Agent151: Bad behaviour

Ever since budgets were invented, budget holders have been trying to find ways to subvert the system. Local government is experiencing budget reductions on an unprecedented scale, and this has resulted in an outbreak of bad budget behaviour in some councils.

Is it happening in your organisation? What should you be looking for? Here is a handy identification chart of budget holders who use crafty dodges in an attempt to fool their section 151 officer. You may recognise some of them.

The Pet Service Protector:  The council has priorities decided by councillors, but this budget holder has their own priorities and will offer up essential services to be cut so long as their cherished favourite is left alone.

The Lobbyist: This budget holder is busy whispering in the ear of any councillor they can buttonhole about why their area shouldn’t be cut and why ‘them over there’ should cop it instead.

The Fighter: Never mind about corporate priorities and doing your bit, this budget holder is going to fight for every penny. The budget process becomes a tedious argument in which everyone ends up with a headache.

The Ducker and Diver: Stashes away money they can’t spend by disguising it as a ‘service credit’ with a contractor. Requires a complicit supplier, and is skating on very thin ice indeed.

The Squirrel: Invents reasons for creating an earmarked reserve with that underspend that sound genuine but are really no more than excuses for saving for a rainy day.

The Dramatist: This budget holder likes to create the impression every year that they are going to massively overspend their budget, but then magically comes in just under at year end. Everyone thinks the budget is under such pressure it can’t be cut.

The Horticulturalist: Bent on achieving growth in their budget, they will always bid for new funding from the corporate pot, dressing up the flimsiest reasons to smell rosy.

The Switcher: Having agreed that a service will be cut through the corporate budget process, and put councillors through the pain of making the decision in public, this budget holder will find an alternative source of funding – perhaps a specific grant – and quietly keep it open.

The Muddler: Ever seen budgets structured in such a complex and unintelligible way that no-one can make any sense of them, accountability is obscured, and management information is impossible to obtain? You’ve encountered the Muddler!

The Gravedigger: If you approach this budget holder with a savings target, they will immediately bury you under a pile of information including service metrics, outcomes, value for money, benchmarking, and more. This will prove to be both useless and more information than is humanly possible to digest, and ensure that nothing at all happens.

The Committer: Sorry, this budget holder will say, sucking in their breath through their teeth, but all of my budgets are committed to long-term contracts. Nothing anyone can do. Sorry. Move along. Nothing to see here.

The Refusenik: Secretly has no intention of implementing any savings, and after going through the budget process in silent dissent, takes no action and simply reports that they are overspending.

The Postponer: This budget holder always seems to be able to find a reason why the delivery of their savings should be shifted to a future year.

 The Shrugger: Scratches their head and admits that they have no clue how to save any money, and suggests that a project/commission/committee is set up to look into it, thereby buying another two years of inaction.

Of course, as a finance professional you are expected to spot and deal with all of these types as a matter of routine. It isn’t easy. But this identification chart may help. Next time you encounter some bad behaviour, just point at the chart. The budget holder will realise not only that they’ve been rumbled, but also that the behaviour they thought was so original and clever was no more than a tired cliché. That should put a stop to it.