POLICY IDEAS NEED TO DELIVER AND NEED TO BE DELIVERED

Public policy is for people not policy makers

How often has one come across the highly intelligent person with the brilliant ideas who can map out a series of steps and actions (A policy) and who believes that by actually undertaking that process that will be the end of the story. Things will happen, outcomes will be delivered, problems resolved, the job is done and the world is a happier place. The sheer brilliance of the idea and the intelligence of the person who formulates the policy will be sufficient to carry the day. Nothing else is really needed or so they think. The end is never achieved by putting forward brilliant policies and waiting for things to happen. We can never divorce policy from its implementation. A policy which cannot be implemented in the real world is not a policy it is a waste of everyone's time.

 

So what happens when policies which look really good in a ministerial briefing document don't come up to scratch?  There are several potential causes. Policies may be prepared by people who do not know of, or who do not share the life experiences of, the people who the policies are supposed to benefit. They think that everyone thinks and acts like they do. When the policies unravel, they just do not understand why. Logically,according to their knowledge and experience they should work but they don't deliver the intended outputs and outcomes. This underlines the need for plurality and diversity not only in the types of policies themselves but also in the people who prepare those policies.

Diversity is not always evident in the higher echelons of government policy making professionals and that is a great shame. Another important point about a lack of diversity in these areas is that people of the same background with the same experiences and the same cultural outlooks will, yes you've guessed it, approach the resolution of social problems and challenges in very similar ways. Other people outside this magic circle of achievement will not get a look in which is always a great shame and also can contribute to policies which look good on paper,never working in practise.

There is also the cultural barrier, these bright people who come up with wonderful ideas about how to resolve problems and challenges are often not the type of person who likes getting their hands dirty or who wants to get things done. They prefer to think about things rather than do them. A lot of people are very intelligent and talented but that in itself does not make them effective. The cultural divide also expresses itself in the fact that very often, these people look down on the grunts who are supposed to make these splendid ideas work. The plumbers who are there to ensure that the water flows through the pipes. Yet without the plumbers doing their job effectively -- no policy will ever succeed and the policy wonks must learn to love and respect the plumbers but this does not always happen.

What about testing policies out before they are implemented? If there is a policy idea then has it worked in another setting? If not why not? If yes then is the setting comparable with our own living environment or not? Can we make these judgements if a policy appears to have worked in a setting but that setting is very different to the life we lead? If the policies have not been tested in other settings then can we pilot them in our own setting? Will we learn from that and apply the lessons to make sure we do not make mistakes we could have avoided  at the outset? Will the lessons be learnt in time?

The UK tax credits system is a good example of where things go wrong. Policy makers assumed that all recipients of tax credits would easily be in a position to undertake an annual reckoning with the HMRC and settle any anomalies. Sounds really sensible until one digs a bit deeper and finds out that people who are struggling with their finances live from week to week and even day to day. They are not in such a good place to do a logical annual tax credit reckoning up because many of them lead unstable and chaotic lives, lives that are very different from the policy makers who dreamt up the policies in the first place.

Practical application is the key here -- will the policies work and have they been properly tested. We need to do this more and more so that we can solve policy challenges in a better way.

Good ideas are important but so are the plumbers who make them work if they have been proved to be workable in ther first place. We cannot forget that.
 

The CIPFA FUNDING ADVISORY SERVICE

Launching a Brand New CIPFA Networks Service

 

 

I am delighted to inform you of the upcoming launch of our new CIPFA Funding Advisory Service (FAS).

This new CIPFA network aims to examine (and tailor to each subscribing authority) an impact statement relating to all the funding streams currently available to your authority, explaining the drivers of change and sharing sensitivity analysis modelling projections, on how these grants are likely to impact your council's overall resource envelope, both in-year and over the medium term.

Balancing budgets and anticipating all revenue funding streams is not just good business in local government – it is a legal requirement, and this new network is designed to offer you maximum support in understanding what your grant levels will be, during these most uncertain times of austerity.

A change in the grant distribution formula, further reductions in financial support from central government and the increasing switch to more localised social, economic and business growth indicators, are all factors that will bring constant change to your actual grant levels.

For many practitioners these are changes that will prove very difficult to quantify and apply to their authority, so the launch (in September, 2014) of this new funding advisory service should prove to be very timely indeed – to help understand and anticipate these very complex funding areas.


Specific areas of grant support/ awareness that will be offered to members of the FAS, will cover the following:

• Formula Grant
• Retained Rates Scheme
• Council Tax & New Homes Bonus
• Social Care Integration
• Better Care Fund
• Other Specific Grants (including capital finance).


The FAS is a subscription based service and is competitively priced at £2,000 p.a. for District Councils, £2,500 for all other authorities. It is a CIPFA network which is offered in partnership with Pixel Financial Management Limited, who have been providing guidance and advice in these grant areas to authorities for many years.

This new service then, brings together significant policy, practitioner and technical expertise for authorities, that is simply unrivalled elsewhere.


If you are interested in knowing more about the Funding Advisory Service and/or you would like to register an interest in subscribing to the FAS, please contact Cliff.Dalton@cipfa.org  Or Roman.Haluszczak@cipfa.org

 

 Many thanks

Cliff and Roman

JEREMY BENTHAM AND THE MORALITY OF PAY DAY LOANS

 

Jeremy Bentham - Someone who could run Wonga?

 

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) the great utilitarian English philosopher may have more in common with pay day loans companies than you think. In his writings he treated money just like any other good, whereas other writers saw things rather differently. They argued that money had four functions which differentiated it from normal goods namely that it was a; medium of exchange, measure of value, standard of deferred payments and a store of wealth for the future. These reasons were meant to underpin the argument that money just isn't like other goods and should be subject to different rules. The price of money, its rate of interest, is determined by many complex factors and there is in reality, a term structure of interest rates reflecting how the market for money might behave at different points in the future. All this is fine however in several cases some market rates for borrowing certain sums of money are so excessively higher than most other market rates of interest, that we begin to worry and wonder why that is.

Jeremy Bentham's arguments need to be restated to assist us in our deliberations. Adam Smith initially argued that people who borrowed money were often poor and needed help and therefore he was in favour of ceilings on interest rates. Jeremy Bentham argued that if someone lends his money to someone else he needs to be compensated for foregoing his right to that money for himself. Any laws that were designed as ceilings on interest rates would discourage lending and would mean that there was less lending for poorer people and innovative businessmen alike. This would hurt the standard of living of both the rich and the poor. If the poor could not borrow money they would turn to other ways of getting it namely crime and there would also be a burgeoning black market in loans to the poor which would be unregulated and uncontrolled. In time, Adam Smith was persuaded by Bentham's arguments and changed his stance on interest rate ceilings.

Attempts to control the market are very difficult to achieve and often prove to be unsuccessful. Higher interest rates for certain borrowers reflect the attached risk premium attached to them. The lender wishes to be compensated more because he is lending to someone who is less likely to pay everything back.

Will poor people who are trapped by high interest rates benefit more from interest rate ceilings or a larger number of ethical lenders entering the market? Although imposing an interest rate ceiling looks initially attractive -- poorer people will benefit much more from a higher number of ethical lenders who will hopefully help educate them in financial matters and lend at more reasonable rates.

The lenders who charge excessive rates can be identified and encouraged to reform themselves by being subject to public pressure ( The Starbucks Effect) but the negative aspects of an interest ceiling policy should be brought out in the open. It is not necessarily a quick fix for the poor - we need a better way.
 

 

 

http://romanhaluszczak.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

ADAM SMITH AND THE KEY PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC FINANCE

 

Adam Smith also had strong views on public finance

 

Adam Smith (1723-1790) wasn't only the father of laissez faire capitalism, he also had a profound influence on the principles of sound public finance especially as it referred to the revenue raising powers and activities of central government. He was an enemy of monopoly and distorted competition in markets and an advocate of free trade as long as the UK's military position was unharmed. He also had a lot to say regarding the public finances of the state and these are issues we will consider below.

In respect of taxation of he wrote in an era where taxation of the population was characterised as being regressive meaning that larger shares of the income of poorer people were taken as revenue by the state than the shares of richer people's income. He proposed that there should be a proportional tax -- where everyone should pay the same proportion of their income to the state. In modern parlance this would be deemed a flat tax where the average rate of taxation would equal the marginal rate. In Smith's time this was viewed as a radical way of helping the poorer people in society. He did not appear to advance support for a progressive tax system (where richer people pay a higher share of their income to the state than poorer people) -- It is not wholly clear why he did not openly support a progressive approach but it can be surmised that if marginal tax rates were constantly escalating and especially at lower levels of income, this would act as a disincentive for workers to offer more hours of work to their employer. In modern times the effects of such a flat tax would be considerable in terms of its impact on society as a whole -- with those in the middle of the income distribution taking a bigger tax hit than now. Nevertheless Smith's implied focus on the cliff edge dis-incentive effects of high marginal tax rates and applying those high marginal tax rates lower down the income distribution are still important to-day.

He was also a firm believer that tax payers should be kept up to date with the facts of the tax regime which applies to them. Tax payers should know in advance how much they owe and when they are required to pay it. Tax laws should not be changed frequently because this would lead to confusion with uncertain tax flows coming into the state's coffers each year, thus making the state's financial planning process arbitrary and uncertain.This would not bode well for the country's welfare.

Taxes should be levied at a time and in a way that would make it as easy as possible for people to pay them. Taxing capital gains on assets only when the gains  are realised is a good example of this approach. Taxes should be easy and cheap to collect. There should be no need for huge armies of tax collectors and taxes should not undermine taxpayers' economic incentives nor should they create a pervasive climate of tax evasion. In Smith's time the main tax evaders were smugglers but in modern times this has widened a lot to huge multi -national corporations named after fruit and South American rivers. Taxes should be at a level whereby taxpayers will be in a position to pay them,albeit reluctantly. They should not be at a level where taxpayers will move mountains to evade tax payments.

Finally the state should not impose penalties on tax evaders that are so severe that the tax evaders will be financially ruined. The level of penalties should be adequate to ensure that evaders change their behaviours but the medicine applied should not kill the patient. Can this be achieved in the modern era? Many public campaigns have forced companies,like Starbucks, to pay more in UK tax and there are moves to implement general anti avoidance tax rules (GAAR) in the UK.

All these principles are designed to ensure that taxes raise as much as possible for the state whilst minimising the financial blockers to a country's economic growth and to workers' incentives. We need to ensure that governments do not ignore these important principles when they set their tax policies.


 

ADAM SMITH - HOW THE STATE MIGHT ENHANCE AND PROTECT THE WEALTH OF A NATION



Markets left purely to their own devices will not always achieve equilibrium 

Adam Smith (1723-1790) is well known as the father of the modern capitalist economic system -- especially with his emphasis on efficient manufacturing output and the benefits of the specialisation of labour (Splitting the production of pins into several component parts readily comes to mind). The pin factory example meant that ten people specialising in productive tasks could produce 48,000 pins a day - some 2,000 times more than if the 10 workers had not specialised at all. Firms could vastly increase their production and productivity but they would need to be in a position to sell that increased output. The latter might mean that the UK would need to expand its market for British goods and this would mean foreign trade without barriers. Smith was in favour of free trade as long as it did not increase the military might of the UK's competitors.

However there are some surprising conclusions within Smith's seminal work entitled," The Wealth of Nations"  (1776). For markets to allocate resources optimally some additional conditions must apply and in many popular discussions of Smith's work these are seldom if ever properly examined. The focus is on the laissez faire nature of Smith's thoughts, nevertheless these alternative perspectives do need to be considered by us in this modern day and age.

Smith was in favour of increased production and productivity which would increase a country's national output thus going hand in hand with expanding international trade. However he identified monopoly practises as the enemy of  a country's free trade and economic growth aspirations because monopoly:

1. Inevitably led to higher prices for consumers making them worse of than they could have been.

 

2. He viewed them as " a great enemy to good management." Competition forced managers to be more innovative and more efficient. Monopoly induces managers to stick with tried and trusted profit maximising approaches as they have no need to really do anything radically different. They will only innovate when their monopoly position is threatened by third parties.

 

3. Monopolies were more likely to be successful in pressurising governments to support the status quo in terms of maintaining the monopoly position (Unduly influencing or even corrupting governments) -- Sounds a bit familiar?

 

4. Monopolies lead to the mis-allocation of economic resources -- investment would go into monopolies precisely because they were monopolies not because the goods they produced were necessarily needed by the economy as a whole at the prices that the monopolies sold them at.

 

So whilst he was generally regarded as the father of modern capitalism that is not to say that he did not see a role for the state in guaranteeing economic freedoms . He viewed the role of the state in the following ways:

1. As a vigilant sentinel against the rise of monopoly power in the economy which would guarantee competition and a path towards the greater optimisation of the use of resources.

 

2. Defending the nation against external threats of aggression

 

3. Maintaining internal order and defence. The police and the judiciary and the rule of law. Without the rule of law economic and property rights in a competitive environment could not be protected.

 

4. Approving the provision of public goods where there were significant externalities.

 

The fourth point above is perhaps the most controversial. In a simple world the buyer buys a good or service from the seller. The buyer pays a price for the goods or services and consumes them whilst the producer receives payment for the goods and services which cover his costs of production and gives him a surplus to either consume and\or re-invest in his enterprise.

 

However such transactions are often not a purely private affair between the buyer and the seller. From certain types of transactions outsiders to the main transaction can themselves experience gains or losses and indeed the sum of these gains and losses can be argued to represent the gains and losses of society as a whole resulting from actions which were initially meant to just affect the two original contracting parties. The best examples of externalities are pollution - emanating from industrial processes (a negative externality) and  education\training (a positive externality).

 

The moral of externalities here is that without state intervention -- the market on its own could not hope to guarantee that nearly enough would be spent to properly combat pollution to ensure it does not critically affect our society nor can it guarantee that there will nearly be an adequate level of education\training for all in society. Poor children could not obtain the level of education commensurate with their needs and aspirations because their parents may not be able to pay the market rate for it. Pollution causes costs and dis-benefits which may not much affect the two initial parties to the transaction. These two parties do not have the incentive to, or the financial means of, ensuring that, society is safe from their polluting activities.

 

Hence in both these situations the state would need to ensure that the benefits of positive externalities were amplified as much as possible and the dis benefits  of negative externalities were similarly muted as much as possible.

 

The above four points and especially point four, describe the proper role that the state should play in a potentially thriving economy. Adam Smith recognised this and it is a shame that some people who purport to be his followers focus on laissez faire factors seeming to have forgotten what he said about the role of the state.

 

WHO WILL REPLACE MR PATTEN - AND SAVE THE BBC?

 

 

 

Is the BBC fit for modern Britain?
 - Image credited to the Spectator Blog

  

There is a perception in some quarters that for the highest BBC positions there is a template of a person that the interviewers already have in mind at the start of the process. Usually this encompasses an Oxbridge background and a good public school coupled with a knowledge and strong link to the social circles that person will be operating within during his (Yes his) career. Without many if not all of those prerequisites, a lot of other people just will not bother with such a time consuming process because it is loaded against them right from the start.

Mr Patten's appointment really epitomised this process very well as a merry go round for the great and good in British Society. In all honesty,although he has faced some big challenges - Mr Patten's performance has not met with universal approval. This was epitomised by the parliamentary committee grilling he received recently at the hands of my MP Phillip Davies.

The BBC and its executives also need to hold their hands up as there seems to be a culture of mutual support and admiration for that group of people and this was cruelly exposed in the parliamentary committee process when a number of BBC executives were given extra payments to "keep them focused" before they left the Corporation as part of a redundancy process. This should never have been allowed and reflects how detached the upper echelons of the BBC are from the ordinary viewer\listener -- That is why it is so crucial that a new candidate will be able to re-connect the Corporation with the people. Another person from the same background as the existing group of executives just will not achieve that.

Many years ago I remember listening to an interview with a former head of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation who was born in the UK on a council housing estate. One thing that struck me in his interview was his statement that if he had stayed in the UK he would never have achieved the equivalent position in the UK ( Head of the BBC) that he had achieved in Australia. He said that this would have been due to the class perceptions in UK society which are unfortunately still rife.

It would be great if we could get an effective candidate from an untypical background to move the BBC in a new direction (Please witness how old fashioned the BBC looks in comparison to some of the exciting reporting, coverage and commentaries on Al Jazeera). I was surprised to learn that for all its notoriety and fame  BBC 2's "Newsnight" reportedly averages only 600k viewers per night. Is it it a programme for the elite of our society or do we now get our news and information from different sources?

I won't be holding my breath though -- we will probably still get a candidate from the same narrow and shallow pool who will not rock the BBC boat too much. It is, however, a boat that does need to be rocked

HOW HR AND FINANCE CAN ENABLE BETTER PUBLIC SERVICES

Finance and Human Resources -- Can they re-define Public Services ?

The latest blog by CIPFA's Chief Executive - Rob Whiteman entitled  " In Support of Public Services" discusses how the HR and Finance functions need to evolve to make a difference to public service delivery.

It is entirely appropriate that Finance and HR should be enablers of change but very often that is not how they see themselves or indeed how they have been trained or how the organisation culturally perceives them.We can all be cheer leaders for innovation and enabling service managers to do better but if the organisation has never culturally gone down that path and is not really equipped, willing or ready to do that, then everything can go a bit pear shaped unless the ground is properly prepared. There needs to be a will to change and a recognition that change is necessary

 

For Finance and HR to deliver transformed outcomes they must think radically and outside many of their usual orthodox paradigms. How easy is that for them to contemplate? Not as easy as we think  -- Not as easy as it should be.

 

The organisation must be prepared to challenge itself and to try and meet those challenges. Finance and HR must support that process and they must look at themselves as to how they deliver their own services and whether they can be more successful and focused in the new era of austerity and how they need to get those changed services working properly.

 

Talking about doing transformation is all well and good but delivering transformation is very different because by its very definition transformation challenges existing norms and ways of service delivery. Many Finance and HR professionals find it very difficult to move in these new directions. This is very often a personal challenge for them because financial management and HR approaches need to reach out to the staff in an organisation and they must be far more participative,inclusive and dare I say democratic in the way that their  organisational roles evolve. Many HR and finance staff have great difficulties with these new approaches -- some want to change but cannot whilst others don't know how to. More democratic and participative approaches are challenging and time consuming but will ultimately deliver a more rounded and broad based public service.

 

If we do want to engage with our colleagues and foster creativity then lets set up the processes and mechanisms to do that, but are HR professionals, finance people and other senior leaders and managers really ready for some of the messages they might receive? How might they react to them? Are they themselves prepared to be challenged on how they deliver services and why? I am not so sure.

 

To ameliorate the risks of organisational change, HR and Finance professionals need to properly understand change and how it should be tackled. We need a combination of new skills, new approaches and a mindset geared to delivering change in a compassionate and understanding way. For Finance and HR to really innovate there will need to be serious consideration given to ideas and approaches which would not have been acceptable under traditional HR and Finance regimes.  These would involve greater consultation and involvement with non finance and HR specialists in our agendas, the generation of broader more participative approaches and the phasing out of many top down command and control methodologies which are the enemies of innovation.

 

The discussion of innovatory ideas should be done in an open way without prejudice. Some of the strangest ideas work the best in practise and everyone should be allowed to contribute without fear or favour. The collection of ideas from  diverse groups who have a different perspective on services is critical and must be actively encouraged. Top down approaches of white middle aged men in suits will not by themselves be drivers of innovation, participation and democratic control of public and not for profit services -- even if they come from our current Directors of HR and Finance!

 

SHARED SERVICES -- NOT JUST SIMPLY A TALE OF COST REDUCTION

Just Cutting costs is not enough

Given the austerity that many organisations currently face, is the solution to this a pursuit of a potential shared service agenda whose aim is to increase economies of scale for the organisation's service outputs?  Reducing the average cost of these service outputs is a necessary condition of a shared services  approach but is it sufficient on its own to make a successful shared service arrangement? There are huge pressures to cut costs but is it fair to use shared services as a cloak for cost cutting?

In my view shared services cannot just be taken as a route to speedy cost reduction although that is possibly what many practitioners think. There needs to be evidence of increased efficiency and in my view improved service outcomes from a shared service arrangement, without service improvement as a key element a shared service agreement will be an empty shell. It cannot be solely a tool for cost reduction

A shared services arrangement needs to be measured on a before and after basis showing how services have improved from a shared services approach. Prior organisational success in achieving cost improvements and better service delivery outcomes are helpful but the lack of previous success in these areas should not preclude an authority undertaking a shared service journey for the first time, providing it has got the tools and advice to move forward positively in this area.

Where external partners are brought into the shared services arrangement it is important that the contracts and other service agreements amongst all the key players are watertight and that the lead authority or whatever the structure of the shared service is -- has commercially based approaches which are robust and unflinching. This has not been an area where the public sector has excelled in the past and I believe it still has ground to make up here. The responsibility for the areas of service accountability and service risk ( i.e. avoiding service failure) should be clearly defined within any shared service agreement and the focus should be on service outcomes provided we know what outcomes the shared service is working to deliver and what influence it has over those outcomes.

The before and after approach to the performance measurement of shared services needs to be refined and developed to ensure that any authority embarking on a shared services journey should have the best prospects of successful shared service delivery. Cost  reduction can never be the sole measure of shared services success although it must be recognised that many people mistakenly think it will be. This assertion should be rejected

MAINTAINING HIGH STAFF MORALE IN TIMES OF AUSTERITY

 

The Beatings will continue until morale improves? 

 

The positive attitude of staff in the workplace should never be underestimated -- the state of mind in which they approach their work tasks should be as positive and enthusiastic as possible to ensure that optimal outputs and outcomes are delivered. Unfortunately many employers do not see it that way. Having good morale, defined as the spirit of a group and its level of confidence is not taken as seriously as it should be and actions which damage morale are not properly thought through especially their potential consequences for the organisation as a whole.

 

Equality of treatment of people in different and similar circumstances is a challenge which needs to be met or else the outputs and outcomes of the organisation in question,will, in some way, suffer, sometimes in a tangible way like falling revenues and sometimes in a more intangible way in terms of loss of staff happiness, belief and focus.

 

There are also reputational risks from low morale in that staff will not defend and promote their organisation as much as they possibly would have if they had a higher morale. Insensitive and thoughtless actions by management and other work colleagues can destroy or significantly impair workplace morale This aspect of work needs to be taken much more seriously because it can be tackled if there is a will to do so. Team building,bonding,mutual respect and high levels of ethical behaviour can, when mixed together, provide the secret recipe for creating and maintaining high morale amongst work colleagues.

 

When we are bringing forward new ideas do we assess how they might affect the morale of our co-workers and even our own morale? Do we care? Is there a point where certain actions have engendered a belief that the workforce no longer cares much about what will happen as its morale has fallen to new low depths?  Do we constantly assess morale and do we try and improve it in a concrete way if we find it to be unacceptably low? Probably not but we should.

 

Morale is a difficult concept to pin down but the organisational consequences of low morale can be devastating -- We do need to constantly assess its level and gauge the effects on morale of the major business decisions we take --

 

Indeed we should try to ensure that most of our key decisions do not lessen morale and that even those that might reduce morale are mitigated in some way. This should be addressed by us all because in times of austerity trying to maintain high workforce morale becomes doubly challenging but doubly important. High morale is not necessarily linked with high pay -- there are other motivational approaches to maintaining higher morale which should be explored and they include: improved training, broader work experience, research sabbaticals, financial support for alternative work skills, improved succession planning and on the job skills updating --

 

One thing is for sure the workforce's morale will not improve if it continues to take "beatings" -- these beatings are defined as insensitive and ill conceived strategies that harm morale for everyone -- Do we really do enough to avoid those?

SHARED SERVICES 2014 -- AN UPDATE



Sharing Services -- The message of the Future?

This analysis using LGA data is an excellent update on the shared servicesdebate and how it will need to move forward Shared Services Analysis Using LGA Data

This topic will return to this theme in later postings.

MAKING A SUCCESS OF SUCCESSION PLANNING

 

 

 

How can we ensure the baton is passed to the correct person?

 

Succession planning is a reflection of your own corporate mortality. No-one likes doing it -- just like writing your own will it is always something that you put off. Insider or outsider success depends on many factors. If the business needs to radically change from the status quo then an outsider will tend not be trapped by the internal preconceptions of the existing senior management. If an outsider does not or cannot understand how the existing organisational culture needs to be retained,to a greater or lesser degree, or how it can be reformed, then perhaps an insider is the better choice.

It is dangerous to try and make too many hard and fast rules on who will be ultimately successful. Much of it revolves around assessing what needs to be done and in which way the organisation needs to move or not, as the case may be. What is the mission of the organisation in the short to medium to long term and which person can best deliver that mission and over what timescale?
It may be that we are looking at several people - some might be there in the short term to distill the organisation into a leaner place. Whilst others will take this task on once the initial organisational distilling had been completed and they will focus on longer term growth and development. We need to define the organisation's future mission and then identify how that can be achieved and who might be best placed to deliver it and how they will do that.

The mission for Manchester United was to consolidate itself into a major European champions League Force perhaps overtaking Real Madrid and Barcelona - whilst maintaining domestic dominance as well. If that is the case then would you appoint someone who had never achieved similar levels of success before or did not lead the organisation in a certain way? If this person had not achieved these things before was his potential future capacity to succeed in this new environment ever properly tested? Probably not.
In summary we need to know what the future mission of the organisation is and can the new insider or outsider deliver that future mission. Mr Moyes probably could not - but many people said that at the outset of this and they have been proved correct.