Objectives, Plans and Implementation

The existence of hierarchical structures and a rules-based approach to service provision means that objective setting and planning is often a top-down process in many PSOs. Although this may have been effective in an age when PSOs could expect increasing budgets, retention of such an autocratic orientation in an age of financial cutbacks rarely remains a viable managerial philosophy. The need to achieve a common purpose in the face of financial constraint, and to generate ideas to create new forms of service production, requires a move towards the more organic participative structures proposed by Burns and Stalker (1961). Such a change in the approach to determining future plans does not imply, however, that senior management should delegate the entire planning process to the staff in their PSO. As noted by Fidler (1998), in a time of uncertainty, decision-makers at the top of the organisation are ultimately responsible for attempting to deliver the contractor customer KPIs. Hence, these individuals must retain the ultimate authority over key decisions when faced with competing demands from resources by different departments within their PSOs.