Strategy and management control system: Tata Motors

Strategy and management control system: Tata Motors Introduction This essay addresses a very debatable yet imperative topic relating to the link between the strategy and management control system of an organization. The discussion in this essay roots from Andrew Campbells paper, Tailored, Not Benchmarked: A Fresh Look at Corporate Planning. This paper discusses the impact of benchmarking and the effect of efficient planning strategies on the value of an organisation. He suggests that in place of deploying standardized benchmarking and planning strategies based on another organisation, each organisation needs to evaluate its internal environment and devise strategies according to the needs of the individual organisation. Campbell describes the planning process very appropriately in his paper as, A good planning process is unique to its company () carefully tailored to the needs of the businesses as well as to the skills, insights, and experiences of senior corporate managers. Furthermore, Campbell lays stress on the fact that organisations need to constantly monitor and modify their planning strategies to match the needs of the organisation and the dynamic business environment. In this paper, Campbell has very modestly touched upon the fact that management control systems (MCS) and strategy essentially complement each other and should be coordinated to produce the desired firm value (Campbell, 1999). MCS are defined as any formal, information-based procedures and statements used by managers to monitor and influence the behavior and activities in a firm (Simons, 1994). While, strategy is a continuing pattern of decision making for the future of an organization (Mintzberg, 1978) deliberate (formal) or unintended (informal), that emerges due to the opportunities that arise in the organization or market (Merchant Stede, 2007; Langfield-Smith, 1997) An earlier perspective on this topic was provided by Anthony (1965, 1988) suggesting that, strategy is the constant given element in the organisation and management control systems hold the job of monitoring, modifying and tracking the progress of their implementation. Lorange et al (1986) introduced another association of management control and strategy in the concept of strategic control. Strategic control is a system constantly examining an organisations strategy with respect to its goals, and modifying them whenever the need arose. The one limitation all these perspectives suffered from was the fact that, management control systems identified with the task of monitoring and modifying strategy only (Simons, 1990). Robert Simons (1990) introduced a new perspective proposing that management control systems were responsible for not only monitoring or implementation, but also for formation of strategy; hence establishing a very important relationship between management control systems and strategic choices of an organisation. Building on these ideas, this essay aims to analyse the link between management control system and strategy of Tata Motors Limited (TTM), a multinational automobile corporation headquartered in Mumbai, India. During the course of this essay, we will first have a look at TTMs background strategy, control systems, performance measurement system, and the risks they are facing. Followed by this will be a discussion on TTMs case in the light of different perspective mentioned above to observe whether there exists a link between the strategy, management control system and performance measurement measures of TTM. Finally, we will have a look at some suggestions with regard to their control systems that could help TTM improve their position. Tata Motors Limited Background and Strategy TTM is a part of the Tata Group, the largest private corporate group in India. Tata group has business ventures in steel, communications, tea, information technology, power and hospitality aside from automobiles. TTM is Indias largest automobile company, with consolidated revenues $20 billion in 2009-10. It is the leader in commercial vehicles in each segment, and among the top three in passenger vehicles along with being the worlds fourth largest truck manufacturer, and the worlds second largest bus manufacturer. In addition to domestic growth, TTMs important strategic move over time has been international expansion. TTM has acquired Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company Limited, Hispano Carrocera S.p.A. Spain, has a joint venture with Marco Polo of Brazil for production of buses and most recently acquired the iconic British brands Jaguar and Land Rover (Just-Auto editorial team, 2010). Tata motors follow a straightforward rule for expansion; since they have limited technological availa bility to get a presence on the global industrial scene, they look for countries with access to technology and products, find a strategic partner in that market, and then sell Tata motors products in that country whilst exporting their products and capacities regionally (Seshan Kumar, 2008). For example, In January 2006, Tata motors signed an agreement with Fiat Group to sell Fiat vehicles through the Tata Motors outlets in India. In May 2006, the joint venture of Tata Motors with Fiat grew into an industrial partnership for sharing Indian facilities to manufacture vehicles, engines and transmissions for Indian and overseas markets (Just-Auto editorial team, 2010). Along with Internationalisation of operations, TTM follows the strategy of product innovation, which provides TTM with its competitive edge reasonably priced products. It started with introducing the innovative 407 platform for trucks in the 1980s, designed especially to suit Indian road conditions, in consideration with rural areas. Moreover, even today towards the end of the third decade of its existence it dominates two-third of the market. In 1998, TTM launched the first indigenously designed passenger car in India, the Tata Indica sporting innovation by providing more space, contemporary features at a very competitive price. In 2005, TTM launched Indias first mini truck, a small sub one-tonne vehicle facilitating intra-city or shorter distances. This vehicle was designed to replace the three-wheeler carriages market in India by a more sophisticated four-wheeled mode of transport at almost the same price. It used a two-cylinder engine, provided only in Irish crà ¨me colour and had a rigid front axle and rear wheel drive for low cost. The most recent innovation TTM has come out with is the 632-cc Tata Nano, claimed to be the cheapest car in the world also called the Peoples car/ Rupees 1 lakh car ($2500). The target price itself became the source of innovation, as industry claims that it is impossible to make a car at that price. This car is developed based on a series of innovative ideas; engine was packaged on the rear side; two cylinder engine (conventionally there are three-four cylinder engines); identical handles and mechanisms for left and right side doors. Moreover, the speedometer and other instruments panel in the Nano are in the centre of the dashboard, rather than facing the driver, to make it easy and cheaper to switch the position of the steering wheel from the right to the left facilitating exports to other markets as well (Seshan Kumar, 2008). Furthermore the car has unconventional seats; maximising the interior space by pushing the wheels to the corners and power train to below the rear seat creating sufficient space to accommodate three-to-four people (BMA, 2010). Analysis Management control system and Performance Measurement System To sustain the innovation in products and expansion in markets TTM had to introduce changes in their MCS to complement their strategic moves.TTM has two main divisions based on the type of vehicles passenger cars and commercial vehicles (CVBU). With increasing operations TTM In the year 2000, TTMs CVBU suffered its first loss of $2.5 million that led the company to adopt the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM). TBEM, based on Malcolm Baldridge Award for business excellence and Balanced Scorecards as its performance measurement, which will be discussed in depth later (Tata Group| Corporate Governance| Busniess Excellence, 2010). TTM saw shift from a more hierarchical structure to a flatter organisational structure, facilitating easy communication between employees. The change in business model complimented the change in the information technology system too. TTM uses an integration of outsourced facilities some of which are Ariba for supplier negotiations; product lifecycle managem ent and advanced computer aided designs for the engineering and designs of their products; SAP enterprise software application and programmes for enterprise resource planning and increasing transaction effectiveness. Through this, the activities of all departments production, manufacturing, purchase, finance operations etc, were interlinked facilitating better control and coordination by means of an efficient supply-chain management system. Furthermore, TTM changed their product development process and introduced a more collaborative process utilizing the capabilities of different venture partners, suppliers, design houses, subsidiaries and associate companies specialising in different verticals. With the transition of the in-house production process TTM realised the importance of expanding into the international market and thus adopted the internationalisation philosophy mentioned above, to keep in line with their goals and objectives at the same time as gaining access to differe nt markets (BMA, 2010). TTM has a strategic preview of their plans every 5 years where plans are altered whilst introducing new goals and objectives. A well-defined process for the preparation and monitoring of the annual budgets and long-term business plans is followed. There are meetings twice a month of the management committee at operational levels to review the operations and plans of key business areas. TTM has a set of corporate policies, the Tata Code of Conduct, covering the integrity of financial reporting, ethical conducts, regulatory compliance, conflict of interests review and reporting of concerns. All employees have regular exposure to this through fast flowing information between the management and the employees by means of articles, magazines and newsletters (Jamble, Sukate, Guha, Mhasade, Sumeet, Tonk, 2010). TTM has an intact performance measurement system keeping in line with their strategy of offering innovation at a competitive price, as mentioned above the Balanced Scorecard. After suffering their first loss in more than fifty years in 2000, TTM had to resort to stringent cost cutting across all business units, which poised a challenge. TATA Motors Commercial Vehicle Business Unit then employed the balanced scorecard. With the process in progress, the genuine problem revealed itself. It turned out that the manual nature of the review procedures of such a huge structure was getting extremely difficult to implement and consuming valuable amount of time. To address this, the Balanced Scorecard Automation Tool was implemented that would centralise, assimilate and collate the data, providing rapid review and analytical functionality and a comprehensive single picture of organisational performance. Within two years of this, CVBU registered a profit of $ 2.3 Million from the loss of $ 2.5 Million, leading to 60% of TTMs inventory turnover. Initially, CVBU had started the balanced scorecard with only corporate level scorecard; but with its success, now it has expanded to six hierarchical levels with three hundred and thirty one scorecards, additionally looking forward to proliferate it to the lowest level of organisational structure (Huda, 2009). Risks Fetching the advantage of low cost of labour in India, and cheaper resources, TTM places itself as a firm providing innovation at a lower cost, but they do not necessarily produce differentiated products. Their innovation only lies in the fact that they offer a multitude of features suitable for Indian conditions at a lower price, that no other Indian company does (lower competition in domestic market). The threat that TTM faces is the managing of two different segments of vehicles at the same time, the higher priced premium segment (Jaguar and Land Rover) and the very low priced segment (Tata Nano); the low cost manufacturing would not be as advantageous its premium segments car (Seshan Kumar, 2008). Moreover, other Indian manufacturers teaming up internationally like Renault Logan (joint venture between Mahindra and Renault) will intensify the competition for TTM. Further, by entering into the premium cars and sports utility vehicles segment, TTM now faces competition from various other brands like Audi, BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen (Wentz, 2008). Moreover, Through TTMs core strategy of internationalisation, they depend on exports for revenues. But, as the position of the Indian Rupee has now strengthened, it is posing a challenge resulting in a lesser than expected export realisation (Kurup Toms, 2008). Aside from that, TTMs low cost products rely on low quality and its international competitors like Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki have internationally approved quality. Therefore, TTM needs to address its critical quality issue to be an international player (editorial team, 2010) From the discussion about TTM, it can be observed that there is a very evident alignment of its strategy with its performance measurement system and management control systems. The corporate strategy of a company helps in the decision of the company regarding the type of businesses to operate in (Johnson Scholes, 1989), how to structure and finance the company, how to acquire and utilize the resources to convert distinct competencies into competitive advantages (Andrews, 1980 cited in; Langfield-Smith, 1997). TTMs MCS boasts a much-organised structure comprising of formal control standard operating procedures, budgetary controls; informal controls regular interaction with employees, interactive communication system (also facilitating personnel control); administrative and social controls plying ethical codes of conduct; which exemplifies that TTMs MCS has a well-defined structure complementing its precise strategic perspective (Langfield-Smith, 1997). By changing the organisation al structure and introducing a new performance measurement system (the balanced scorecard), it can be noticed that TTM reviews its MCS has a frequent strategic preview and initiate changes as and when the need arises. Furthermore, it is noticeable that TTM is a follower of the contingency school of thought, which advocates that organisational effectiveness results from deploying administrative practices (like performance measurement) in a way that fits the contingencies the organisation functions within. Rather it is noticeable that, while adapting to these contingencies, TTM is finding new practices that match their organisation than relying on the ones other organisations use (Chenhall, 2006). Scope for Improvement Robert Simons (1995) suggested that for managers of modern organisations, it is a difficult task to manage employees and organisation efficiently while giving them enough space to come up with new and innovative ideas at the same time controlling them enough so that they do not misuse this freedom. He suggested four levers of control, the belief system; boundary systems; diagnostic control systems and interactive control systems (Simons, 1995). While the belief systems inculcate core values of the organisation, the boundary systems specify what needs avoidance. On the other hand, diagnostic control systems determine critical performance variables and the interactive control systems help resolve strategic uncertainties (Triantafylli, 2010). For successful implementation of lever of controls, the organisations has to make sure that all the four levers are complementarily in place to produce the desired organisational performance keeping in line with the strategy. For TTM while the appr opriate belief and boundary systems are in place, there seems to be a lack of diagnostic and interactive control systems. A number of key issues that require attention have been pointed out in the earlier section relating to their strategy with respect to competition, quality and exports. If TTM had the diagnostic and interactive control systems in place then these critical areas would have been resolved with an appropriate solution leading to effective organisational performance. Alongside, TTMs strategy would have accounted for these shortcomings if intact levers of controls were in place. Conclusion TTM is one of the strong contenders in the Indian automobile market heading towards a more international sphere. If it continues with innovation and the cost advantage, the organisation would be able to make successful headway. To achieve that, TTM needs to look into some areas that require attention, bring the required changes to its organisational processes, strategy, and control systems. Although, there is a strong link between the MCS and strategy for TTM, but it could be put to a more valuable use by employing the appropriate changes. Reverting to Campbells statement mentioned earlier, it is clearly noticeable that TTM does not benchmark, but focus on its external and internal advantages and utilizes the resources appropriately. This is evident from the fact that they use the availability of cheaper resources and labour to obtain their cost advantage and that TTM introduced new performance measurement system with the change in their strategy to complement it. Furthermore, TTM ha s utilized the availability of technical expertise to manufacture innovative products, gain a competitive edge in the market, and carve a niche for itself. Therefore, TTM has its unique strategy and competitive edge gained by virtue of its effective management control system that has been responsible for TTMs success. Banning tobacco advertisement:the necessity of a consequent solution Banning tobacco advertisement:the necessity of a consequent solution Banning tobacco advertisement:The necessity of a consequent solution Bonded Tobacco Co.: Making smoking safe for smokers., Old Gold Cigarettes: Not a cough in a carload., Camel Cigarettes: More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette. (http://www.tvacres.com/tobacco_slogans.htm, 12/12/09). These are just some examples of slogans common in cigarette advertisement in the history of tobacco ads. The belittlement of the harmfulness of smoking in advertisement is one of the main reasons why Health Organizations and Governments worldwide enforce the banishment of cigarette promotion from the world of advertisement. The progress of this enforcement varies from country to country but most of the above the line promotion is already tobacco free and many sponsorship promotions follow this example. The following essay displays the necessity of regimenting advertisement in the tobacco industry and explains why a consequent realization is requisite. First, a brief look at the historic development of tobacco advertisement and the beginning of its regulation. In 1789 the first advertisement on tobacco products was placed in the New York daily paper by P. Lorrillard Company (Petrone, G. S.,1996, p.7). In the 1920s Bull Durham was the first brand name which was advertised on a large scale by picturing a golfer swinging his club while smoking and introducing the slogan: â€Å"On every green they all roll â€Å"Bull†. Its easy for YOU to roll your own Genuine Bull Durham.† (http://www.owdna.org/History/history25.htm,12/12/09). The tobacco industry took advantage of the development of color lithography in the late 1870s and new approaches to advertisement arose such as the idea of James Buchanan Duke, of W. Duke Sons, to create cigarette boxes with the imprint of the cigarettes brand name and a decorative picture which was part of a collectable series (http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/tobacco.html, 12/12/09). The cigarette packet is still one of the greatest marketing tools of the industry. The first restrictions on tobacco advertisement were executed in Germany during World War II and signed by Heinrich Hunke, the President of the Advertising Council on 7 December 1941 with the justification of the negative influence smoking has on ones health. Any advertisement illustrating smoking as being harmless and a symbol for masculinity was forbidden. As were print advertisement at sport events and in the country side (http://www.smokersnews.com/cigarette-advertising/301/smoking-banned-by-nazi-germany/, 12/12/09). The law on these restrictions have changed and have become more relaxed over the decades but are nowadays again at a point where a consequent prohibition of tobacco advertisement is demanded. In this context one may ask what effect advertisement really has on the behavior of the consumer and if advertisement can be made responsible for the alarmingly high number of smokers worldwide. According to Professor George Stigler (1963), author of the book The Intellectual and the Market Place, The advertising industry has no sovereign power to bend mens will [†¦] Moreover, advertising itself is a completely neutral instrument, and lends itself to the dissemination of highly contradictory desires (p.91). The tobacco industry refers to these kinds of opinions and arguments that advertisement meliorates the market share of certain brands and does not engage new smokers. There are however a great number of scientific studies providing evidence of the coherence of tobacco advertising and consumption (Redmond W.H. 1999), showing the effects on tobacco consumption before and after an advertisement ban (Rimpelà ¤ M.K., Aaro L.E., Rimpelà ¤ A.H. 1993) as well as acknowledge the success of anti-tobacco measures (Laugesen M., Meads C. 1991) which shall be further described hereafter. The majority of econometric studies came to the conclusion that increasing investments in tobacco advertising stimulate and increase the demand for cigarettes, whilst an advertisement ban diminishes tobacco consumption (http://www.globalink.org/en/advertising.shtml#_edn3;12/12/09). This has been confirmed in the latest surveys by the United States Institute of Medicine (Lynch B.S., Bonnie R.J. (ed) 1994), the United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS 1994) and the World Health Organization (Roemer R. 1993). The research on the effects of an advertising ban on the number of smokers cumulate convincing data, showing that a consequent advertising ban significantly contributes to the reduction of the quantity of smokers as seen in Finland in 1977, where tobacco ads were banned, smoking in public building was prohibited and a strong public information campaign was put into action, which reduced the cigarette consumption by 6,7% ( Smee C., Parsonage M., Anderson R., Duckworth S. 1992). It is common knowledge that the goals of advertisement are to create awareness among existing and potential customers, to create customer loyalty by identifying with the product and its brand and to gain new customers. In the tobacco industry the target audience for recruitment is young people. For cigarettes being an addictive product it is more profitable to win young people for the smoking habit, since they bear the potential of becoming life-long customers. Due to this fact and the persuasive power of advertisement, especially young people need to be protected from the marketing influence of the tobacco industry. Advertisement in general and specifically tobacco advertisement wants to deliver a statement to which the existing and potential new customer identifies with and feels connected to. Brand statements and brand images influence young people in particular no matter if dealing with clothes, technological devices, alcohol or cigarettes. (http://www.globalink.org/en/advertising.shtml#_edn13;12/12/09). Some brands are perceived as especially cool, casual or hip and therefore higher frequented. In order to contain the severe influence of advertising an attitude of life, tobacco promotion of any kind needs to be banned. The tobacco industry has been very clever finding more indirect ways to promote their products than any other industry (http://www.globalink.org/en/advertising.shtml#_edn13; 12/12/09). This inventive talent has become a necessity for tobacco marketing departments due to the increasing and very strict regimentation on advertisement already existing. Sponsorship of cultural events and sports, merchandise products available for free, point of sale promotion displays and even the use of cigarette brand names for products of a different industry, e.g. Marlboro Classics clothing (http://www.marlboroclassics.com;12/12/09), and especially the design of the cigarette package are just some examples of the tobacco industrys creative output. But again, all these promotion types transport the pretended positive lifestyle the customers are supposed to identify with and after all one fact not being transported by the industries advertisement is how harmful smoking is to the health. Smoking does not only have a negative effect on the smokers health, but also effects passive smokers, especially children. Contrary to many other stimulants such as alcohol or sweets, cigarettes have a damaging effect on the body after the first consumption. No other legal product is as addictive as cigarettes. The consequences of smoking are evident in a variety of diseases, e.g. blocked arteries, which can lead to a heart attacks and strokes, lung cancer, withdrawal syndromes when the body is under supplied of nicotine and general unfitness. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention claims in its 2007 published Best Practice Report an annual death of 438.000 people worldwide by the aftermath of cigarette consumption (p.7). In March 2005 a report was published by the British Medical Journal providing authoritative data on the impact of passive smoking and stating that passive smoking is assumed to kill 11,000 people a year in the UK only (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/ health-and-families/health-news/passive-smoking-is-there-convincing-evidence-that-its-harmful-476472.html; 12/12/09). An evidentiary amount of documents describe the severe impact tobacco advertising has to embolden non-smokers to begin smoking. Advertising is especially effective among young people. The number of smokers can be considerably decreased if a consequent ban on tobacco advertisement and its manifold promotion activities is put into action. Also prohibiting the display of brand details on the cigarette package, promotion at sponsorship events, distribution of merchandise products, as well as any public print, tv, cinema or radio advertisement. Additionally Dr. Murray Laugesen from the Department of Health in New Zealand subsumes the figure of tobacco consumption can be reduced by 6% if a coherent advertising ban is joined by a public information campaign on the health effects of smoking, this conclusion is supported by the latest report of the World Bank (http://www.globalink.org/en/advertising.shtml#_edn13; 12/12/09). To finally conclude a consequent solution of banning tobacco advertis ement is necessary, because the tobacco industry will continue to work out ways to promote their product and by this influence the consumers, convincing them only of the positive effect a certain brand has on the personal image rather than distributing the risks of the dangerous habit of smoking. Is Single Parenting a Social Problem? Is Single Parenting a Social Problem? Definition The issue of lone parenting is quite clearly one that is of significant importance and impact in the modern social context. It is also one that has different viewpoints, which are important to recognise in the context of this report. While the actual term of ‘lone parenting’ is a given, it is important to understand the various views which are taken in order to address this problem. For example, ‘New Labour’s’ social policy towards lone parents is generally governed by the attitudes epitomised in the mantras â€Å"reforming welfare around the work ethic† and funding a system that â€Å"believes in empowerment not dependency† (Millar and Rowlingson, 2001, p xv). This quite obviously conflicts with the view which was held by previous governments, which is said to maintain the view that poverty is â€Å"relieved by cash handouts† (DSS, 1998, p 19). It is also said that the differences between these two viewpoints epitomises the diffe ring views of ‘old Labour’ and ‘new Labour’ (Millar and Rowlingson, 2001, p xv), and also highlights the shift between the welfare state policy to a more capitalist approach to addressing the lone parenting issue. Main Issues Given the discussion of the United Kingdom’s approach to lone parenting, it might be relevant to compare these provisions with those of other jurisdictions. Take, for example, New Zealand which categorises ‘solo parents’ as: (a) A woman who is the mother of one or more dependent children and who is living apart from, and has lost the support of, or is being inadequately maintained by, her husband: (b) An unmarried woman who is the mother of one or more dependent children: (c) A woman whose marriage has been dissolved by divorce and who is the mother of one or more dependent children: (e) A woman who is the mother of one or more dependent children and who has lost the regular support of her husband because he is subject to a sentence of imprisonment and is- (i) serving the sentence in a penal institution; or (ii) subject to release conditions or detention conditions (as those terms are defined in section 4(1) of the Parole Act 2002) that prevent him undertaking employment: (f) A man who is the father of one or more dependent children whose mother is dead or who for any other reason are not being cared for by their mother (Social Security Act 1964 (NZ), s 27B(1)). Arguably, in consideration of the above, it is clear that the New Zealand social security system is geared more towards caring for a woman who may be a lone parent, as opposed to a father. It might also be noted, however, that social security benefits are only paid to lone parents in New Zealand if the parent is of the minimum age of sixteen (16) years, unless emergency circumstances exist (Social Security Act 1964 (NZ), s 27B(2)). Compare this situation to that across the Tasman Sea in Australia, where the Australian Bureau of Statistics has recorded a three-fold increase in lone parenting families in the last thirty (30) years, from 7.1% in 1969 to 21.4% in 1999 (ABS census). However given this increase, it might also be worthwhile to note that lone parenting in Australia remains at lower levels than other English-speaking countries, but still higher than some countries in continental Europe (Millar and Rowlingson, 2001, p 61). Further to this, it has generally been the attitude of Australian governments to extend social security benefits to all classes of lone parenting families, irrespective of the cause of the lone parenting situation (Millar and Rowlingson, 2001, p 65). Around 47% of lone mothers were employed in 1999 and around 63% of lone fathers, and approximately 9% of both lone mothers and lone fathers were unemployed (ABS, June 1999). This perhaps symbolises a non-dependency on the welfare system, a nd that lone parents in Australia generally try to work at least part-time to supplement their welfare incomes and provide for their family. Key Dilemmas The key dilemma that has been the recurring theme throughout this paper is the need to balance income support and welfare with the need for non-dependence on the welfare system. There is a conscientious push by governments in the above countries to not encourage reliance upon welfare handouts and to push these people to seek active employment, but also recognises the various situations of lone parents who may be unable to work full time for any number of reasons. The United Kingdom obviously recognises this problem in a social context, and took steps to address it though social policy reform. Some say that this was a more ‘heavy handed’ approach to the social problem, and this argument may have some merit given the approaches of other countries. New Zealand prescribes certain circumstances where welfare can be paid, and Australia has a more liberal approach to the welfare system, however all of these approaches seem to function appropriately in their individual contexts. Conclusion In consideration of the above points, it is quite clear that lone parents are a significant social problem. However, the more prominent problem is that of how to address the issue. It is quite clear that the United Kingdom has a more recent history of reforming social policy on this issue and limiting the distribution of welfare benefits. Is this the most appropriate course of action? Some would suggest no, given the experience of other countries. However, regard needs to be had for the statistics: approximately one in four of Britain’s seven million families are headed by a lone parent, and less than four in ten lone parents in Britain work full time (which is a piecemeal 16 hours a week statistically) (Millar and Rowlingson, 2001, p 11). This only serves to fuel the debate further, and one needs to consider the legislative and policy-based approach of the United Kingdom in context before judgement on this issue can be passed. Bibliography Books Millar, J., and Rowlingson, K. (eds), Lone Parents, Employment and Social Policy (2001), Bristol: The Policy Press Journal Articles Hughes, J., ‘Lone Parents and Social Security’ (2005) 36 Victoria University Wellington Law Review 1 Soley, C., ‘Lessons of the Lone Parenting Battle’ (1997) 126 New Statesman. Legislation Social Security Act 1965 (NZ) Social Security Act 1991 (AU, Cth) Other Sources Australian Bureau of Statistics, June 1999 Australian Bureau of Statistics, census 1969 and 1999 DPI, census 1999