Gareth Marston
Established Member
Beeching had no real hands on experience of budgets, revenue generation, controlling costs and day to day financial management he was a theorist with a strong technical background in physics. Apart from a brief spell as general manager of an ICi plant in Canada he was always the scientist/ back room man/ special advisor even getting up to Director level. In short he had no real experience of the type of problem he was taken on to address apart from suggesting theoretical organisational change - a personal favourite of his.
There were better qualified people in industry if someone had to brought in from outside. People who had practical experience of managing/ controlling costs who had learnt how to do it and no doubt made mistakes along the way starting with smaller scale concerns/ sections/ departments when younger. Beeching mistakes as he learned were people's jobs and links to communities. The consequence of making mistakes in academia/ science world are that you get another go. Out in the real world it's very different.
There were better qualified people in industry if someone had to brought in from outside. People who had practical experience of managing/ controlling costs who had learnt how to do it and no doubt made mistakes along the way starting with smaller scale concerns/ sections/ departments when younger. Beeching mistakes as he learned were people's jobs and links to communities. The consequence of making mistakes in academia/ science world are that you get another go. Out in the real world it's very different.