MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Deploying resources
This does not stop regional managers, for example, applying these
disciplines within the lay structure:-
I have a very small finance committee at regional level that now
receives bids from all of the lay committees and will not approve
money for the local government service group's work in 2002,
for example, unless they see that work defined and a very clear
link to the organisational plan, as we were saying earlier
(Interviewee M)
Earlier, another Regional Secretary made the point that she saw the
system as helping her, in her dealings with lay activists, managing
demand. A national manager, however, does not think this is being
done strategically:-
The fundamental problem is, one, our performance management
doesn't result in us stopping doing things and therefore all we
are doing is trying to get what we want to do to fit the new
structure -- and that won't work. And that's because, going back
to my earlier thesis, we are not managing demand and we can't
go on increasing our demand without increasing our resources
and you can do that various ways. You can either cut demand
or you can increase resources or you can get more efficient.
What we have been doing over the last ten years is trying to use
our resources more efficiently and only that. We have not
concentrated on reducing demand. (Interviewee B)
There is no further evidence either way on this issue. What is clear is
that UNISON is seriously attempting to relate its resources to its
objectives. Does it, however, deploy resources in ways which reflect
the ethics and principles its managers profess – the moral rules of the
game? One manager relates the principle of minority protection to the
objectives and priorities system, intended to ensure that resources are
deployed on an issue-driven basis:-
In an organisation like Unison we know that the big battalions, or
the big service groups, are more powerful than the small ones
and that maybe the white collar interests are more powerful than
blue collar interests, manual workers or the big groups of
members are more influential than small groups of members --
of course that is a risk that the powerful parts of the organisation
will consume a disproportionate amount of the union's resources
or will be overlooked in the process of consultation and
engagement. So that is a risk but again coming right back to
this question of the new approach. I mean, the new approach is
that we have a set of objectives and priorities that everybody
signs up to. And in signing up to those objectives, there is a
very expensive process of consultation. We haven't got it right
yet but you have got a time frame, a timetable, that enables all
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