There are too many generals in the army, too many rear admirals in the navy and too many vice marshals in the air force according to the ministry of defence. As the armed forces have shrunk in size senior officer posts have not been reduced proportionately resulting in top heavy armed forces. The ministry of defence has announced a cull of senior posts as well as more junior officers. The unprecedented scale of the cuts is necessary to balance the budget. This same argument has already been made in the NHS, Local Government and the Civil Service. The public sector is over managed, top heavy and has become bloated. Whether you accept the argument that compared to the private sector the public sector has historically been top heavy there is no doubt that mergers, service reductions and out sourcing have resulted in fewer staff and the need for fewer managers. But how many fewer managers?My personal experience as a Director in a large local authority is that the current harsh financial climate is seen as an opportunity to bring the public sector in line with perceived slimmer more efficient private sector management structures. Much of this seems to be based on anecdotal evidence gained at the bar and golf club resulting in arbitrary targets which are financially driven. Cutting management posts is seen by many local councillors /politicians as a painless way to make cuts, certainly more popular than closing libraries, day centres and swimming pools. There seemed to be no model, formula or comparator to arrive at the decision to cut one in five management posts. Cabinet/board was having none of it when HR prompted by senior management tried to muddy the water with questions such as, what do you mean by manager, people with manager in their title or people above a certain salary grade? And what about supervisors? Would it be better to talk of budget holders? The response was unequivocal you have approximately 500 managers in your directorate we want to see 100 posts go and we don’t want the remaining post to be paid more that would be unacceptable in the current climate. And we don’t want it just to be first and middle management posts we expect to see fewer senior managers.Armed with this brief each directorate set about creating new management structures that would deliver the one in five reductions knowing that any perceived lack of commitment or failure to achieve the reduced head count could mean your head was next. But what does this dramatic reduction mean in practice? No doubt the impact varied depending on the nature, range of services and historic staffing levels. However some common themes emerged the management of services had to be merged, people’s spans of responsibility had to be increased and people’s portfolio of services became more diverse.My own experience illustrates this change. A merger of departments and reduction in senior management posts meant that overnight my social service portfolio had added to it libraries, museums, records, adult education, student grants, registrars and coroners support. These were not insignificant additions the library service alone had 76 Libraries but it was the diversity of services rather than size of staff group and budget that presented the challenge.Whilst manager’s core competences in managing large budgets and large staff groups are relevant across all services as is the ability to think strategically and influence key decision makers there is a loss of detailed knowledge and an increased reliance on junior officers/managers. There is the increased anxiety that you know less and less about the day to day management of such a wide range of services as you put your faith in the competence and specialist knowledge of those you manage.All is fine until something goes wrong. How much were you expected to know? Who will be held responsible? Should your immediate reports have been more ” hands on”? Were they under resourced for the task?We have seen high profile casualties. The Director of Education who was also give social service child protection services, the death in care, the recriminations, an over reliance on the competence of junior officers, too much faith in the expertise of middle managers, a failure to understand the resourcing issues or to resist cuts?A cull of management posts is not painless but it may appear less controversial than other measures to make savings. The problem is not how to reduce the management head count but by how much. The answer may be different for different services certainly the cost of getting it wrong is.www.blairmcpherson.co.uk author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published by www.russellhouse.co.uk
