MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Resource distribution systems
very important, objectives and priorities are very important and
getting consistency of management across the union is vital to
us.
He refers to objectives and priorities. This is a system of setting the
strategic objectives of the union with the intention that the union’s
activities will proceed in accordance with that prescription. The
process, the General Secretary says is inclusive:-
The one thing that we are working on very, very hard is setting
objectives and priorities for the union. We started last year.
Again, it is something that we brought in after I became General
Secretary -- not just that we have NEC priorities but what you
do, the process is important. What we do now is to involve all
the different stakeholders in the union in drawing up the
priorities.
So UNISON has financial systems which are, in their conception, highly
structured and which the union seeks to link to its corporate objectives
so that resources are in theory made available only where they can be
shown to contribute to their achievement. The system is based on
devolved budgets, as one might expect, in which virement is
sometimes permitted. Very senior managers do not themselves have
budgets but are responsible for budgetary strategy (subject to lay
member involvement, discussed later):-
Yes, (allocation of resources is a role) in a strategic sense but
not operationally. I don't have a budget (Interviewee B)
Although some flexibility seems to be possible:-
One of the first things I did when appointed was -- we didn't
have enough printers, we didn't have enough photocopying
machines, the photocopying machines were constantly breaking
down, we had two printers for all the staff up here -- so I
immediately got printers in. We had no laptops for the staff, I
immediately got laptops in. (Interviewee D)
Allocation of resources to lay member groups was, in at least one
region, highly structured:-
What we ended up doing with all of them was set up a service
level agreement when them to define what they would get, how
they would get it and how we were able to resource that. So
sometimes we do deal with them individually but we are quite
clear the resource that is going to be available to them
(Interviewee K)
And the system seems to be supported by management information, as
the Finance Officer explains:-
281