I’ve just had to moan at the Beeb (again). They have been reporting in the social housing report saying that claims of “queue jumping” are proved wrong by evidence that “equal numbers” are in social housing. Der, queue jumping is about the time spent waiting not the final results.

Does it matter? If equal numbers of ethnic groups are housed (by which I assume they mean proportional to the population or to the applicants or … it could get quite complicated!), anyway if some sort of equality is in place isn’t everyone (except the BNP) happy?

I doubt it. If you have been waiting for years for housing you are not going to happy! If authorities deny problems then extremists pick up supporters and if someone can provide a scape goat to aim your anger at then it takes strong person not wallow in a blame fest.

So yes it does matter because by potentially miss-reporting angry people will feel unrepresented and be driven into the arms of the BNP etc.

Has this got anything to do with IT? Only that accuracy is important - maybe that is a lesson I learned coding. Many of us create / review reports, read / generate statistics, make / influence management decisions and doing it right and being seen to do right can make a huge difference to work force moral.

I am starting a campaign to find a new term for someone who wants things to be right - perfectionist, pedant are negative terms. Is there already a word for someone who expects the details to be right when they matter but doesn’t get fussy when they don’t? I can’t think of one so I’m inventing “accuratist” - I expect it’s copyright to a watch company!