I am just over half way through the first draft of the Automotive College Evaluation (ACE) which is my current paid assignment. I have been talking to Captain Peter about the OIM stats � the OIM is his creation. I have written the original policy context and the developing policy context � since I call my speciality policy development this is an obvious place to start. I have also started to get into the area of relationship management. The cross-over between the OIM system and sustaining trust interests me a lot. This is linked to some other ITC which is the issue Matthew and I have been batting around for a couple of months.(Matthew is a Fellow of BCS).

One of my fave blags for a decade or more which is the way that high value added services rely on confidence and trust � an 80s axiom. I think they discovered this in the 80s because they were so busy burning up both (confidence and trust). I wonder what the phrase is � if you remember the 80s then�������? Then you can�t have made enough money to be in the business of totally reinventing your origins in subsequent decades? I spent millions of pounds of other people�s money � all in the national interest of course. In fact I ended up lecturing the private sector on measuring the effectiveness of advertising from the public sector viewpoint.

But I certainly didn�t make enough money in the 80s and ended up in the 90s rediscovering my origins in another part of the forest. I blame the authorities for making me DTI Departmental Security Officer mid decade. Who says machine bureaucracies have no sense of irony? I had been on a �new Russian� ploy to expropriate the state of its capital assets (I am planning to write this up under the benign title of �The application of QCD metrics to a public sector knowledge management context.�) Academia can be more ironic yet.

In fact I have been working over a pitch strategy for the ACE � how we can use the document to leverage more business out of the current scene. Steve has set up a meeting with the Council for Industry and Higher Education which looks fun � I must sort out when that is. There is also scope to get into some Foucault inspired business with discursive structures and positioning � I am always game for a laugh on that score.

I am beginning to wonder whether the scope of GEMA�s great insights on global management have been overlooked � especially in respect of the logical power of the over-arching narrative.

There is a lot of curiosity about 22 March. There will be a White Paper and some people will turn up at No 11 Downing Street to say through gritted teeth how brilliantly the government has done to get itself to this point. It seems that open warfare has broken out between the QCA and the SSDA. The QCA were effectively defeated over Tomlinson and the February White Paper and the SSDA seems be suggesting that they should be merged with the equivalent body for Higher Education. Nice to see that Steve and I are working with the grain. Steve is in Portsmouth doing an inspection of work-based learning on Royal Navy frigates � very much his cup of tea.