Shed
I am not being racist or sexist. I am merely stating that the MA Group has set targets on MA and all the other subsidiaries to meet certain targets for ethnicity, gender and disability based on the %ages of the residents and thus potential workforce across Grtr Manchester. Fine. However, when Mr Spooner had the opportunity to recruit or replace almost his entire senior management team over a period of a few years, he failed to advance any of those targets. I don't doubt that all the people he employed are perfectly capable and may well be the best people for their respective roles, however Mr Spooner missed the opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to meeting the Group-wide targets. I agree though that it would have been inappropriate to employ a person who wasn't the best candidate just to meet the targets. That's the problem with targets. Mr Spooner should not have exhorted his staff to meet the targets when he didn't demonstrate that behaviour himself.
Please understand the important difference between Mr Spooner's MA, MAAS under David Teale, MA Group under Mr Muirhead and Ms Burns etc. My comments are specifically applicable to MA, not to the rest of the divisions or to MA Group.
Speaking of Ms Burns, she is not employed within MA but within MA Group and therefore not in Mr Spooner's division's control. I would state that other parts of the Group, particularly "Group" and MAAS, are somewhat more enthusiastic about those targets in particular, and indeed Group targets generally. Mr Spooner was always rather ambivalent (at best) about meeting "Group"'s objectives.
I call Mr Spooner the Reverend here in a satirical manner reflecting his verbal style to his staff. Those who have heard him speak may know what I mean. Mr Muirhead CBE is well known as the fat controller around the airport, on the grounds that he is a) well built and b) in charge of the place. A rather obvious epithet wouldn't you say? However I note your sensitivities and will try to behave in future posts
BTW I wouldn't dare give Ms Burns a nickname. In fact no-one does. There's power and respect for you!
Re waste and stagnation: If you plot the key indicators against time, you will probably see that they all go the wrong way during the second half of the 90s. Then they improve from 2001 onwards. For instance, profit per passenger, passenger growth % year on year, employees per passenger etc.
Let's leave it there eh?