Day 197 - 07 Dec 95 - Page 10

     
       1      net sales and the percentages ------
       2
       3 Q.   So percentages of sales always?
       4      A.  Always percentages of sales.
       5
       6 MR. MORRIS:  It says:  "Remember, labour is to be invested
       7      wisely.  It is not enough to run tight on occasions just
       8      to be given a percentage by myself or agreed by you".
       9      What do you say that means?
      10      A.  Those would refer to where we would say things about
      11      where we possibly would be doing a late close or an all
      12      night close, where you would be running labour high, they
      13      would have to drag it back on another occasion.  It would
      14      be going back and saying that -- it must relate to saying,
      15      for example, saying:  "I think we are running too tight; I
      16      need a little bit more to do the job properly there".
      17
      18 Q.   I said actually "given a percentage by myself", it should
      19      be "just a percentage given by myself or agreed by you".
      20      Is that a recognition there about there percentage being
         given by Mark Davies?
      22      A.  Well, it would come through the chain down to Mark
      23      Davis who would then have to give it to me, so it would be
      24      figures that he would have been sent from above.
      25
      26 Q.   On page 41, the second to last sentence of the main
      27      paragraph, it says:  "P&Ls cost guidelines have been well
      28      met".  Yes?
      29      A.  Yes.
      30
      31 Q.   If we could just note that because, as you said before,
      32      despite being "well met" you were still being asked to
      33      improve.
      34      A.  We were asked to push that little bit more.
      35
      36 Q.   Then we have a letter on page 42 from Andrew Taylor.  He
      37      was the Regional Manager at this time.  If you just read
      38      that to yourself?  The stores over the page, page 43, are
      39      those the stores that would have been under his control?
      40      A.  They would have been the stores under his control.
         What that relates to, it was just his actual region did a
      42      trial where we were actually given bonus payments for
      43      beating the PAC figure, and that relates to how we had all
      44      got with that and what had been achieved.  It was looked
      45      on as a trial at the time.  We were the only people doing
      46      it.
      47
      48 MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Just pause a moment.  So, you were being
      49      congratulated on having achieved 32.36 and given a target
      50      of 30.52; is that right?
      51      A.  What actually happened is the target was 30.52, but we
      52      actually achieved the profit of 32.36.  We were actually 
      53      congratulated on actually beating the target set.
      54
      55 Q.   Get within two points of it?
      56      A.  So an extra two per cent profit we had actually made.
      57
      58 Q.   I see, yes.  Let me just look again.  Yes?
      59
      60 MR. MORRIS:  So, in the profit levels it is important to get