The Department of Administrative Excellence has announced a new initiative to streamline decision-making. The announcement followed a six-month review, commissioned after staff complained that decisions took too long. The review was overseen by a working group, which reported to a committee tasked with evaluating the group's effectiveness. That committee has now recommended the creation of a permanent Committee on Committees.
Officials insist that the new body will not duplicate existing responsibilities. Its purpose, a spokesperson explained, is to provide "a coherent framework for assessing whether committees are appropriately structured, adequately resourced and sufficiently empowered". Asked who would assess the new committee, the spokesperson confirmed that the question would be considered at its first meeting.
Not everyone is convinced. A junior analyst, speaking anonymously, noted that the department had spent eleven weeks deciding whether to replace a broken printer. The request had passed through three committees before returning to the first, because nobody could confirm which budget covered office equipment. The printer has since been replaced by an employee who brought one from home.
Management rejected the suggestion that this showed inefficiency. The matter, it said, had been resolved "through an informal operational adjustment, outside the formal decision-making structure". The absence of a recorded decision, a spokesperson added, should not be confused with the absence of a successful outcome. Asked whether this meant that the system had worked, the spokesperson said that the question contained assumptions that had not been formally endorsed.
The new committee will meet monthly and report quarterly to an Executive Oversight Panel, which will decide whether the committee has met its objectives. Those objectives will be finalised after consultation with stakeholders, a phase expected to last four months, subject to the availability of meeting rooms.
Fiction note: All people, places and events in this text are fictional.