Advise the Vice-Chancellor How Control Measures Could Assist in the Successful Implementation of the New Strategic Plan

MNI has been subjected to eight different criticisms. These can be categorised as:

Operational

• It could not accurately produce a head-count of the number of students on roll.

• The internal control of cash receipts was defective and in several areas there had been discrepancies.

Management

• Its expenditure exceeded its income.

• Student drop-out and failure rates were greatly in excess of the national average.

• The level of student complaints was very high and increasing.

• It had a large amount of debtors, mainly ex-students, and was not doing anything to collect outstanding amounts.

• It had an abnormally high level of staff turnover.

Strategic

• The audit of the quality of education provided by MNI awarded MNI the lowest rating of ‘Poor’.

Teaching note: These categories are indicative rather than definitive as some criticisms could fit more than one category, for example, a high level of staff turnover can be viewed as both an Operational and a Management criticism. Candidates were not expected to rigidly adhere to these categories; other sensible categories gained marks.

The Vice-Chancellor has been instructed to prepare a new strategic plan for the period 2011-2016. The new strategic plan has to address the eight criticisms and it is reasonable to assume that the Vice-Chancellor wishes to eradicate the eight criticisms. The role of the control measures will be to monitor performance in these eight areas and provide feedback and feed-forward information to enable managers to take appropriate action.

In general, the control measures should be designed to align performance with the strategic goals, values and vision articulated within the new strategic plan. The control measures are likely to take the form of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) which could be supported by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The reporting of performance against these control measures should be incorporated within the periodic management control reporting and could...