Introduction
In May 2012, the Board of AIUK determined that AIUK needed to reduce annual running costs by £2.5 million in order to protect the medium term financial health of the organisation. The key driver for this was the Amnesty International movement’s decision made in 2009 that Amnesty sections should increase their financial contributions to the international budget in order to support Amnesty’s growth in the global south and east, thereby increasing its impact for human rights there.
The programme to deliver the savings required was known as the Costs and Priorities Programme or ‘CAPP’.
‘Learning for the Future – Evaluation of Cost and Priorities Programme (CAPP)’ is an independent review carried out on behalf of AIUK by Annette Perry from Develop Global, an independent consultancy that specialises in business partnering and organisational transformation.
Management Response
We welcome the evaluation of the AIUK Costs and Priorities Programme and thank Annette Perry for her very thorough and thoughtful work on it and the staff, members and stakeholders who contributed to it. Particular thanks are due to the Project Advisory Group who are a group of staff members who helped to advise Annette throughout this project and also to Amnesty members who gave up their time to contribute.
We welcome the recommendations made in the report and we are determined to ensure that we learn lessons from this evaluation and that we embed those lessons in the way we work.
We have drawn up a management response to the report’s recommendations, which you can download below. Highlighted in this are those areas that relate to organisation development where we feel a more iterative and collaborative approach would be more appropriate, and in these areas we will seek the input of staff.
Our approach to our work on this will be underpinned by two key drivers:
a. The next strategic plan: We will ground the Organisational Development work in the context of what the organisation needs to do to be fit to deliver our next strategic plan, so the parameters for this work will be shaped firmly by what we need to be capable of delivering in the future plan and therefore the specific capabilities and behaviours we will need.
b. Staff engagement: We will form a group of staff who will develop the specific focus for this organisational development work within those parameters.
