A new ISC rides to the rescue

Puzzle no more about dormant national productivity – the cavalry have arrived in the form of Andy Haldane, chief economist of the BoE (Bank of England) who is to chair the government’s new ISC – Industrial Strategy Council – it’s another quango of sorts for a select few of our great and good to deal with a nagging problem that nobody seems able to resolve

Despite most experts bemoaning the UK’s lack of significant productivity improvement over the last decade, Andy claims: “The UK’s macroeconomic performance has improved dramatically since 1992 when the UK was forced out of the EU’s ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism)” – furthermore: “The UK is now, arguably, an established Premier League team”

Then another surprise

Apparently this is  all due to “inflation targeting” by his chums at the BoE rather than the government’s efforts which: “Frequently adopted and abandoned different industrial strategies as well as other schemes to raise Britain’s productivity”

Note the role of UK managers at the coal-face merit no mention yet it is they (in our view) who determine some 80% of national productivity levels achieved – Governments can only influence the other 20% by complementing the private sector via their taxation policies and investment in education, healthcare, low-income housing, R&D and infrastructure

Why such influence by organisation level managers?

Because workers in all sectors, public or private, soon settle down to a rate of work they’re comfortable with whatever the systems and processes they’re required to follow – and it’s those systems and processes that determine most of the productivity levels achieved, both at organisation and hence national level – indeed, the famous management guru Dr Edwards Deming went so far as to claim it was systems which determined as much as 94% of an organisation’s productivity level – and the people with the power over and sole responsibility for those systems and processes are organisation managers, not their employees

Undeterred,  Andy goes on to say the ISC will provide: “An independent body to evaluate progress and develop appropriate measures of success” which suggests he has doubts about the current official data available (we wish him well)

However, to kick off his ISC reign, Andy tells us he has identified three productivity gaps facing the UK – sadly,  they’re all based on the rich, albeit flawed, trove of national statistics available to him – viz:

  • Inequality between the country’s highest and lowest performing areas/ regions
  • Lower labour productivity than other large rich countries
  • A slowdown in productivity growth since the 2008 financial crisis

 

Such claims may or may not be true to a greater or lesser extent – the data on which they’re based is so full of errors, forecasts and assumptions that we’re not talking here about 1% or even 5% error margins – our guestimate is it’s more likely to be in the 30% to 50% range

And if that were not bad enough, what would Andy and his new colleagues be prompted to recommend to whom on the basis of such claims – by the sound of it, he’d be focussing on possible changes to Government policies whilst continuing his successful BoE action, and thus restricting himself and his council to a mere 20% of the problem causes

One can only hope that the value of the ISC will itself be determined by some significant improvement in some acceptably accurate measures of national productivity – and disbanded if found to be yet another ‘kicking the can down the road’ initiative

Conclusion:

Beware all economist geeks bearing their advice and solutions

Currently, we are very cynical about Andy’s prospects with the ISC

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