Whiz-Kid's views too rich for Consignia

So sanity has momentarily prevailed at hard-pressed Consignia, with chief executive John Roberts shelving plans to post himself a 10% wage increase. To do otherwise, of course, would have pretty much guaranteed a strike by the postal workers union which has been pushing to win a 5% rise for its 130,000 members.

The fact that the Department of Trade happily rubber-stamped the proposal for Mr Roberts’s rise on the advice of Consignia’s remuneration committee suggests its political antennae remain as bent as ever.

But what should we make of Allan Leighton, interim chairman of Consignia, letting it be known that he op posed the increase? At first glance this appears reassuring, but on further reflection it is down right worrying. If this was a regular, publicly-listed company, such a rift between chairman and chief executive would have had the financial community laughing in the streets.

It is not just over pay that Mr Leighton has made his alternate views clear. He does not like the name Consignia and, it is whispered, he privately believes the company requires wholesale change at the executive level.

Perhaps he seems to have forgotten his training at Asda, where positive thinking was a way of life. Mr Leighton should be stacking the Consignia shelves with good ideas to justify his pounds 20k salary for one day a month.

A huge public sector organisation like the Post Office cannot suddenly be transformed into a hard-nosed, commercial one by installing a whiz-kid for a few hours here and there between his regular dabblings in e-commerce ven tures and housebuilders – however appealing his ideas. The Post Office is in cultural shock. It will take years patiently re-building trust to fix the damage that has already been done, both by bolshy unions and blundering managers.

The government faces a pretty stark choice here. It can either expose Consignia to the full force of market competition through privatisation and, in the process, risk the country’s daily mail deliveries being blown away along with the company. Or it can cosset Consignia in the public sector until the business is better, with new management and a fresh culture. There is no third way here. Consignia is just too, too fragile. Tough choice, eh? Copyright 2002 The Guardian.