Government Spending Cuts

It's good to see the new Government act so quickly to reduce the UK's budget deficit.

What will the changes mean for interims like me?

In the short term it will probably reduce our options, as government departments adjust to the changes and opportunities offered via agencies handling public sector areas diminish.

However, in the medium to long term, it's probably good news; the private sector will grow in confidence in response to this decisive action and the public sector will replace "Big name" consultancies with interims to reduce overhead. Interims also do not appear on headcount, so we tend to benefit from recruitment freezes.

So far so good - here's hoping my optimism is justified.

Hung Parliament

The hung parliament is bad news for many people, not least interim programme managers like me.

My day job is to manage multi-million pounds programmes of business change/transformation.

As long as we have no settled government agenda in place - with a sufficient majority to see it through - then the public sector will just tread water and no major programmes will be initiated. Similarly, the private sector will be reluctant to plan massive investments if it doesn't know what government reaction will be.
Whatever the outcome of the talks between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, I fear that any government will be short-lived. We should probably gird our loins for a second General Election in the autumn. Effectively, that means that there will be few large business change programmes kicked off before the new financial year in April 2011.


Worrying times indeed, but at least my handicap should come down!