MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Resource distribution systems
Systems
Systems relating to Distribution of Resources
8.9. Referred to above was the fact that UNISON had regional offices and
regional lay democracy structures with some significant responsibilities.
One would, therefore, expect that any budgetary system would involve
allocating some responsibility to regional managers at the very least.
The Finance Officer explains the basis of the budgetary system:-
Unison's approach in budgeting now is what are our objectives
and priorities that we want to carry out next year and beyond
next year and therefore we ought to be budgeting for those
objectives and priorities and not because we have done
something for the last 20 years we would do it for the next 20
years. What is it that we are doing that is something to do with
those objectives and priorities and we will commit our money to
do that, and it is starting a long that road. So your resources
ought to be allocated on that sort of basis.
Managers throughout the organisation will make decisions on
spending through the budget setting, however that goes, and I
am happy in terms of devolution to be able to say to managers,
if at the start of the year you want to spend £1 million on this and
halfway through you decide you have to spend half a million on
that then fine. It is a decision you have made. What I don't
necessarily want to have to do is get involved in virement and
going to committees. You make judgments on whether -- don't
spend it for the sake of spending it, if you only needed half a
million in the first place, then fine. If you do need a further half
million to spend on something else, you make that call. I am not
going to look over your shoulder
The General Secretary explains his approach to this:-
Budgets are very important and devolution of budgets is
important. We want to devolve more responsibility to the
regions so that they take ownership of what they are spending --
but the other side of the coin again is that you have got to make
sure that the budgets are in line with the income. We have been
a little bit lax this year so we are trying to pull back on that, but in
a different way to what we have done before where we have
slashed budgets by 10 percent. What I have asked for from
senior managers is that I want to know what development areas
they wanted for next year, that they think are essential, and how
much they think it is going to cost and if we as a Senior
Management Group believe that these development areas are
worthwhile doing, we'll endorse some of them that we can do
and we will ring fence the budget for that. And then the rest of
the budget has got to come in underneath it. So you are
concentrating on your development areas to let the organisation
grow. So we are trying new ways of doing that. So finance is
280