A month on from the IR35 tax take debacle what have we learned? The short answer is not a lot! Public sector employers seem to be heading for the hills and circling their wagons, no new roles, no new contracts until someone breaks ranks

The competing pressures of spending guidelines .v. Agency demands, complicated by the refusal of large numbers of contractors to meekly lie down, means that there is a slowly growing skills gap in the public sector. But don’t get me wrong, the overrated, under skilled, overpaid, underperforming temp staff are still in post. Because of course, the highly skilled, value adding contributors to effective business process have all either, run for the hills, or become “project staff” out of scope of the new legislation, in many cases leaving the skill challenged behind, and that’s just in the support areas :-

In the clinical areas of the NHS, and no doubt in other critical service areas throughout the public sector, there is a slow painful crippling of the system, Consultants, Doctors, Therapists, Blood testers, wig sizers et all are slowly drifting away, because the small businesses they have created to support their NHS work are being attacked by a government hell bent on applying a view of “fairness” so oblique as to be unworkable

The public sector is a large unwieldy beast and just as there are thousands who fail to inspire, there are tens of thousands who actively choose to forgo personal gain for the greater good, whether it’s a Teacher in Norwich, an HCA in Bristol or an Accountant in London, all have made the active choice to put themselves second, and are being rewarded by a good old fashioned smack in the mouth.

Which ever little brown tongued sychophant came up with this pernicious idea should look themselves in the eye and apologise to their colleagues. At this point I should say that I would dearly like to say what I think they should really do, but I suspect I would be breaching one rule or another
In the meantime we will go back to damage limitation, believe me when I say it’s the only game in town.

The government is seeking to recover £440M in “underpaid tax” .v. the £850 Billion given in bail out assistance to the banking sector

Well that was a nice little snooze, if you thought we had vanished you were much mistaken !

​The profile of our activities has changed a lot in the past 18 months, true for the wizards and just as true for just about everyone else. Who would have thought only a few months ago that the Country would have voted to leave the EU, the USA would elect a cartoon character as President and TPT would get her final 5 minutes of fame for being formerly famous?

​Much else is changing all around us, we seem to be moving to a world of extremes in just about everything, the decades long peace between nation states in continental Europe suddenly seems slightly less secure. The end of the EU, as end it almost certainly will without the on-going support of one of its largest bankers, will doubtless bring about much regional strife, the richer states will draw up their defences and the poorer ones will fester resentment and complaint. The mass migration of workers may need to be unpicked with tens or even hundreds of thousands heading "home", unless of course some convoluted deal can be created to create a playing field that whilst uneven at least keeps everyone playing.

​So interesting times it is, buckle up bhoys and girls, this could get bumpy....

The wizards watched the Westminster show last week, along with probably most of the population, and like everyone else when we heard the predictions of the exit polls we scoffed, confident that  there was no way one half of a coalition Government could be all but annihilated whilst the other half could become the first sitting government party to increase its seats in half a lifetime.

The idea that Scotland, home to a wizard or two, could reject just about all its Labour MP’s was just plain silly, I mean Scotland has voted red since they were subsidising the transport of beasties on the Ark !

The first sign that something mammoth was afoot came when the bloke who successfully bet £300k on the outcome of the Scottish referendum  was found to have bet £30k on an outright Tory majority, a wise wizard would have been down to the bookies with at least a tenner matching the bet, but wise I was not

As the night progressed and the results came in, Professor Smug on the BBC just got ever more smiley as result after result proved that his exit poll of 22,000 bodies across the country was spot on the money and from a large Conservative minority government we were suddenly looking at the unthinkable.

Friday’s events, with political leader after political leader playing resignation snap, even if Nigel didn’t really mean it, were also the thing of dreams and nightmares, by the time we got to tea and biscuits the boys and girls with the blue badges were celebrating like loons.

A week down the road however, things look a wee bit different

Our Prime Minister will stare out across the divide and see not one credible foe for the time being, his nemesis instead will sit in Edinburgh, directing her army of snipers to blow holes in the Governments cause, indeed the Government majority is so small that DC needs at least one eye covering his back, ensuring that his own bunch of backbench irregulars are not blowing themselves and the rest of the Government up.

The case for electoral reform has been made repeatedly, but the vested interests of red and blue have always managed to prevent change, but with Purple Nigels lot getting 4 million votes and only one  MP, his friends on the Tory back benchs might just be a little more open to seeing things differently

What seemed like a straightforward victory last week suddenly does’ not, there is a  fractured Union to hold together with very little leeway to accommodate the Jocks. There is a Hokey Kokey referendum on the Country’s continued membership of Europe to manage , a host of local elections a year away for the discontented to take advantage of, oh and the Winning general has already indicated his intention to retire to the drawing room with the brandy and revolver in due course

As the Chinese might say, we live in interesting times, and nothing but nothing is clear and straightforward !

Making any kind of political observation is usually a kiss of death for a business, however, it isn’t necessarily so as the song says.

This forthcoming election is strange in many ways, it’s the first brought about by the scheduled end of a fixed term parliament, and the first where every party seems to accept that they can’t win it in their own right, its likely that the big two will be by far the largest groupings, but the rise of UKIP on the right and the SNP in the north, is set to muddy the waters somewhat. Things are further complicated by the fact that the SNP is a hugely popular incumbent government north of the border, although not popular enough to persuade a majority to vote for full independence less than a year ago. It seems to me that in the debates held to date the two smaller parties have fared well, UKIP are promoting a fairly simple message, one which seems to be extremely un popular in the business community, but popular enough with a large section of the community who would normally support the “party of free enterprise” to at least worry the government. The SNP as a party of government in their own right are being judged it would seem on their broadly socialist form of administration, free social care for the elderly, the abolition of prescription charges, a fundamental anti- nuclear stance and most controversial of all, the provision of free education up to and including university for children born in their bailiwick. Not for the first time I heard on radio today, “ I want to vote for the SNP but I live in England, what do I do?”

Going back to business I am willing to state that the only significant impact that would be felt would be if UKIP were to storm to power, and I’m willing to bet my wand that isn’t going to happen, what we will end up with almost certainly, is a party of the centre being pulled leftward by either the liberals or the SNP, does it matter whether the winner wears red or blue? I don’t really think so, neither will be able to exercise their full agenda by the requirement to appease their partners, whether that’s in a formal alliance or not, in short, don’t expect a lot of change, the faces may be a bit different but that’s about all. We are great believers in the responsibility associated with the general plebiscite, many have died to give us the chance to exercise that right, and even when there is so little to distinguish the favourites, we would still advocate getting out there and expressing an opinion, although I really do wish they would add another option to the ballot “none of the above” after all Belgium didn’t have a government for 589 days, and its economy actually grew during that period!

In the most important decision I’ll have to make this year, and after much consideration I’ve made my decision…..its going to be cause of causes with an each way side bet on Al Co.

Something like 97% of murders are carried out by friends and relatives of the victim, it’s a startling number, and makes the breakfast table a damn sight more difficult to negotiate of a morning, “pass the butter honey….and don’t spike it with arsenic please….” And it got me to thinking.

We have a client (titter ye not! ) who is a restranteur , and a damn fine one at that, he has built a small out of the way establishment from next to nothing into a business with booming turnover and profit, and he has done it through hard work, dedication and a wee bit of luck. The problem is, he trades amongst another group of shops and services largely owned by one family, and you can guess the rest, they don’t have our clients ability and their business is flat lining, so what do they do? They adopt the standard British response in such circumstances and bad mouth our client to anyone who will listen

There really is something we can call a “negative network” people who through their own lack of ability, jealousy, greed or any of the other negaitive emotions, would rather see you fail than themselves succeed, its critical that you identify them early and then prevent them from damaging your business and in truth its our experience that if someone displays one negative character trait, some others will soon follow. Rather than trying to suggest the techniques you can use to convert the negative, here is a radical idea, just walk away, the time and effort you spend on addressing the negative issues in a closed mind would be better spent on something positive instead.

Thankfully we haven’t come across too many of the negative types in recent times, but the domestic bullies are out there, the ones who will pat you on the back, but be holding a dagger at the same time and in truth an ear to the ground and listening to your positive network will usually sort it out.

We are only scratching the surface of the negative network, and I’m sure you can think of many examples of those in your own situation, this is just a wee reminder, always check for daggers and let someone else be first to taste the butter !

Its not often that real life turns out like the movies, but last night at Stamford Bridge in London the eponymously named Oscar could have got one for his acting ability, a cynical piece of pre-meditated cheating that galvanised his opponents and ultimately delivered to them a fairy-tale ending as the bad boys in blue were dispatched as this seasons Champions League also-rans.

I cant say I see these outcomes often in business, the bad guys often win in the short term, sneaking off into the distance with someone else’s source code and the hope of bundles of wonga, but even then ultimately, just like football, they tend to find that business its-self is a team game, and it’s that team game that we need to concentrate on.

This particular wizard is working with a high profile public sector client, looking at how its disparate services can be brought into “Many Services – One Method” a simple task you might think, how wrong could you be, and for reasons I’m quite sure you could guess

“Things are always done this way”

“Its not my job to do this”

“we are a service not a business”

You name it, I see and hear it regularly, however, in this particular corner of the empire things are changing, as well as our Many Services process, Wandwavers “One Client-Many Services” view of customers and customer management is being adopted. The silos are coming down and a genuinely collaborative approach taken, this my friends is pretty cutting edge and the first fruits of the wizards efforts should be seen when the accounts are published

In business we often talk team, but don’t really mean it, but the benefits of adopting a collaborative culture are enormous and these benefits can be obtained in any business that really wants them, you just need to believe as the evangelist would say.

In our current project we are well into the second half, we are 3 – 0 up with ten minutes to play in the cup final, hands are almost but not quite on the prize, but I’m absolutely certain I have the team around me to get the result I want.

Can you say the same?

Just bumped into a former Shipbroking colleague in Pret this morning, and it got me thinking, not about Shipbroking, which needs only one letter change to more accurately describe the industry, and not about overpriced coffee, I drink too much of the stuff to argue the price, rather about the Transfer Window, allow me to explain:-

The football transfer window has just closed, or slammed shut if you’re a Sun reader, and at every level of football one man’s useless hoofer has become someone else’s promising rock, around which a new team will be built, we even hear of a 19 year old baby footballer who has just gone on loan from buttplug nowhere to Manchester United, really ? how does that work ?

The point being, can you imagine if the working world we live in operated a transfer window system, you could be loaned out, you could be the subject of a bidding frenzy as the top institutions vied for your signature, or you could be released early from your contract after just not quite cutting it, frightening isn’t it?

The question you have to ask yourself is this, are your skills transferable? Can you work in different markets? Are you adaptable, flexible, ready to adjust to new surroundings? Or are you “unique” which is a truly horrible description in business; do things only work when they are done your way? If so your transfer value is limited, everyone wants utility players these days, and that’s the truth.

Before you seek your next role, have a think about what kind of player you are, and how you think other people would describe you, consider what you might need to do to become a bit more “utility”

We also wondered if the transfer window system might be applied in other circumstances

The 5 year marriage contract, with 2 year options on both sides, with players able to be loaned out or swapped, do you think the Church of England will sign up ?

A friend of the wizards tells the story of her daughter being at school, as it happens in Phiidelphia  in the US of A. Like kids the world over they are all getting excited by the imminent arrival of the man with the red coat and the big sack of pressies, and of course there has to be one kid ready to spoil the party with “ Santa Claus isn’t real” and “The only thing that’s real is the Lord”. Obviously at some stage this wunderkinder  is set to be an accountant…..

In the grand scheme whether one fairy story is better than another is very much in the eye of the viewer or reader of the tale, and whether the presents are given out in the name of Santa Claus or the Great Goat, who cares? Maintaining the illusion for the kids is no different to sticking to your marketing strategy, whether corporate or Personal, and remember, there will always be people out there trying to burst your bubble and shatter the illusion you create, ignore them, they are the sad, the lonely and the friendless in this corporate world, may the Great Goat widdle on their breakfast !

2014 has been an incredible year for the wizards north and south of the border and the work done with clients large and small has set us up for a real expansion in the year to come, but more of that when the mince pies have been eaten and the ginger wine slurped,  however, a few Christmas wishes for everyone.

May it be a safe yuletide, spent with the people you want,  and may the great goat bring you everything you wish for

May business in 2015 be kind to you and blissfully trouble free

May our politician’s come to appreciate the sound of silence, particularly their own

May our Law makers pick on someone else for a change

And may our armed forces be kept out of harms way for once

From all of us at Wandwaver,  may you have the Christmas you desire, and may 2015 bring the health and wealth you seek

And of course, may the great goat grant you one wish come true…..

Four hundred and nine years ago today possibly the most sensible man to enter the House of Commons crossed the threshold, less than 3 months later he was executed.  

Not every politician deserves to be blown up, but if we apply the “Corrs principle”, all of them or none, chances are, just like the Corrs, they would all get it, to quote Chairman Hibs.

Politics has become an incredibly complex process, it takes an absolute age to get anything through parliament, largely because every mothers son & daughter  gets to stand up and have their say on every line of every bill, amendments are considered, laid down, accepted or rejected up to 5 times between the two houses before becoming law, then, even with the best will in the world we wait another 35 days before our shiny new law is sent to Aunty Liz down the road for her signature and subsequent enactment as law.

I’m just surprised that anything ever gets through at all, doing business today is just so difficult, there are guidelines for just about everything from desk space to holidays, health and safety in the work place to paternity cover, the only thing that isn’t enshrined in law is the bloody ability to actually do any business !

Here at the wizardry we are wary of Nigel, he’s a strange bloke that still believes in “Johnny Foreigner “and doubtless keeps a loaded Martini Henry by his bedside just in case any of the said Johnny’s make it past the attack dogs at Castle Farrage, he also seems to spend a lot of time saying “No” and politico’s who do that are usually nutters.

The point of this little treatise is quite simple, don’t make things too complicated cause if you do, you will end up being blown up, strung up, or F*cked up by the legislation….

Penny for the Guy ?