Situation
A private institution is deciding whether one office or person should control a critical asset, or whether authority should be divided across multiple people, entities or systems.
Centralise when
Decisions are frequent, reversible, time-sensitive and easy to audit. Centralisation can improve clarity, reduce coordination failure and create one accountable owner. It works best when the authority can be rapidly revoked and a tested successor exists.
Primary risk: one compromise, conflict or absence becomes institutional failure.
Split when
A decision can irreversibly transfer value, change ownership, destroy evidence, expose protected information or alter another person’s rights. Independent approval is valuable when the second party brings different evidence, not merely another click.
Primary risk: ambiguity, delay and informal workarounds that recreate centralisation outside the formal model.
Decision factors
- Maximum consequence of one mistaken or malicious act.
- Reversibility after the act completes.
- Required speed under normal and emergency conditions.
- Independence and competence of the second authority.
- Ability to recover if one authority is unavailable.
- Quality of evidence showing who exercised power.
Recommendation
Centralise preparation and routine operation; split irreversible execution and authority change. Use thresholds so the institution does not impose the same ceremony on every act. Define an emergency route that is narrower, time-limited and reviewed after use.
Authority architecture card
For the power in question, record normal owner, consequence threshold, second authority, emergency substitute, expiry, evidence and recovery path. If the emergency substitute is the same person the split was designed to constrain, the architecture is fictional.