Tag: CSR

The value of being big

Roused from my post-Christmas torpor by today’s news that government is asking ad agencies to work for nothing, and that KPMG is offering Whitehall free work on potentially multi-million pound contracts.

Lest we are overwhelmed by KPMG’s public-spiritedness (government now comes under their CSR agenda apparently, bless), it should be pointed out that this is a time-limited offer.  What they appear to be doing is paying to have their feet under the table at the point when programmes are ready to be delivered, so they can exploit their incumbent’s status to keep the work rolling in future, when I doubt it will be on such generous rates.  This makes good business sense for KPMG.  There is, of course,  no small business in the country that could afford to do the same.  It’s a game only the big boys can play.

I drafted what follows  before Christmas but didn’t post it because the blog already felt depressing enough.  Feeling stronger now, so here goes:

At the moment, whenever two or more freelancers are gathered together there are a couple of standard rumours under discussion: that there still might be bits of work commissioned in the new year on the old spend-the-money-that’s-left-before-the-next-financial-year-starts pattern;  that there might be work of a rather ghoulish nature, managing the closing down of  quangos; that the scale of change being introduced could mean that work will have to be commissioned to smooth transition  in the public services.  The subtext to it all is, of course, simply “I REALLY want them to start spending money again.”

“They” won’t of course – and the other common topic of conversation is that even if they did the money would go to one of the big four consultancy houses  and the little fish won’t get a sniff of it.  Government commitments to help small business sound a bit hollow out here in consultancy land.  As the giant companies with the big bags of swag contracts go through the process of renegotiating their agreements with government, smaller shops are going under at a frightening rate. 

Here’s something else that was written before Christmas – BIS‘s paper on backing small business

 This new strategy demands a relentless focus on the needs of small and medium sized businesses. They provide nearly 60% of our jobs and 50% of GDP. They will benefit from the measures we are taking across the whole economy but Government is clear that they have specific needs and can be disproportionately burdened by poor Government policy. This has not been sufficiently reflected in Government’s attitude or orientation over the last decade. This Government is committed to a comprehensive effort to prioritise small businesses and those that run or aspire to run them.
 
Thanks for that. 

So how was the CSR for you?

Spent the day feeling maternal: filling hot water bottles and heating milk for my sick son while listening to the carnage of the Comprehensive Spending Review on the radio.  Noticed too late that the cats had caught a  squirrel and ripped it to shreds, leaving bits of tail scattered all over the garden.  Had it been a scene in a film the director would have cut it for being far too obvious…