MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Deploying resources
the different parts, big and small of the organisation to influence
the outcome of the process. Their influence is always going to
be smaller and so, you know, if as an organisation you've got a
limited number of objectives and a limited number of priorities,
there is a big question about how you can meet the needs of
minority interests inside the organisation. But some people
would argue that that's what management is all about. It is
about the allocation of scarce resources and if we try to meet
everybody's needs and aspirations, then we're going to fail and
the big decision, the big challenge is, you know, -- again an
example. There are 13 national officers working in health, there
are seven in local government. I'm talking about National
secretaries, Senior National Officers. Why is that? Does that
reflect the needs? Does that reflect history? Does that reflect
the influence of that part of the organisation inside the wider
organisation? Is that better lobbying on the part of health and
local government? It needs to be explained in a more rational
way than that. Yes? How do you change that? Where
traditionally people who work in there don't work in there. So all
I'm saying is that these are hugely important management
decisions and they also reflect -- they are not just management
challenges and issues but they also reflect the power of
stakeholders. You know, the ability of parts of the organisation
to lobby effectively. How do you introduce some fairness? And it
maybe that having a transparent way of allocating resources that
is open to scrutiny, which can be justified against the objectives
and priorities, won't change anything. You will still have 13 and
7. But at the moment it's not the product of a rational set of
criteria. But Transport is always going to struggle to command
the same level of resources and priority asLocal Government
(Interviewee H)
This somewhat complex stream of consciousness suggests the
existence of a debate about how to use resource allocation systems to
achieve some degree of fairness, some way in which overall objectives
influence management decisions rather than stakeholder power. The
issue is tackled by other managers similarly using Transport,
UNISON’s smallest service group, as an example:-
It’s trying to make sure that they do get the appropriate level of
service. Because they're smaller than Energy or Water it
doesn't mean to say that we just write them off. One or two of
my colleagues have said, why do we bother with Transport, de
da de da de da. And I say, look, my analogy has been that the
patient's in intensive care and my job is to keep them
functioning. When I am told to switch off that machine, I have to
switch it off but nobody has told me to at the moment and, if I am
asked for my assessment of the patient's condition it might be
my view that the machine should be switched off. But it is a
wider discussion than that, you know. I think, again, ethically
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