THE only thing to do with good advice is pass it on, said Oscar Wilde, because it is never of use to oneself. But the public sector is awash with people happy to dispense wisdom to others, which suggests that if Wilde was right, there is a lot of advice sloshing around the sector which may not necessarily be acted upon.

Hospital Doctor (Dec 1) says that one NHS trust has paid “millions of pounds” to a consultancy firm for advice on an efficiency drive. The trust says that it is pleased with the return on its investment, but a disgruntled insider says that the paid consultants came up with “a lot of suggestions that the junior doctors had suggested three months earlier”.

If the best advice is the advice you want to hear, then the Government is in for a fright. Health Service Journal (Dec 1) says that proposed changes to mental health legislation have drawn flak from the Department of Health’s own advisory group. The controversial Mental Health Bill could worsen racial inequalities in mental health care, the group says.

It’s a fine line between sound advice and the sound of people interfering, and the think-tank Demos suggests that central government advisers are falling into the latter camp. The Times Educational Supplement (Dec 2) says that “Labour’s favourite think-tank” has suggested that attempts by local authorities to build effective children’s services departments are being undermined by these “advisory” roles. The problem is a lack of clarity about what national advisers are meant to do, and relationships between central and local government are damaged as a result, Demos says.

For anyone seriously searching for advice on young people there is only one source — young people themselves. Children Now (Nov 30) includes two pages of comments from youngsters on the adults who work with them. “Jamie”, 10, likes his social worker, but has a couple of complaints. “Sometimes she’s grumpy and she could be a bit more interesting.”

Jamie would probably like Alan November, “a technology guru from the US” — who sounds very interesting — says the TES. His advice to teachers is to post lessons on the internet so that pupils can play them at their leisure on their iPods. “Don’t think about it — just do it,” he says, adding that schools should hire teachers in distant countries to answer pupils’ e-mailed homework queries should they arise “at 2am or during holidays”.

Sound advice. Pass it on.

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