Following disappointing local election results, for both the liberal democrats and the conservatives, last week, this week saw the coalition government re-launch as it set out to regain voters’ trust. The main area of focus for both Nick Clegg and David Cameron was the Government’s economy strategy and their commitment to growth.
The UK Government is starting to worry that their economic policies will be seen as austerity measures that are out of touch with the rest of Europe, particularly following the election of Francois Hollande in France over the weekend; an individual who has pledged to spend his way of difficulty. Cameron sought to dispel this myth by stating that the government’s spending cuts are not a programme of austerity, but a drive for efficiency; ‘what you call austerity…I might call efficiency.’ Journalists passed comment that the slogan of ‘efficiency’ was likely to engage even less of the public than that of austerity.
Whether one agrees with Cameron’s statement that the government’s agenda is driven towards improvement rather than cuts is a matter of political opinion; however it is patently obvious that waste and inefficiencies still flourish within Government departments and indeed in many organisations across the UK. If the Government wishes to tackle waste they need to start looking beyond simply making financial cuts and towards the hiring of quality professionals – individuals who, after robust analysis of entire systems and individual processes, can identify the root causes of problems and suggest remedies that increase operational efficiencies and enable growth.
Of course, economies are not turned round by governments alone; business too needs to wake up to the opportunities for robust and sustainable growth that follows from a proper focus on quality. Certainly, despite last week’s announcement that we have returned once again to recession, there appears to be increased business confidence. Surveys released by CBI and UK Business Confidence Monitor in the last few days, found that confidence in the economy actually increased among businesses in the first quarter of this year. The survey also added that the majority of businesses experienced small increases in new orders and expected faster growth in the next quarter.
To ensure that this business optimism is matched by performance, businesses will need to analyse and challenge their systems and process, identify areas for improvement, embrace and not just pay lip service to innovation, and, ultimately, to prompt an era of improvement and growth that this economy needs and we all want.
10 May 2012
Simon Feary CQI CEO