The Ministry of Creativity
Report 103 Proposes Solution to 9/11 Oversight
 
The latest Report 103 newsletter suggests a new government agency so that we'll never again be forced to admit -- "we never saw it coming."
 
When you think about it, it's not so wild a suggestion.  I've read elsewhere that authors and screenwriters were recruited (or are being considered for recruitment, depending on the report you've read) by the goverment in order to create alternate terrorist scenarios for the government to use in their counter-terrorism efforts.
 
I've posted an abridged version of the Report 103 article below.  The full version will be posted in their archives within a few days.  If you can't wait, sign-up for the newsletter and drop them a line asking for the latest issue to be emailed to you.

Failure of Imagination
As you have probably read elsewhere, the USA's September 11 Commission concluded that a “failure of imagination” prevented America from anticipating and preventing Al Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

My proposal is to create a ministry of creativity that would promote imagination, creativity and innovation in government. It would be staffed by a variety of incorrigible creative thinkers from all kinds of backgrounds. They would have three areas of responsibility.

Firstly, ministry of creativity would form a communications centre for government. All bodies of government would communicate their ideas, activities and knowledge to the ministry. Likewise, the ministry would monitor these bodies, review what it learns and look for synergies.

Secondly, the ministry would provide creative suggestions based [on] ideas submitted, knowledge gained and synergies discovered. They might suggest combining dissimilar government services, removing services or offering all new services. They may even suggest completely changing the way services are delivered.

Thirdly, they would promote creativity and imagination across all services. Moreover, they would have the power to reward people who offer good ideas; ideas that cut costs or help government serve their constituency better.

Finally, I would suggest that an idea management system is implemented across all government agencies and managed by the ministry of creativity.  This would ensure that civil servants with good ideas would be able to communicate the ideas to an office that would appreciate the ideas, reward the idea contributors and be able to implement the ideas.

I'd go further and say that the ideas for improvement not be restricted to civil servants.  Joe and Jane America always have an opinion on the way government 'ought' to be run -- why not give them a forum to play armchair-quarterback... er... armchair-president?