Champions

Blair McPherson

League tables are not everything they don't tell the whole story but successive governments have put their faith in this easy to understand way of judging performance. If you are in the top half of the table you are performing well. If you are habitually mid table you are coasting and need to try harder. If you are in the lower reaches of the table you are failing and urgent improvement is required. Critics complain that league tables reflect a narrow band of performance indicators chosen for being easy to measure as much as their significance and in encouraging a focus on some areas causes others to be neglected. Those at the wrong end of the table protest that inadequate account is taken of resources claiming that their smaller budget means they can't be expected to compete. To which government inspectors have always responded by pointing out that the highest spenders are not always the best performers, "spending more is no grantee of success". Of course no one really believes this and then along comes a Leicester City!

There has been investment but small amounts compared to the big spenders, so clearly it was wise investment.

It helps if you have a good leader/ manager but there are many good managers working in the bottom half of the league. It helps if the board listens to the manager, they don't always. It helps if the chairman is not too hands on or focused on interests elsewhere. It helps if the manager is given time to bring about the transformation. But all to often if the results don't come the manager revives the dreaded vote of confidence whilst the board is looking for their successor.

There has to be ambition but expectations can be crippling. Perhaps we should make the most of being in the EU and bring in more european talent, an Italian manager or maybe Portuguese,I understand a very experience top manager is available if he doesn't go to Manchester.

Some will claim the fact that Leicester are top of the league,champions, proves its not down to spending big others will counter that the fact that it is so unusual proves the opposite.

When managers are taken to task over poor performance they claim that crucial decisions didn't go their way. The pundits always reply that over time it evens out and in the end those at the top deserve to be there and those at the bottom deserve to be there. And this is pretty much what Government believes

Blair McPherson former director ,author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk

A good omen for local government then that the last SOCITM annual conference was at Leicester City Football Club! Maybe the next one should be at The Emirates where even less money is spent but still in the top 4! Could I ask where the local government league tables are published?

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