There are some Monday mornings when you open your inbox, skim through the usual collection of newsletters and headlines and find one article makes you stop dead. You read it once, then twice because your brain refuses to accept that you’ve understood it correctly. Surely I’ve missed something – there must be another paragraph coming that explains this is only a temporary position, or that further action is already underway.
Instead, you discover that what you thought couldn’t possibly be true is exactly what has been announced. Those are the moments when disbelief gives way to a far more uncomfortable question: how on earth have we reached a point where the bodies created to protect the public appear to be telling us they’ve run out of road while the harm continues?
I’ve been for a brisk walk, washed up my son’s dishes from last night (!) and still keep coming back to the same thoughts: why do we spend years debating whether public bodies need more powers, only to watch them behave as though those powers are ornamental once they arrive? It’s a bit like buying a Rottweiler to guard your house only to discover it has been professionally trained to politely drop its toy at the feet of any intruders – somewhere along the line, have we lost the confidence to use authority ?
What disturbs me most is not even the decisions themselves; it is the difficulty I have understanding how someone can take on a role with a responsibility to serve and protect the public, yet ultimately choose not to act when action is needed. Imagine the response if an enlisted soldier failed to go on patrol in a hostile environment because they had misplaced their weapon. There would quite rightly be consequences, because their role carries a duty and that duty carries expectations. Yet back home, in the world of public protection and online safety, there sometimes appears to be an institutional belief that doing nothing to prevent further harm is somehow the safer or more acceptable option. Perhaps the new approach is simply to set up camp, put the kettle on, raise the flag, blow the trumpet and allow the very problem those powers were created to address to continue marching on. What makes this even more difficult for me to comprehend is the human reality behind these decisions.
In this instance, we are not talking about an abstract policy issue or a theoretical risk, but about bereaved parents who have spent years seeking answers, accountability and action after their children accessed a suicide-related website. To those families, a response of “we are sorry, but there is nothing more we can do” cannot simply be viewed as an administrative conclusion. It raises a far more fundamental question: if the purpose of these powers is to protect vulnerable people and prevent further harm, at what point does continued inaction become unacceptable?
But if you don’t act, well, there is always the opportunity to explain why action wasn’t possible: commissioned a review, hold another stakeholder meeting and in due course issue another fifty-page document outlining the extraordinary complexity of the situation. Before long, the paperwork becomes the evidence of effort, the meetings become the evidence of progress and the absence of action becomes wrapped up in the language of responsible decision-making. Bureaucracy has become remarkably skilled at creating the appearance of movement while leaving the original problem exactly where it was. The wheels keep turning, the documents keep growing, the statements keep being issued and yet the people who needed protection are left wondering when all that activity will finally translate into something that actually makes a difference.
The strange thing is that nobody ever asked these organisations to regulate the easy stuff: we don’t need regulators to deal with situations where everybody agrees and nobody is being harmed. They exist precisely because there are moments when someone needs to make an uncomfortable decision that may upset some people – that’s literally the job. If your instinct, every time something difficult lands on your desk, is to explain why you can’t possibly intervene, you have to ask yourself exactly why you don’t find something that suits you better like making jam from your kitchen. Senators Blumenthal, Hawley, Moreno and many others would have a field day interviewing those responsible for what I have seen today.
Perhaps we should look at bringing more people into these organisations with an operational mindset – those who are used to making difficult decisions, accepting responsibility and acting when hesitation carries consequences. Our veterans, particularly those from the most demanding services, are not waiting for applause, headlines or medals for campaigns that officially never happened in the annals of history. They understand that sometimes the job is simply to do what is necessary, protect those who need it and take responsibility for the outcome. Just my opinion…
I also think we’ve become conditioned to accept excuses that we’d laugh at anywhere else. Imagine calling the fire brigade because you have a house fire and being told, “We appreciate your concerns and have carried out an extensive assessment of the flames. At this stage we believe further intervention presents operational challenges, but please be assured we continue to monitor the situation.” – nobody would tolerate it for five minutes. Yet somehow, when the harm is online, we’re expected to nod sympathetically while the people entrusted with protecting the public explain why protecting the public has turned out to be rather more difficult than anticipated.
Then comes my favourite phrase of all: “We’ve reached the limit of our powers.”
Have you? Really? Every avenue explored? Every technical solution considered? Every legal argument tested? Every partnership exhausted? No tech can block this website? Or have you simply reached the limit of your appetite to have the difficult fight? Those are two very different things, and I think the public is becoming increasingly good at spotting the difference.
We’ve seen this pattern time and again in Britain: dangerous buildings repeatedly flagged before disaster forces immediate action. Frauds allowed to flourish despite years of warnings from victims. Illegal waste dumping continuing because enforcement is “challenging”. Rogue landlords operating for years despite complaint after complaint. Regulators acknowledging problems with a sympathetic expression before quietly explaining that their hands are tied. Funny how those hands often become remarkably untied once enough people have been harmed and a public inquiry is announced.
Perhaps that’s the greatest irony of all. Somehow, after the damage is done, organisations suddenly discover powers, resources and urgency that apparently didn’t exist beforehand. Overnight there are taskforces, emergency funding, enforcement teams and ministerial statements. It makes me wonder whether the barrier was ever capability at all.
I don’t think the public expects perfection from public bodies, nobody should – we understand that there are legal boundaries and competing priorities. What I struggle with is the growing culture of institutional learned helplessness, where organisations appear to convince themselves that because a problem is difficult, it must therefore be untouchable. That’s not regulation, to me, that’s waving a white flag dressed up as governance.
I can’t help thinking about organisations that spend years telling Parliament they need more teeth; they explain why the existing powers aren’t enough, why legislation needs strengthening and why they simply cannot do the job properly without greater authority, more resources and a bigger budget. Parliament eventually agrees and gives them exactly what they asked for. However, as soon as the first genuinely difficult case arrives, instead of baring those new teeth, they quietly remove them, place them in a glass on the bedside table and explain that there is nothing more they can do.
Parliament doesn’t give organisations teeth so they can smile for the cameras during media interviews or boast about them in annual reports. It gives them teeth so they can bite when the circumstances demand it. Nobody expects a regulator to lunge at every problem that crosses its path, but equally, nobody expects it to spend years campaigning for stronger powers only to leave them soaking quietly in a glass when a real test arrives. If Parliament entrusts an organisation with significant powers, I expect it to use them. Not recklessly or for political theatre and certainly not as a knee-jerk reaction, but confidently, proportionately and in accordance with the very remit for which those powers were granted: protecting the public. If the default response to serious and ongoing harm is another carefully crafted explanation of why intervention is impossible, then perhaps the real question is no longer whether these organisations have enough powers. Perhaps we should be asking whether they still have the confidence, determination and appetite to use the powers they already possess. After all, authority is not measured by what sits in legislation; it is measured by whether anyone is prepared to use it when it matters most.
