It seems the period of late 2008/early 2009 has seen the collapse of many things: commercial and private credit, share prices and pensions, banks and a large number of companies. The latest crunch though seems to be in the Guilt market. Yes, that is a deliberate spelling and bears no relationship to Treasury Funds, but refers to that moral reaction that is linked to remorse.
Taxpayers have grown increasingly frustrated and annoyed by the revelations of what seem to be pure greed in our society - where failure is rewarded, incompetence is condoned and selfishness is encouraged.
With taxpayers' funds diverted into supporting government costs including meeting the expenses of MPs, some of which involve supporting the payment of non-existent mortgage costs for second homes, top of the range accessories and moat cleaning; there is indeed an increasing sense of outrage.
While exaggerated expenses may not bring down UK Plc, they do set a moral tone which when transferred to the corporate environment, may compromise a company's growth or survival; and simply for people to blame the system is inexcusable.
A system or process does not have a sense of right or wrong, nor can it apply moral principles - it's people that do so. The intention of expenses systems is simply to guide the reimbursement for costs that I incur which only arise as a result of the needs of my business or work activity.
It should not be regarded as some sort of cash cow to be milked for personal advantage and the reaction of individuals found guilty of this abuse does suggest that apart from our society losing vast amounts of value in the economy, we have also lost the ability to feel guilt.
An overwhelming feature of my upbringing was that if I was uncomfortable with someone else being aware of an action, chances are it was something I shouldn't be doing. I can't always claim to have lived by that precept but I do have the decency to feel guilt and remorse when I fail.
Thanks to Russell for contributing this article. If you would like to explore ways of managing expense claims within your organization, kindly visit our partner at www.webexpenses.com . Webexpenses is a specialist provider of web-based expenses software that dramatically reduces the cost of processing expenses.
