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4-CONSULTING E-ZINE

With the sharp downturn in the economy, many organisations are looking closely at their labour costs and staffing levels. We look at how you can manage the process of down-sizing your workforce without damaging your business or breaking employment law.

The Scottish Government's National Performance Framework has been in place for around 18 months and all public bodies are supposed to be well on the way towards delivering their programmes and projects against the published target outcomes. However, the range of objectives and targets is very wide and many public bodies will struggle to demonstrate how their portfolios of programmes and projects are aligned to the Framework's objectives. In the second of our articles, we describe how we have been able to create a demonstration version based on the National Performance Framework's objectives and targets.

Our consultancy team have lots of experience in these and other interesting areas and we're keen to share our knowledge with our readers. We hope you’ll find the articles of interest and, if there is a topic you would like us to cover in a future issue, please let us know.

Please feel free to forward this e-zine to a colleague.

In this issue

	Managing Redundancies Safely
	Prioritisation in the Public Sector
	Making the most of Word and Excel
	Recent Successes
	Our Associates' Pool
	Tell us your view

Managing Redundancies Safely

Whenever an organisation plans to reduce the size of its workforce, it is very important that the process is planned carefully and carried out compassionately, fairly and in compliance with the law. Lack of knowledge of employment law and not following best practice can land employers in difficulty and damage their reputations.

Mary Leishman describes some of the things that employers should do to make the process as safe as possible.

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Prioritisation in the Public Sector

The Scottish Government's National Performance Framework has been published for around 18 months and public bodies are now expected to have aligned all their programmes and projects to the objectives and targets set out in the framework. However, with many objectives and even more targets and outcomes in Framework, many public sector organisations have difficulty in prioritising their activities effectively.

Sandy Pratt discusses how we have loaded the Government's objectives and targets into our Impact Matrix™ tool to create an ideal prioritisation resource for strategic planners in public bodies.

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Making the Most of Word and Excel

Our regular "tricks and tips" features offers practical advice on using Word more efficiently to create great documents and creating, formatting and navigating Excel spreadsheet workbooks.

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Recent Successes

In the months since our last edition of the e-Zine, we have undertaken a review of HR practice in the Higher Education sector for the Scottish Funding Council. We have been commissioned by the Scottish Legal Aid Board to advise on the strategic options for the replacement of a key computer system. We've also built on our experience in the HR sector by being appointed to the Scottish Enterprise Investors in People Framework contract.

Our Associates' Pool

Our pool of associate consultants continues to grow. We're particularly pleased to welcome Liz Taylor who is an experienced international HR generalist. Until recently, Liz was HR Director, Scottish & Newcastle Venture Markets.

We are always interested in developing our pool of consultants and, if you think you might be interested in joining us, please give Ralph Leishman a call on 0131 668 2112 or drop him an email at Ralph.Leishman@4-consulting.com.

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Tell us your view

Last time, in our readership poll, we asked if you thought the UK economy would have improved by the end of 1 year. We had the biggest response yet and everyone of the replies was "NO".

We hope that you will take a moment to answer the following question:

Given the travails in so many sectors of the UK economy, should the Government should continue to bail out the financial services sector?

Answer our question and let us know – all responses are confidential.

If you would like to suggest a topic for future e-zines or have any comments about this one, please send it to: ezine@4-consulting.com.

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For more information about 4-consulting visit our web site at www.4-consulting.com. Please feel free to forward this e-zine to a colleague.

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