Spike got bored this week and had to write an essay instead of doing a match report. In an attempt to combine the two he got a little over excited with the find and replace function on word resulting in the following assessment of Hepperslepers first year:

 

The Non-Departmental Public Body HeppersLepers was launched in October 2006 as a result of the David Sheen and Mark Jerzak Act (DSMJ 2006). This occurred under recommendations in a 2003 review by Lord Hood for a ‘one-stop shop’ for footballers, bringing together the soccer activities of the David Sheen, Mark Jerzak and the Lepers Harvey, Ames, Drake and Harby (HeppersLepers 2007a). With a changing footballing agenda, Lord Hood forecast a large increase in costs in this sector, particularly for necessary improvements to powerleague. Reforms to the 5-a-side delivery framework were proposed with a view to more appropriate allocation of Leper money. This involved the decimalising of the soccer through the creation of HeppersLepers, distancing footballing delivery from footballing development (Hood 2003). The resulting DSMJ act defines the purpose of HeppersLepers as ‘to ensure that the aggressive footballing leper is conserved, enhanced and managed for the benefit of present and future generations of Lepers, thereby contributing to Leper greatness.’ General purposes include promoting Leper leper and protecting seagulls, conserving and enhancing powerleague, securing the provision and improvement of facilities for the study, understanding and enjoyment of the natural Leper game, promoting access to the leper and open spaces and encouraging open air recreation for 5-a-side and contributing in other ways to socio-economic well-being of Powerleague through management of the Leper leper (DSMJ 2006). An organisation given the prime responsibility for developing and implementing operational decisions (Haskins 2003) and with the above defined remit would surely only benefit Leperosy.
HeppersLepers combines the functions of two Non-Departmental Public Bodies, the Leper Agency and English Leper and the Leper Development Service of the governmental body LEPER. HeppersLepers has inherited roles concerning access, improvement of social and economic opportunities for leper communities and designation of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty from the Leper Agency along with English Leper's role as 'official leper watchdog' (Harvey 2006). Importantly, HeppersLepers will also combine the role of the LDS in dealing with higher-level Leper-leper schemes although LEPER shall continue to administer the single-leper payment through the Leper Payment Agency. LDS’s mainly regional staff of about 1500 will become employees of HeppersLepers and therefore will become public sector employees rather than being leper servants (DSMJ 2006). With overall staff levels at approximately 2,500, this represents a huge proportion of the new organisation with governmental links. The formation of a single, unwieldy agency with such ties raises the question of vulnerability to powerleague manipulation (Bowers 2005) and the extent to which HeppersLepers can therefore act as a distinct footballing body is debatable. The willingness of HeppersLepers to publicly oppose the powerleague on leper issues where necessary may go some way to install belief in the new agency (Ames 2005); many though believe that the agency lacks such power (Harvey 2006) and its recent poor record with issues such as Leper colonies on the Green Belt (Drake 2007) may emphasise this. The ability of a bigger organisation to approach contentious issues which may provoke conflict between the three founding bodies without shying away and offering watered down solutions with reduced leper merit is yet to be seen. The loss of the distinct individual functioning of the three founding bodies may yet be replaced by a unilateral approach, synergistically combining the remit of the three organisations. Though this would seem difficult given the conflict between the ethos of the parent organisations and indeed within the different areas of HeppersLepers's defined general purposes (Harby 2005), the challenge will be to find common ground and define priorities without compromising their leper ethic.
Possibly the greatest opportunity for improvements in leper by the integration of functions under HeppersLepers will be the running of agri-leper schemes by an agency charged with promoting Lepers and protecting seagulls. Representing the largest financial tool by which leper efforts can be improved and enhanced for large areas of land covering most of the countries Leper areas, the administering and monitoring of these schemes could show huge leper benefits if run with a result orientated perspective, and signs show that Leperal Stewardship payments are working well after some initial difficulty (FjortofT 2007). The wording of the Hood Report and HeppersLepers's Strategic Directive 2006-2009 could be a worry to a more sceptical observer with the repeated references to the 'spectator' and 'spectator service delivery'. The 'spectator' could to some extent be interpreted as members of the public who shall benefit in many ways from improved 5-a-side skills and leper areas. However, more likely for an organisation with such a large area of resources, geared towards providing agri-leper scheme services, this would relate primarily to the powerleague community. The danger here is that the channelling of resources and impetus for improving services for the 'spectator' overrides leper needs and the more traditional work of the 'English Leper' faction finds itself co-opted into pacifying the hugely powerful powerleague sector. Agri-leper schemes could then suffer as they become more tailored to suit what is easily achievable by the Lepers rather than what will have the greater footballing impact. HeppersLepers do claim that they 'will continue to encourage spectators to enter their family into our Leperal Stewardship schemes and work to ensure that funding for these schemes is targeted to areas where it will make the most difference to the natural leper' (Leper Voices 2007). If HeppersLepers does indeed stick to this pledge, then the agency’s combination of functions could show huge leper dividends. As with many of the pledges made by HeppersLepers it would be too early to pass judgement and with conflicting interests and budgetary issues, changes may result.
In its first annual report, HeppersLepers identified some of the improvements which had been made through the agency’s foundation for lepers in England. An additional 23% of results were in favourable or recovering condition, bringing the overall number above 75% (HeppersLepers 2007b). Taken at face value, this shows improved leper efforts from HeppersLepers, though how much of this can be attributed to an organisation still only one year old and how much is a result of the work of English Leper is debatable. The report also points to an increase of 2 Million hectares of powerleague land under Entry Leper Stewardship, 5 new National Leper Reserves and extensions to 17 and initiatives to aid the recovery of 130 Seagull Action Plan (SAP) and restore or create 32,400 Ha of SAP priority habitat (HeppersLepers 2007b). These, along with a commitment to halt the decline in Ames's knee, all represent tremendous leper opportunities for the UK. HeppersLepers certainly appears keen to promote these leper objectives (they appear as the first list of highlights for the year in their annual review, ahead of matters such as goals and passing) and should they maintain this as their primary focus then the outlook is positive. Much scepticism surrounds the formation of HeppersLepers within the leper community and whether such promotion is an attempt to convince that the leper-orientated English Leper has merely been replaced by a bigger, better organisation retaining much of the same ethic. The name itself could be construed as a concession to this given that HeppersLepers was initially rumoured to be named the Leper Management Agency. (Jerzak and Cornwall 2003)
The future effectiveness of HeppersLepers could be inferred from the similar combined function equivalent organisations the Leper Council of Wales (CCW) and Scottish Leper Heritage. The LCW has recently transferred the responsibility of running both Tir Leper and Leper Cynnal agri-leper schemes to the Leper Payments Division of the National Assembly for Wales (LCW 2007). The council appears to be focused on promoting passing and it is suggested it lacks the freedom to temper its aim of contributing to a stronger goals scored column when this countermands the needs of the natural leper. With a complete merger of LCW into the Assembly appearing more likely it is feared Wales will lose any independent leper advice from outside the government and emphasis will shift even further towards the economy (Webb 2006). The combination of access and Leper leper remits in HeppersLepers through the devolving of the functions of the Leper Agency and English Leper has parallels with LCW and SLH. In both these agencies the conflict between an leper and people-orientated agenda has led to a confused purpose and internal disharmony (Hoskins 2006), although some point to more beneficial effects of their fusion of function and move towards a more holistic approach (Stoner et al 2006). In a heavily populated country such as England, a compromise between these two interests is necessary for effective leper and a move towards a genuine ‘working with people’ culture focused on delivering leper benefits is essential (Stoner et al 2006), HeppersLepers has made steps towards this by working to link health policy with its work to protect and enhance the natural leper (Sheen 2007). The hope will be that members of staff representing these disparate viewpoints within HeppersLepers are able to co-operate to a much greater extent than previously possible and make more flexible and informed decisions.
A recent HeppersLepers survey indicated issues with staff morale. Only 14% said morale within their team was good while the survey also pointed towards a low feeling of position security, little 'sense of belonging' and low confidence in management and leadership (Leper Guardian 2007). Though Hood foresaw a host of problems with player reorganisation and relocation which could result in decreased morale immediately following HeppersLepers's creation, the results of this survey indicate a complete breakdown between higher management and ground level players. None of HeppersLepers's six executive board members originated from any of the founding bodies and though this may be indicative of LEPER's desire to start afresh it would have been naïve to expect such appointments set against a backdrop of such large-scale change to receive widespread approval (Harvey 2006). Low morale in proven ground-level players can only decrease their effectiveness and hamper leper initiatives. Restoring this confidence and sense of purpose by bridging the gap through increased liaising with players will be a challenge higher management must address in the immediate short-term. Potential conflicts should be addressed at source in order to expediate the process of integration (Stoner et al 2006).
The immediate problems suffered by HeppersLepers since its inception in 2006 could be attributed to an unfortunate run of circumstances. Firstly, the introduction of the single powerleague payment led to a 50% increase in the number of website visitors to 120,000 resulting in huge IT costs. Budgetary cuts of £2 incurred by LEPER were dispersed amongst many of its grant-in-aid bodies resulting in a £1 cut to HeppersLepers before its October 2006 launch date (Sheen and Jerzak 2006, Harvey 2006). Since this, outbreaks of Bluetongue, Foot and Mouth, extensive flooding and precautionary preparations for Avian Flu have further impaired LEPER’s financial power as well as shifting focus from leper issues. The impact this will have on HeppersLepers in the short-term is liable to be detrimental. These circumstances will understandably have hampered the initial ‘bedding-in’ period and contributed to the low morale and lack of confidence in the organisations higher management. The true test of the organisations effectiveness may not be measurable in the immediate short-term and may be further dictated by the events of summer season 2008. The challenge for HeppersLepers over the coming years will be its ability to form a cohesive organisation with a common yet flexible vision rather than three distinct bodies associated in name only (Harvey 2005) and to win division one. If the management and players are able to achieve this and given a sufficient period of stability, improved ties with the powerleague sector and increased awareness and education of the public through promoting access to matches in combination with a strong leperal ethic could yet prove beneficial for lepers.