'Not in My Back Yard'

"10p tax rate cut disaster: Government forced into u-turn over 10p tax rate debacle."

It's interesting that regardless of politics, most commentators seem to agree that the way the government handled the 10p tax rate difficulty gave them more of a headache than anything to celebrate. Interview after interview and article after article focused on the shortfalls in taking care of the several million people who would be adversely affected by the abolition of the 10p tax rate.

It also meant that Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown made various statements over the weeks. First they said they would do nothing, then they said they may do something, followed by if they did anything it would be later in the year, concluding with the 2.7b solution in the final announcement.

In all of the debate and commentary, I only heard a few people mention the fact that the abolition of the 10p tax rate was part of an overhaul of the general taxation system and specifically I heard only one mention of the fact that the starting rate of tax had been reduced from 22p to 20p.

Now I'm presenting this observation from a viewpoint of trying to be apolitical, and yet by anyone's standards it seems that the government missed a huge opportunity in not establishing their agenda and restating it at every opportunity, i.e. that the purpose of last year's budget was to simplify the taxation system and in doing so 22p to 20p was a massive gain for most people. In the event, they allowed themselves to be pushed onto the negative agenda of the detrimental effect of the 10p abolition as part of the overall clarification.

This is a great example of poorly managing change. In the cold light of day most of us will think that any kind of disruptive change, needs to be explained in advance. For changes to 'stick', the people who you are expecting to accept the changes, need to be engaged with; they need to 'buy in' to the change. All too often, the benefits of change are undersold and the pitfalls not honestly thought through or communicated. These failings result in a feeling of imposition, resentment and resistance.

Now in the tax row case there is a good argument for asking "how come the government missed the implications of the 10p cut bit of an overall tax package, that all parties agreed to in principle, yet no party wants to reinstate?" I suggest that in this case they lost touch with the people it would affect, and the dialogue needed to bring about change ceased to happen with those the change would affect.

Governments often talk about a period of consultation or creating a dialogue or debate; not always easy to do but omit it at your peril, as the government found out! The bigger the organisation (and they don't get much bigger than a government's relationship to its people) the more difficult the engagement, but it doesn't get round the basic human psychological need of people wanting to feel talked to and listened to regarding change so that they feel part of identifying the problem, rather than just being sold a solution to something they may not have realised was broken! 'Not in my back yard', is a truth that you only overcome if the context and benefits are sold and accepted, rather than 'forced' upon un-listening ears.

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