Unless Labour stand up to the public, we will never have functioning services

[Rainbowsponge]

Which, obviously, will never happen.

Anybody who works in a public service - schools, NHS, any government department - will tell you the public have become more entitled, more aggressive, and are absolutely bombarding them with their rights to complain, have decisions double checked, have their case reviewed again, call meetings, and so on.

You only need to read on here the sort of minor incident a parent will then hop onto their emails and bombard their child’s teacher with messages about. It takes them 2 minutes to fire off an angry email, but this then sparks a chain of events which takes the teacher a long time (in addition to all their other work) to sort out and go through the relevant processes.

So, AIBU to think rather than throwing more money at bloating the systems, the government need to give people in public facing roles more powers to simply refuse to engage with trivial or irrelevant complaints?

It would also have the effect of allowing people to focus on their actual jobs and therefore reduce waiting lists, backlogs and so on. It feels like this culture of expecting instant and endless interaction from public servants is breaking the system as much as the underfunding.

I think it's societal attitude - as said previously 'consumers not citizens'

We have become the worst sort of consumers - we want a wide choice of products, at low low prices (preferably free), we want them delivered instantly to our doorstep with us putting in no effort at all and if we don't like it then we expect to be able to send them back - with someone else paying the cost for our decisions.

I cannot imagine how any of us would cope if we returned to a time where if you wanted something you had to go out and find it yourself. There was likely limited choice and you would need to queue up and pay for it yourself. If you didn't like it rather than there being a fault then that was your problem.

We need to be better citizens, considering that we are one of many and when we take more than we need, we are preventing others from having anything at all.

This needs to come from the top though - we need fairer taxation of those who have way more than they need so we can ensure a basic level for all.

@Nofilteratall and yet the teacher doesn't let child a quietly colour away even though it's regulating their emotions and keeping them quiet and concentrating so instead they are being disruptive. Child b should be able to flash a card and able to discretely leave the room to calm down but the teacher doesn't like this and makes a fuss and upsets child b who can't leave.. Child c needs colour paper and the teacher to repeat what they are saying just once to help them but the paper has been forgotten and the fact the child can't remember. And then we have chaos.

Or perhaps the teacher fears being judged if the child is allowed to colour in quietly as ‘all pupils must make progress in every lesson’. And they’ve been told that children can’t be out of class. There’s no money for coloured paper. And by this point some of the others are restless and throwing pencils. And yes then we have chaos and your average teacher decides they’ve had enough. Next week none of those children have a teacher, just an unqualified cover supervisor who doesn’t even have the minimum of training and doesn’t know any of the children or their needs.

Didnt Tony Blair say this was one of his regrets of the time he was in government?

@DeerOhDear where are these children “discretely leaving” to? Who is supervising them? You can’t have children just popping out and wandering off. No doubt the teacher would face the consequences of something happened to that child.

Chaos because the teacher is unable to juggle a complicated mix of opposing ‘needs’ as well as teach 25 other pupils? Do you really not see the issue?

Which is exactly the point I was making. Not enough specialist staff to help with such a huge range of often conflicting needs and the ones who suffer the most are the children. Caused by underfunding much more than ‘ inadequate ‘ teaching.
I think we’re both saying the same thing here.
Schools and teaching have been decimated by the tories so here’s hoping Labour can start making steps to improve it.

Post pandemic we saw the rise of what I would call the ‘Amazon prime parent’ - I want it and I want it now.
staggers me how little concept parents have about what schools can achieve and timescales required ( and god forbid the parents have to take responsibility)

It’s not just education- ring the GP and the phone message will remind you to be polite and that receptionists are doing the best they can

I have seen people in restaurants click their fingers at staff, look for any tiny reason to have a go at the young staff and so many try not to pay

Ask anyone in the ambulance service or police and they will have plenty of examples of being abused etc

People can get frustrated- we know that - but the public at large have basically been told they can have anything, they can have it with a bow on if they want - and if they don’t get it the public sector worker is deliberately blocking them.
Anyone been in A and E recently and seen nurses being spat at and sworn at ?

We need a reality check about exactly what the taxes raised in the country can actually fund and not believe in the magic money tree and bottomless pit.
Sometimes you don’t get everything you want - take a breath and treat people with respect

I do feel that we as a nation pander to people's unrealistic expectations in a way I haven't seen in other countries. I definitely think that the squeaky wheel gets the first oil. The problem with this is that difficult people get treated with kid gloves, sometimes to the detriment of others who can't complain so effectively.

But we shouldn’t need that level of assistance in mainstream state schools. That sounds more like a special school doesn’t it?

Yes it does. But the majority of special schools have been closed under the guise of inclusion, without the funding moving to mainstream to meet the need.

No. For every trivial complaint/ concern, there is usually a legitimate one that someone will brush off as trivial.

Better to invest in appropriate staffing levels and training so the reasons for complaints are reduced.

Why on earth people won't give this new government more than five minutes to get to work before bleating their latest reason why Labour can't succeed is utterly beyond me.

I think that’s the problem, though, isn’t it? Complaining is now a way of life for many and petty or selfish complaints don’t reflect the numbers of genuine ones that go unreported.

And even if we spent everything on better services the complaints would just get more and more unreasonable. It’s a problem with people. Look at the FOI and data protection abusers: they’re a whole new squadron of time-consuming, resource-sapping arses.