Life, the Universe, and Everything

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Life, the Universe, and Everything!

• A sea change in thinking - connecting my themes
• Roger Latham
• CIPFA President

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Presidential themes
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A General Theory of Everything

• Newton

• Quantum Chaos

• Breaking a problem into bits
• Cause Effect
• Small change small effect big change big
  effect
• Single solutions
• Certainty of outcomes, given enough information

• Whole systems
• Simple rules, complex outcomes
• Small changes big effects (sometimes)
• Multiple solutions
• Unstable, probable/possible outcomes

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The Spread of Chaos thinking
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Political Economy

• Orthodox Economics

• Chaos Theory Economics

• Good at...
• Explaining individual markets
• The very short term
• Bad at....
• Explaining economic growth
• Explaining the business cycle
• Predicting the medium/long term

• Good at.....
• Explaining economic growth
• Explaining business cycles
• Why conventional policy doesnt work
• Joining up with organisational thinking
  accountancy
• Bad at....
• Giving simple policy guidance

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Accountancy

• Hard Accountancy

• New Developments

• Kick the tyres
• If it cant be measured it doesnt exist/isnt
  important
• Certainty of standards outcomes
• Local standards for local situations
• Things, PIs, Ratios, benchmarks

• Soft outcomes, beyond outputs
• Externalities entity
• Purpose
• Uncertainty Time, Risk
• Common standards
• Holistic
• Globalised economy

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Different ways of looking at Organisations

• Organisations as a machine

• Organisations as herds flocks

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Rebuilding Relationships - Trust
Politics Who is us them Legitimisation of
force Who gets what, where and when. Mobilising
power to defend or make choices A priori
definitions of good bad Public debate
discussion Relationship of trust in exchange for
power Events dear boy, events
Professionalism Occupation requires special
skill set Accreditation maintained by collective
body Highly trained, disciplined based on
qualification Preference for party political
neutrality Problems defined in terms of
solutions qualified to offer Relationship of
trust in exchange for autonomy
Managerialism Wherever the state boundaries are
it must be well managed State admin must be
accountable Focus on 3Es VFM Contractual basis
for relationships Relentlessly optimistic There
is nothing that cannot be managed, given time
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Uncertainty Policy Systemic

• Policy Conflicts miscommunication

• Systemic - Redesigning risk management

• Showing clarity of purpose
• Fixing the political hotspots
• Reacting to events

• Probability, Uncertainty, Risk
• Managing risk upfront, not as an afterthought
• Influencing probable outcomes

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The CIPFAness of things

• Current Activity
• CIPFA/SOLACE Economic challenge
• Conference issues Trust, resilience
• Manifesto Trust /Values
• Role of CFO risk, culture
• International Strategy Values/ Culture
• Breaking new ground
• Risk
• Personal resilience in hard times
• Sustainability Accounting
• Over to you...
• Einsteins doubts reality
• Cannot solve a problem using the same thinking
  that created it
• Thinking out of the box

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Thank you for listening