It was Adam Smith who suggested Tax should be easy to collect and grants should be easy to distribute but the announcement about the distribution of the R &A cash has reminded me how badly our generation has been at making these processes so expensive.
Coase and Adam Smith gave us great guidance and like good firemen, knew that you don't negotiate over who supplies the water when the building is burning, you get water onto it as fast as you can.
See you in the rough.
The fixed payment and the reimbursement of 25% of the normal Scottish Golf subscription on behalf of club members are very good examples of a fair,convenient, certain and simple distributive methodology.
Adam Smith would be smiling down at this stage, thinking we Scots are quick learners.
Adam Smith would be smiling down at this stage, thinking we Scots are quick learners.
The idea of a four-stage process involving club managers up and down the country bidding for cash strikes me as very labour intensive and high processing costs for all.
I think it was Coase, the celebrated economist in the 1920's who first drew my attention to the transaction costs and the ones involved in a tendering process always spring to mind.
Those who tender for work have a cost but also the people who assess the tenders and decide who to finally award the successful bidders also have a cost.
In short we will be needing to pay salaries to Scottish Golf to assess compliance with a random set of measures and financial impact of Coronavirus. The process at club level could perhaps be even worse. If a club spends more than £1,000 or 40 hours, in managerial time, proving the case for a grant, only to be awarded £1000, it will have been self evidently a waste of the bail out resources.
Added or should I say subtracted from this the government has benefited from the tax and NI all employees and employers pay.
The processing costs of bail out money should be nil, those managing the bail out money have a duty to make sure every penny reaches those in need and doesn't get eaten up in administrative costs.
It reminds me of why casinos take your cash so easily. The roulette wheel skims 3% with every spin and after 1 spin they are taking 3% of your 97% and after more spins you find that they're taking 3% of a much smaller amount, a bit like tendering processes.
Added or should I say subtracted from this the government has benefited from the tax and NI all employees and employers pay.
The processing costs of bail out money should be nil, those managing the bail out money have a duty to make sure every penny reaches those in need and doesn't get eaten up in administrative costs.
It reminds me of why casinos take your cash so easily. The roulette wheel skims 3% with every spin and after 1 spin they are taking 3% of your 97% and after more spins you find that they're taking 3% of a much smaller amount, a bit like tendering processes.
I spent my life streamlining processes and when something is simple as the revenue collapse or the costs associated with covid-19 from just filling out the forms for furloughed staff, through to the managing of safety signage and course expenditure to comply, it seems rather pointless to ask clubs to detail how much they've spent trying to keep their community club going.
Every club in Scotland, every club in the UK spent so much money prior to lockdown that a small grant of £1,000 will be very welcome but don't please ask clubs to go through more hoops, distribute the money quickly and simply.
Scottish Football's philanthropic donor clearly knew that time was important and despite the grants being of £50,000 per club knew about Adam Smith and clearly wanted the process to be clear and simple.
Every club in Scotland, every club in the UK spent so much money prior to lockdown that a small grant of £1,000 will be very welcome but don't please ask clubs to go through more hoops, distribute the money quickly and simply.
Scottish Football's philanthropic donor clearly knew that time was important and despite the grants being of £50,000 per club knew about Adam Smith and clearly wanted the process to be clear and simple.
Coase and Adam Smith gave us great guidance and like good firemen, knew that you don't negotiate over who supplies the water when the building is burning, you get water onto it as fast as you can.
See you in the rough.
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