What had happened was that Phil completely perverted the official government response to the 2014 consultation. Apart from rejecting my honest assessment of the responses, telling the Minister that I had a CS Code case on the go when it was supposed to be kept confidential (thereby forcing her to accept his response version), censoring the papers sent out to other Departments, the greatest con he pulled was stating at the end of it that BIS would work with British Standards to improve the new match test, with a view to implementing it in April 2016. Hence, everything depended on this 'work' with BS going ahead. But I'd been pointing out to the team that BS would struggle in this since there actually was no more work that needed doing. The problem being that I was the BIS person on FW/6 - which of course may well have been part of Samantha's plans to move me on, so that a more pliable person could be moved in. So, what Samantha was no doubt hoping with this question was that I would answer by saying that I would not toe the policy line, giving her the perfect excuse for moving me on.]
 
I told her that I only had two realistic choices: either say nothing or put across the BIS line (even though I knew it to be false). Extraordinarily - or perhaps not - she agreed. So much for the truth.
 
Then I showed her that I'd pushed her into a little trap of my own. I told her that Barbara actually told British Standards' management that the work we were asking them to do didn't need doing; but it was what the Minister thought was needed, therefore it had to be done (unless BS were stupid, I don't suppose they had much trouble in working out why the Minister might think that). Barbara, I said, quoting pretty much exactly, also told BS that "The minister has this strange idea that you can test a test. We know that isn't true of course, but we have to try to please her." (Ditto for BS working out why the Minister would think such a thing.) Finally, the clincher: I said that Barbara had asked me to confirm that at the FW/6 meeting, Steve and I would vote down BIS's proposition to do more work! (Amazing, but true. I suspect this was because she only had to cover-off the delay until April 2016; therefore, just the fact of BS being involved was enough.]
 
Much note-scribbling went on as I spoke, that and a furrowed brown of "why didn't they tell me this"itis.
 
When she'd finished I said, "So, do I act enthusiastically at FW/6 about the work we want them to do or just repeat what Barbara told their management?" While her brow was convoluting further at this I went on to suggest that the team needed to work out its objectives and vision since we didn't have these things - something a Grade fucking 3 should of course be able to spot from a million miles away but which she'd completely missed in her gymnastic efforts to get rid of the one person in the team who was more concerned about public safety than protecting his career.
 
I told her I'd think about it but I already knew what my answer would be.
 
 

In 2002, John Hunt Publishing published a book I wrote called "DO WHAT?: THE CIVIL SERVICE". I also wrote a book on film and TV for the same series. It was my agent's idea that I write one on the civil service because, well, I was in it. I wasn't keen at first but in the event enjoyed the research, structuring the content, writing the cartoons, etc. I'd joined the civil service quite late in life, needing a steady job that would allow me to continue my writing career without too much interference. I approached the subject, quite naturally, as an idiot about it and therefore was I think able to put the material across clearly to its intended audience of teenagers. My Department, DTI (at the time), liked it enough to give a copy to all new entrants.
 
I thought it might be interesting to include a bit of it on this blog, if only to provide a contrast to the somewhat different views about the civil service that I developed later in my career there.
 
* * *
 
CHAPTER 5: WHAT DOES A DEPARTMENT STORE?
 
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." Ernest Benn
 
YOU CAN'T ESCAPE THE LAW
 
Imagine you're taking a walk along your road to the shops at the end of it. Look at everything around you - the houses, pavement, road, hedges, trees and the sky. Well, you won't see anything that isn't controlled by government legislation or law.
 
If you live in town, then every house you pass has to conform to the law. For example, no one can simply build a bit onto their house without planning permission. If a man wants to have a giant plastic shark sticking out of the top of his roof (and there is such a man in Oxford) he'll have to spend years fighting the local authorities who will insist that the law doesn't allow for large marine life to be obstructing the skyline. Artists and people with a sense of humour might like it but then they're not paid to uphold the law.
 
Even the satellite dishes on people's walls are only there because legislation says they can be, providing they're not bigger than a certain size. Not only that but several different Departments will have had a say in the legislation. The Department for the Environment,  Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) would have had a lot to say about where you can actually put them. The Radio Communications Agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) would have had a lot of input about wavebands and licenses. The Treasury would want to know how much it's all going to cost. And then DTI would have had another say where telecommunications is concerned, and so on.
 
Even the height of garden walls is controlled by law, and in conservation areas you can't paint your house without getting the colour approved by the proper authorities. Perhaps you can begin to see why there are so many civil servants.
 
It isn't any different if you live in the country. You may be surrounded by fields and trees but everything in the country is controlled too. Even the air around and above you is covered by legislation which says who can fly in what kind of machine and when and where, and how much factories can and can't pollute it.
 
At present, if you were to wake up tomorrow morning with new super-powers, you could simply leap out of your bedroom window and fly to school. This is because we don't have any laws about super-heroes. Which is because the government doesn't believe there are any. But it wouldn't be long before the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR), probably working closely with DEFRA, brought in new legislation called 'The Control of Unmotorised Airborne Youths Who Wear Brightly Coloured Underpants Outside Their Bodystockings Act 2002'.  
 
So, Departments are places where the government's policy is put into action. The policy has to be backed up by law, which is what Parliament does. Once the laws are made they're passed to the Departments, which then do all the paperwork, print the brochures, hire the lorries and so on which make the policies work.
 
As you know, the people who do all this work in the Departments are civil servants. They are not politicians. Civil servants are neutral, which means they put the government's policies into action without being for or against them. A civil servant may have private views about whether a policy is a good or a bad thing but he won't let it affect his job.
 
And of course, a lot of government policies are unpopular with all sorts of people. For example, if the government wanted to ban fox hunting, it would first propose a Bill to do it. This Bill would then have to go through the House of Commons, be looked at by the House of Lords, and finally become law. After it becomes law, there are all sorts of bits of it which civil servants need to put into practice, as well as deal with the effects the new law may have on the rest of the world. For instance, if Scotland doesn't ban fox hunting too, then there'll be problems along the border of England and Scotland. Imagine a legal hunt in Scotland chasing a fox that is clever enough to nip over the border into England where it's illegal.
 
While the anti-fox hunting Bill is going through Parliament, lots of people will write to the government with their views for and against. Someone has to answer these letters, emails faxes and phone calls. And even after the Bill becomes law, there will be a never-ending stream of letters and such like from people complaining about how unfair it is that they can no longer gang up on a small animal and enjoy seeing it torn to pieces buy packs of hounds.
 
Well of course, it's also civil servants who answer all these letters and phone calls.
 
As we've seen, when the government changes the civil servants stay in their Departments. If all the civil servants were changed too, it would be very difficult to run the country. A minister may be in charge of say the Department of Trade and Industry for only a year or two. While he's there, he will have to get to know something about hundreds of different schemes, committees, proposals, laws and so forth. But he will know only the main points. Each of these areas will be covered by a whole team of civil servants, many of whom will have been working on one particular point for years.
 
So it make sense to keep the civil servants when the government changes. At least, that's what they've convinced us is the sensible thing to do.
 
 
 
 
here to edit.

From my journal, 24 February 2015
 
It may be time for me to go blow the whistle to Bryony Keller, the Head of Business Group, just one step down from the Permanent Secretary - about the fact that I'm being forced by senior civil servants to act in breach of the Civil Service Code.
 
I've been in the impossible situation this week of drafting an official government response to the consultation that essentially says, "Job done," but then goes on to add, "We're delaying until April 2016 in order to do more work via BSI." This is being insisted upon by Barbara and John because they think it will solve most of their problems. But I've been trying to get them to see that this means conceding to Sir Ken, etc, that this is 'the right process' which means there is no chance of implementation by April 2016.
 
I had a long talk this morning with Sue [my previous line-manager] who not unreasonably urged me to consider the ramifications. I said I had, and didn't agree with her that walking away would preserve my reputation - because they have already mostly trashed it in defence of their cock-up over the failure to go ahead on time. I also pointed out that whatever I do will create stress anyway. At least this way, I'm doing what's right.
 
Towards the end of the conversation, I asked her how she felt about it all. As I'd guessed, she didn't say she was outraged at management's behaviour; just talked in terms of being worried about me. Then there was one of those chilling moments when her voice went a little auto and she parroted Barbara and John: "But the fact is, Terry, lots of people have said they have concerns and very few retailers have jumped up to say they support the new test." I replied that the retailers are not jumping up because none of them wants to be the first to admit they're selling unsafe products. And the villains are jumping up to voice their objections because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
 
I suspect Steve would simply have said to her, "So, you've been brainwashed, too." [He'd have been right, as it turned out.]
 
In the afternoon, I had a meeting with my union guy, Bob. He said he's never encountered anything like this before, where someone is actually taking on senior management. He warned me that they'll close ranks and use dirty tricks [they did]. He put it to me that I could walk away, although he knows by now that I can't - because that would be the wrong thing to do. He suggested I could consider 'cuddling up' to them, and get them to reconsider from a more together angle. Well, there is no point even considering that with John, since he is bent. Barbara, maybe, but her ego volatility can't really be trusted. Besides, I simply can't see where there's room to compromise with the government response. Essentially, they want me to lie so that the country can remain at risk.
 
When I looked at the Civil Service Code today it all seemed so clear-cut: says that you should report incidents of a Minister being misinformed, etc, and if you're still not satisfied, take it to the Civil Service Commission. Simples!
 
Here is a list of pros and cons about me whistle-blowing:
 
Pros
 

• Conscience clear; integrity intact
• Lives saved
• Environment less polluted
• Our work not trashed
• My family know I've done the right thing
• I keep Steve's respect

 
Cons
 

• Stress: I will be attacked
• Industry might fight even dirtier
• Civil Service career in the bin
• Months of fighting senior management
• Delay my retirement and doing something much more useful

 
I had a realisation this week, which may help towards my inevitable decision - that the quality of one's perception is directly governed by the quality of one's integrity.
 
This is why Steve and I see much more clearly what is really happening and what that will inevitably lead to than anyone else involved in this situation. Their lack of integrity automatically limits their intelligence. Someone once said that intelligence is the ability, in any given situation, to know what needs doing; to have the ability to do it; then to do it, whether you like doing it or not.
 
What needs doing? The Regulations need putting right in order to protect the public. But once you accept a bribe to block them, or to put your CS career first, or decide that you can't afford to risk your pension, then you cease to see that. Which means your integrity is weakened, and you're in a vicious circle of declining perception.
 
John cycles to work every day. Well, he cycles on his fold-up bike a couple of miles from King's Cross station. He wears a football shirt with 'Moore' on the back of it, which might I suppose be an ironic statement of sorts. Then he spends the first hour or so at his desk, in his sweaty - or mock-sweaty - cycle gear. He thinks this gives him some sort of 'street' authenticity. But what everyone actually thinks he is, he's just a twat. How come he lacks insight into this perception of his desperate 'real man' props? Just ask Chemtura, or Albemarle, or ICL.
 
When you lack integrity you don't want to see anything that exposes that fact - which means you simply don't see. The problem is that the Johns, the Barbaras and the Sir Whatsits of the world actually think they have integrity too, hence they don't realise that they lack perception. Which means that if you present them with the conclusions of real perception this happens:
 
a)         They will tell you that it isn't like that; it's like this, and if
 
b)         you go back to show them with more perception that they're actually wrong,
 
c)         at first they won't respond at all; then if you persist, they will
 
d)         seek to destroy you.
 

From my journal, 16th February 2015
 
On Sunday, for the first time I felt that I could actually walk away from the civil service tomorrow. My pension wouldn't be great but we'd survive. And with that thought, I felt a surge of sheer joy and release. I honestly wouldn't miss anything about it at all, other than lunch time chats with G but I can always meet him outside work. But if I walk away, then, literally, not metaphorically, people will continue to die.
 
Over the weekend, I also thought about the meeting we had with Trace last week and realised that what she/Swinson are proposing - putting additional and unnecessary work through British Standards - is potentially catastrophic. For one, it sets a dangerous precedent, because the villains will almost certainly then insist that we put all work through BSI, which will please Sir Ken for a start, given his place on the steering board at BSI. Giving them all the work will allow them to spin it out, water it down and generally shape the regs to their particular needs which, let's face it, don't have more than a passing resemblance to what's sometimes called by old-fashioned civil servants the public interest.
 
So it was I decided to meet one of the lawyers first thing today, on the basis if I can't get my lot to do the right thing, maybe the law can. And M confirmed that a) there is no legal requirement for BIS to run anything past BSI, and b) we need to put the match right asap, since, as the lawyers have told us before, there are big potential lawsuits looming if we don't.
 
Back at my desk was an email from Barbara, first asking me how I was (!), although I suspect this was mostly for the record rather than genuine concern. Mind you, while I was half-way through replying she actually made the physical trip to my desk where she fixed me with her 10" close 'genuine' stare, I guess to show she really did want to know (freaked out and wishing I wasn't backed up against the edge of my desk, B, as it happens). She then went on to imply that she was on message - apparently unaware that none of us have any idea what the message is any longer; but I think she meant to get the new test in by April 2016 to please the Ministers and at least lower the lawyers' blood pressure a few degrees. Then again, I don't trust her.
 
After that, I wrote to Oliver Letwin who'd asked for an update. I met him at No 9 Downing Street last year, along with three other officials; and he'd had shown concern about all the cancers that might be arising from FRs in our sofas. I'd told him that our new test would hugely reduce FRs and he'd been pleased to hear that. Is he different to other Tory Ministers, in that he wants to put public health before profit? I guess we'll see. [On 5 July 2017, George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian about how 'The Red Tape Initiative', including Letwin, met on the day Grenfell Tower blazed, to discuss how they make further cuts to safety legislation. So maybe not . . . ]
 
Oh, and today the Minister received a letter from our old friend and FR-lover, Paul Fuller, ex-President of CFOA, who was at the round table meeting, spouting nonsense. He'd copied in others like his old FR-loving mate, Dave Sibert, of the FBU. Nice to see the two firefighter unions coming together to . . . um, make sure our sofas remain flammable. The tactics in the letter are clear and predictable: they now want to run the new match test into the 'full review' of the FFRs which of course needs to go through BSI, thereby of course creating delays that can go on for as long as they want them to. Incredibly, he claimed to know nothing about the full review, which took place largely between 2011-12, even though his Presidential predecessor attended loads of meetings, along with Mr Sibert.
 
So, why do Fuller, Sibert, Sir Ken, etc, want to delay changes that will make the public safe and protect their own firefighters from toxic smoke which causes cancers and other illnesses? Steve and I discussed this the other day, and we think at one level it's as simple as they like to be part of 'The Boys' Club' - to get access to the top (round or otherwise) table; to own union credit cards; to attend lots of charity dinners; to feel important; to mix with MPs and other 'respectable' types - to feel they're 'steering the ship', 'keeping a firm hand on the tiller', 'enjoying well-earned perks'; lining themselves up for honours and more epaulets on their shoulders. While at the same time remaining pig-ignorant of the damage they're causing to the public (either because they actually are pig-ignorant or, in one case at least, choose to be when it suits).
 
Me? Well, let's just say I got thrown out of the boy scouts for starting a revolution at summer camp.
 

From my journal, February 2015, after the Minister's round table meeting.
 
Let's just say I could have written the meeting note before the meeting. All the whingers sensed their chance and reverted big time to the old (completely unfounded) complaints:
 

• Not enough evidence
• We want a full review
• Should go through British Standards

 
John - the only one from BEIS with permission to speak - said absolutely nothing to any of the whinging which was backed up but not one piece of evidence, just a lot of porky pieing. John apparently having forgotten that evidence is what the Minister had asked for. Not that she was exactly threatening Sherlock Holmes' reputation in her examination of the veracity of what was put to her.
 
A couple of days after the round table, John and Barbara held a 'wash-up' ('bury the facts') meeting with each other, me excluded, and apparently decided that everything was just dandy. Meaning that their backsides are in no need of protecting, for the moment at least. I emailed them to say we need to give the Minister the counter-arguments to the whingers, especially in light of her saying : "Powerful argument" to David King's lies that were prefaced, amazingly, by him saying, "Leaving aside the evidence . . . ". But Barbara replied to say that the Minister was 'shrewd' and would have seen through them, having forgotten, apparently, that only a couple of months ago she was claiming that the Minister was not bright enough to understand the various factors around the new test. I guess one's IQ is directly proportional to the needs of whoever is assessing it.
 
Yesterday, we received a summons to go see Tracy [Jo Swinson's assistant] at 4.15. John was off somewhere, giving a talk, which may or may not be why Tracy chose that time (Steve and I are convinced she's been brainwashed by John and is in cohoots). Barbara and I go up to find Tracy is in with the Minister . . . and we wait . . . and we wait.  Around five o'clock, we leave the waiting room to find Tracy back at her desk having apparently forgotten about us. More power games, no doubt.
 
We go to a meeting room with her and she gives us what to me was totally predictable feed-back from the Minister. Swinson was 'very pleased' with the meeting and now wants:
 
1)   British Standards to do their 12-month 'fast track' thing (what was that about her shrewdly seeing through the nonsense, B?).
 
2)   Get more evidence - unspecified of course.
 
3)   Get on with the full review.
 
I try to inject some sanity, in amongst Barbara's simpering agreement. But all I get from Tracy is dagger eyes and little exasperated sighs, as if I've just shat in her handbag. There are several forms of self-brainwashing; she's adopted the superior stance, choosing to see the objector as someone who just doesn't 'get it', without actually ever describing what constitutes 'it' but which I believe is simply 'do not stand in the way of my career path'.
 
I try: " We already have all the evidence!" and "British Standards is not the correct process!" and "British Standards are going to spend 12 months coming up with a formula we already have!" [Actually, I was wrong about this: in the event, they didn't bother coming up with anything at all.] But all this produces is rolling eyes and condescending sneers in young Trace.
 
Afterwards, B and I have quite a long conversation. I really do believe she suffers/benefits from a kind of madness that is to do with compartmentalising her brain. Hence, when I say, "Barbara - it's really embarrassing to ask British Standards to spend 12 months on a foam formula that isn't needed and already exists," she says, "We can get some people on to the BS committee who will understand that this is what the Minister wants." Then chooses simply not to hear me reply: "a) it's not our committee, and b) even if it was, you can't ask professional people to spend time and money doing something so pointless." [In this I was proved right when later in the year, after John and Barbara had persuaded British Standards to hold a committee meeting, BS decided in the event to disown the meeting and not even publish a meeting note (unprecedented, I understand) on the grounds that their senior management caught on and ruled that BS has no place in deciding government policy.]
 
She also told me a 'story' that she said she told Steve too. (Incidentally, another of her delusions is that she's taken to mis-quoting Steve to me in order to back-up her arguments, which tells me that she has no concept of what a real working relationship is like, i.e. I know she's misquoting partly because I know what Steve would and wouldn't say on the new match test and partly because he told me anyway.) Her story is about how brilliant her bothers and sisters were but in different ways (she fixed me with a 'significant' stare at this point and, yes, a Tsunami of irony was heading our way) - Steve and I might be good at explaining our perception of things, she said - at which point I irritated her by interrupting, saying it's not about our perception; it's about evidence and proven scientific reasoning. And before she could get back to her 'story', I turned the screw by using the 'E' word, pointing out that at the Experts meeting she'd called, she had every expert tell her the current test fails and the new one will succeed. What she said to that was truly extraordinary:
 
"You were studying Phil Reynolds closely - " (Which was not actually true - again, she was exaggerating something I'd said, which was that I'd noticed his floundering reaction when Steve asked the question, "Does everyone agree that the new test is sound?") - "so you didn't hear me say that I didn't. No one heard me say that I didn't understand it." To which I could only reply, "But you're not an expert, Barbara." To which she said: "They didn't explain it to me. I needed more evidence."
 
I really don't know where to begin in unpicking this amazingly ego-centric 'reasoning' but what in effect I think she's really saying is:
 
"I didn't want to listen to the unanimous verdict of the experts that I'd invited, and therefore didn't go to the Minister and tell her we were good to go, which in turn would have brought in the changes that would secure the Department's biggest Red Tape challenge project, save industry lots of money and, most important of all, would have stopped people dying horrible deaths - because I decided that I didn't understand them."
 
Today, Barbara is still all happy-clappy, because she thinks she sees a way out of the corner she's painted herself into. She actually said to me, "You still have the project," the only problem there being that she and John caved into pressure from the villains in denial of our fully-evidenced new test. Which means only two things:
 
1)   They'll cave in in future, too.
 
2)   The villains will be even bolder next time.
 
She's now agreeing to the Minister's request, that we get the new test in by April 2016 but I'm thinking that there are now a lot of difficult battles to face before that ever happens [and to date, it still hasn't], and we have a totally dysfunctional team to face them with.
 
I could walk away and may even get a promotion at another job (something Barbara has hinted at) but the problem I have is that these are ghastly, immoral people and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. As Steve said to me the other day: integrity is everything. Without it, well, you end up as a Barbara, John or Tracy with all your energy spent on protecting your career and pension, hoping that your brain remains compartmentalised for the rest of your days so you never have to feel any guilt at the suffering caused by your actions, or in the case of John happily counting your loot from a grateful chemical industry.
 
here to edit.

February 2015

Attached here is the official note, with my comments, of a 'round table' meeting held by Jo Swinson, the BIS Minister for the Furniture Regulations, and a selection of stakeholders. The official reason for the meeting was that Swinson wanted to hear a range of stakeholders' views before deciding on the fate of the proposed new match test. However, she already knew every view going; probably, the real reason for the meeting was that she didn't want to leave government (as she almost certainly would in a few months time, after the election) with such important safety measures unresolved.

The result of this meeting was that Swinson instructed BIS officials to a) commission British Standards to produce a new test foam, then b) implement the new match test in April 2016. The British Standards work was put strongly to her by stakeholders at this meeting. However, that work was never done and the match test remains unimplemented.

I think the reasons for this should become rather obvious when reading the actual words of those present at the meeting. 

Elsewhere on this blog I report that I've challenged some of those present at the round table meeting to explain why they advocated delays to the match test for extra work to be done but never actually did it. No reply so far!

The meeting started with Toni Eldridge of Trading Standards giving a talk on the current and new match tests (as commissioned to do so by BIS), explaining in effect that the current test is failing in most cases, and that the new test will put right the problems involved. You may then wonder why almost everyone who subsequently spoke completely ignored what she'd said. Well, it might help to explain why if you take into account that the three massive industries most involved were (and are) currently gaining from the failed current test and would lose considerably from the new one, i.e. -

 - The flame retardant industry (and its associated friends) would lose up to 50% of profits from products in cover fabrics overnight and possibly the whole lot very soon after.

 - The chemical treatment industry would be heavily criticised in the short term when the introduction of the new test confirmed the erratic nature of the current test plus its capacity to allow the undertreatment scam to profit producers at the risk of the general public. In the long term, they would possibly lose all their business too, since the new test allows for the development of barrier technologies that require no chemical treatment.

 - The furniture industry, mainly because the introduction of the new test would expose the fact that they have been selling flammable, unsafe products to consumers for decades and knowingly since at least August 2014 - exacerbated, of course, by the fact that they had either not embraced the new test fully (probably due to the same fear) or, as in the case of at least one major retailer (present at this meeting), had actively opposed it.