{"id":73925,"date":"2024-01-28T07:50:59","date_gmt":"2024-01-28T07:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=73925"},"modified":"2024-01-28T07:50:59","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T07:50:59","slug":"of-course-the-post-office-needs-new-leadership-but-the-government-has-to-recognise-that-what-is-required-is-someone-skilled-in-public-service-delivery-not-supposed-maximisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/01\/28\/of-course-the-post-office-needs-new-leadership-but-the-government-has-to-recognise-that-what-is-required-is-someone-skilled-in-public-service-delivery-not-supposed-maximisation\/","title":{"rendered":"Of course the Post Office needs new leadership &#8211; but the government has to recognise that what is required is someone skilled in public service delivery, not supposed maximisation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2024\/jan\/27\/post-office-chair-dismissed-as-business-reels-from-horizon-it-scandal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Guardian reports<\/a> this morning:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"dcr-1lpi6p1\">The chair of the\u00a0Post Office\u00a0has been dismissed by the government as the state-owned company reels from the Horizon IT scandal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1lpi6p1\">Henry Staunton was this weekend told by the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, that he will be replaced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1lpi6p1\">Badenoch said in a statement: \u201cThe Post Office is rightfully under a heightened level of scrutiny at this time. With that in mind, I felt there was a need for new leadership, and we have parted ways with mutual consent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Staunton did not help his own cause by defending the indefensible before parliament, but Badenoch and her Tory predecessors are as much to blame.<\/p>\n<p>The fault in this appointment is implicit in this comment, which followed those noted above:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"dcr-1lpi6p1\">Staunton, 75, only became chair in December 2022, after a long career in FTSE boardrooms.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The Post Office is not a public company.<\/p>\n<p>It is a public service.<\/p>\n<p>It should not be run for profit, although a bizarre profit proxy was created within it to permit the payment of bonuses to directors on this basis, with dire consequences.<\/p>\n<p>And, to make it quite clear what that means, the replacement for Henry Staunton, whoever they might be, should not be someone whose skills are in:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Profit maximising<\/li>\n<li>Shareholder serving<\/li>\n<li>Cost slashing<\/li>\n<li>Union bashing<\/li>\n<li>Service destroying<\/li>\n<li>Utility undermining<\/li>\n<li>Failure creation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They should instead be skilled in:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Public service delivery<\/li>\n<li>Partnership building<\/li>\n<li>System integrity<\/li>\n<li>Honesty<\/li>\n<li>Transparency<\/li>\n<li>Subsidy negotiation with the government, since that will be required.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They should also be happy with a salary not that much greater than the prime minister's, and any bonus should be restricted to no more than ten per cent of pay and be based on a vector of achievements, all related to public and organisational success, but not profit.<\/p>\n<p>What chance is there of the government deciding to go in this direction? Near enough zero, I suspect, in which case another round of failure will be guaranteed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Guardian reports this morning: The chair of the\u00a0Post Office\u00a0has been dismissed by the government as the state-owned company reels from the Horizon IT<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/01\/28\/of-course-the-post-office-needs-new-leadership-but-the-government-has-to-recognise-that-what-is-required-is-someone-skilled-in-public-service-delivery-not-supposed-maximisation\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,16,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-ethics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73925"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73928,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73925\/revisions\/73928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}