The Budget

All things considered, yesterday's budget seems to be a wise one to me.

It's a refreshing change to hear a long-term budget instead of one crafted to garner short-term support for the governing party.

Many of the things the Chancellor addressed are things most people have been aware of for years, but nothing has ever been done.

Hopefully now the public sector will reign in its spending on multi-national accountancy consultancies and taxpayers' money will be spent prudently. Other changes should stimulate the economy for everyone's benefit.

It's likely to be a rocky ride, but let's hang in there and hope for the best!

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!

The threat of a hung parliament

I think that the threat of a hung parliament is making the private sector as cautious as the public sector.
the public sector will kick off very few initiatives when there is so much uncertainty about who will form the next government. The private sector minds less so, but when the UK runs the risk of a hung parliament, and therefore an ineffectual government, even the private sector becomes nervous.
A hung parliament will be dreadful because it normally leads to another election about six months later, which means uncertainty for the whole of the country until 2011!

Currently, the only exceptions to the trend seem to be banking - particularly investment banking - and the NHS. The banking sector needs to regroup after the huge number of redundancies a year ago, and the NHS seems to be in a permanent state of flux so no surprise there.

The only frustrating thing for an interim like me is that, in the current buyers' market, the banks can be extremely precise about what experience they require, and the NHS totters along trying to introduce change but insisting on interims with extensive NHS experience. If you want change, you need a new broom!