ONE DAY a month Ian Gordon leaves the relative peace of the
Agriculture and Fisheries Department for the cut and thrust of the
boardroom.
He's one of a growing number of civil servants being dipped in the
enterprise pool. The aim, if not exactly to turn the mandarins into
managers, is to at least give them an idea of what life's about at the
sharp end of business.
A total of 13 Scottish Office high-rankers are, or have been,
non-executive directors in a range of companies from the Weir Group and
United Distillers to Castlemilk Economic Development Agency. And this
autumn will see the first business secondment to St Andrews House from
the management consultants KPMG.
Though the Scottish Office says people are matched specifically to
companies far removed from their own departmental responsibilities,
critics of the management training scheme say it is part of wider
malaise in the Civil Service which should have spent its time better
over the last 15 years in developing its own philosophy rather than
blithely trying to turn into something it is not.
Instead, they say, it should work on its bedrock principle of acting in
the public good towards open government, becoming more civil and
providing more of a service to the public. It could still retain its
intellectual strengths and impartiality without tarting itself up for a
mythical marketplace.
The Scottish Office denies such claims, pointing out that industrial
placements are only part of its management training programme. There are
also secondments to voluntary organisations, Scottish Financial
Enterprise and local authorities. Nor is it a one-way process: business
leaders are getting involved in health boards and other quangos. ''We
are trying to learn from the best practice, and also trying to let
business see how we operate,'' says a spokesman.
Ian Gordon, was invited to join the board of Optima Enclosures 18
months ago, following in the footsteps of Ian Lang's private secretary
Alan Fraser. The firm employs 100 people on two sites, Macmerry in East
Lothian and Penicuik, making metal boxes for computer industry and
baking pans.
His ordinary job is in charge of a division of 45 people with an
annual budget of #700,000 responsible for agriculture policy, CAP
reforms, diversification grants to farmers and fish farming. As an
assistant secretary, he is on a par with a finance director in a
medium-sized company. Aged 40, he is also destined for higher postings,
possibly to education or industry where he worked before.
''It has been very useful experience,'' he says. ''What struck me is
the fantastic attention given to the detail of quality and costs. I have
seen how companies have to manage themselves on a day-to- day basis,
dealing with labour relations, customers and financial backers -- and
this at a time when they have going through an economic depression.
''There is a broader benefit for policy-making to know how companies
manage themselves and how the Government impacts on them. I think they
gain some benefit by getting some insight into how Government works
because we do discuss what's going, and it helps having someone on the
board with a detached view.''
Such cross-pollination of ideas does have limits: the collectivist
culture of the Civil Cervice responsible to ministers and the public
does not always sit easily with industry's simpler profit-and-loss
accountancy.
''Optima is a very good, well-run company, though in a sense you might
learn more at a badly-run company, how it gets into a mess and how badly
it thus does.''
There has been a more immediate effect on the man who is dealing with
the problems of Scottish fish farmers following Norway's flooding of the
market: ''I am rather more conscious now of what it means for a small
fish farming outfit, perhaps a bit more sympathetic when they complain
about the burden of this or that regulation and recognise how important
even 1% added to the costs of their product is.''
The Scottish Office remains happy with the scheme and there are plans
to extend it further within the Government service.
No civil servant gains personal financial benefit from serving as a
non-executive director; any payments go to St Andrew's House. Civil
servants are required to withdraw from meetings if Government policy
comes up -- and not to have any dealings with their companies in the
course of their Government work.
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