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In May 2010 Lambeth Council published its Co-operative Council White Paper, setting out a vision of how it would need to reconfigure its structures and services. In a timely strategy, it looked forward to a time when the public sector would withdraw from particular services to protect funding for others.

It foresaw the need for citizens, the voluntary sector and community groups to take over the delivery of these services if they chose to do so. Rather than abandoning these services, the role of of local government was to empower the community to take on more responsibilities.

This strategy and vision is clearly in tune with the idea of the Big Society and the austerity measures being taken by central government.

By withdrawing from some services, it would possible (and necessary) to prioritise resources and investment investment particular areas – services which would continue to be provided by the public sector -

• personalised services – those which “maximise life chances” and required professionals to work closely with and provide support for citizens
• community services – those best tackled by large parts of the the community coming together to take decisions on services

What are the implications of this vision and strategy? Read the rest of this entry →

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The well-respected Flip Chart Fairy Tales website has recently covered some important themes relating to the challenge of improving efficiency and productivity in the public sector. Rick points out the differences between manufacturing and service sectors and the lessons of systems thinking. The track record of UK industry in productivity improvement has, indeed, been gradual rather than dramatic and public services have to move far faster.

It seems, though, examples of public sector inefficiency are not hard to identify. In September 2010, an anonymously penned article in the the Guardian echoed the feedback from public servants working across the UK, describing a number of examples of waste in public services -

• poor recruitment and appointment decisions,
• poor management handling of lazy and inept staff,
• poor specification, deployment and use of contractors,
• waste, bad design and poor delivery of major IT projects,
• poor economy in travel and expense practice.

While, perhaps, indicative of a culture that values neither productivity nor efficiency, addressing all these issues would be insufficient to tackle the level of savings envisaged by the Coalition Government’s austerity measures.

In other respects however, the observer focuses on a far more important issue -

“… teams tend to blindly follow out-of-date procedures while others create new measures and protocols for the sake of it – and no one stops to question the need for so many reinventions of the wheel. Much of my present role has come about because of the need to redo work that was never completed to a remotely adequate standard.

The same thing happens whenever “efficiency savings” are called for: another big review gets under way, the same problems are discussed, committees are created … and then everyone carries on as before. Instead of waiting like martyrs for the axe to fall, the civil service could act. It could forget about further costly top-down examinations of recurring problems and instead ask everyone to take it upon themselves to do something about wastage.”

While this diagnosis may seem over-simple, it reveals an important truth. It is often within the outdated and ineffective working practices – which have accumulated over many years – that most of the inefficiencies remain deeply locked. To make effective change here, far more radical solutions are required and, in some places, shared services are seen as the answer. However, this response to inefficiency can be worse than the original problem. Read the rest of this entry →

With the Coalition Government revealing the outcomes of it’s Comprehensive Spending Review, the scale and pace of reorganisations across the public sector are becoming apparent.

The range and scale of reform envisaged in the CSR is immensely challenging and doubts are being expressed in mainstream media and new media alike. The balance of opinion suggests delivery will be all but impossible and failure in the attempt will have serious negative consequences.

There is no denying the ambition of the programme and the need for dramatic change is emphasised by the government’s statement that it is commencing “a radical programme of public service reform … [which] will change the way services are delivered by redistributing power away from central government and enabling sustainable, long term improvements in services.”

While spending in front line services such as health and schools are somewhat insulated from the financial pressures, the administrative budgets of central government departments are to see reductions of 34%. Taking anticipated changes in Council Tax into account, local government will see reductions of around 15% over the next four years with police and fire services experiencing reductions of 14% and 13% respectively.

That degree of saving will be spectacularly challenging and it’s clear the programme require more fundamental change than slicing small amounts of activity from many small programmes and budgets.

How should work proceed? Read the rest of this entry →

In David Cameron’s keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference, he talked about moving “from top down to bottom up” as a major element of the “Big Society spirit”. He talked about a shift in power reflected in the decentralisation of power into the hands of citizens, social enterprises, mutuals and cooperatives and small businesses.

Yet people are struggling to understand what the Big Society means. IPSOS MORI have suggested recent polling, commissioned by the Royal Society of the Arts in partnership with the Social Investment Business, reveals the following confused picture -

• 55% of British adults polled had not heard of the Big Society policy,
• 54%) think it is a good idea in principle but won’t work in practice,
• Nearly 60% believe Big Society is an excuse for saving money while cutting back on public services,
• 64% believe public services have tried to do too much and people should take more control of their own lives,
• Almost as many think it is up to the government to be responsible for public services.

Most news coverage suggests voluntary groups and charities are likely to face cuts themselves, the effects of which, combined with losing other income, will prevent them stepping in to fill any gaps left by the withdrawal of public services. In the absence of a clear sense of direction, people cannot understand how they will get access to the help traditionally been provided by our familiar public services.

How realistic is it to talk about the Big Society becoming real? Read the rest of this entry →

With the Trade Union Congress (TUC) calling for coordinated industrial action to resist cuts by the “demolition government”,  the language used by Andrew Rawnsley in the Guardian begins to look less extreme.

Rawnsley compares the current situation to those implemented after the First World War. From 1921, the “Geddes Axe” saw major reductions in the armed forces, a 35% shrinking of the civil service plus controversial scrapping of education and housing reform which the Labour Party used to effect – forming it’s first government in 1924.

At present, budding signs of increased confidence and nascent recovery in the private sector are being completely overshadowed by fears over spending cuts.

Rawnsley reports the gradual realisation in government that global spending reductions of 25% will mean far more than trimming uneccesary fat through “efficiency savings”.

Reductions on this scale would require a scaling back of government activity which has real meaning and benefit. According to his sources, negotiations inside government, especially between the major spending departments and HM Treasury are very bitter.

The final report of the Commission on 2020 Public Services suggests public services must be more closely shaped around people with departmental silos removed and decision making and commissioning brought much closer to citizens and communities, with political institutions and accountability reshaped to support this. This is absolutely the right prescription for the future.

For around four months, central government departments have been wrapped up with introspective review, working in existing silos to determine where savings can be made. There is real danger that “silo thinking” will prevent government from finding solutions which might actually deliver what they want and need. Read the rest of this entry →

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The NHS White Paper allows individual employers the freedom to determine pay for their own staff. While this is a relatively small provision in the paper, it has potentially serious implications.

Quickly spotting this and commenting in the Public Finance blog, Duncan Brown has expressed serious reservations about the potential for a major deconstruction of the national pay framework Agenda for Change.

It is possible the UK is about to witness the decline and fall of the 20th Century’s monolithic, centralised state institutions. But trying to read the early actions of the coalition government is difficult and it’s too soon to tell how the new world of public service, created by the government’s actions, will look.

One might be forgiven for thinking a lack of vision is creating the uncertainty. In response, it might be argued the competing pressures and visions within the Labour party resulted in a lack of consistency in purpose and action (if not motivation).

It’s only fair to remember the coalition needs to craft solutions reflecting the new partnership …. a more formal process than takes place inside single party “broad church” governments.

So, as the coalition begins to shape things in their own image, what should we expect?

For the coalition parties, links between localism, pluralism and liberalism are deep and profound. Big, centralised government is broadly rejected. From the actions that have been taken by the new government, the coming changes may be more radical than anyone expects. Evidence of this can be seen in -

• the “Big Society” contrasted with Big Government with it’s echoes of “Total Politics“, coined by Greg Clark and James Mather and used by Ian Duncan Smith to attack the New Labour project,
• the abolition of Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts and nascent plans to devolve spending to General Practitioners,
• the challenge of producing plans for 25% to 40% cuts in central government departments,
• the removal of regional planning controls,
• action to consolidate the number of arms length bodies,
• the moves to create elected police authorities.

So how will public services look in five years time? Read the rest of this entry →

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Attractor was invited to join an HR Workforce Forum event at the start of July 2010, discussing the workforce and HR implications from the Total Place programme.

The forum event, hosted by Bevan Brittan, was attended by participants with in-depth experience of the Total Place programme and others working at the heart of public sector change management.

The forum heard details about the New Local Government Network (NLGN) Report “Greater than the sum of its parts”.

Lessons for HR and messages being given to government about “the storm” ahead, were examined.

“The problem” of course can be defined in many ways – waste, funding restrictions, failure to deliver benefits, inefficiency, unfairness, “postcode lottery” – and its unlikely any programme can address all of these together. It’s possible some of them are inextricably linked, the big, “fair” programme being wasteful and the small “efficient” project leading to uneven outcomes.

The Total Place pilot programme aimed to change public services so they improve the lives of local residents and deliver better value. It was hoped the pilots would deliver early savings to validate the work and develop learning about how more effective cross-agency working can function. The work involves three strands of activity -

• ‘counting’ – identifying how public money is spent to achieve objectives
• ‘culture’ -  looking at how existing cultures and ways of working help or hinder the delivery of outcomes
• ‘customer needs’ – gaining practical insight into their needs, wants, expectations, behaviours and experiences

The challenge for HR functions in supporting service redesign, innovation and change management while also working to streamline and slim down their own functions was explored in some detail at the forum event.

Personnel Today have also published an article about Total Place and what it means for HR. In Stepping up to the mark, Roger Britton, at Worcester County Council talks about -

“the need to prepared to think in terms of a single public service workforce which is operating across organisations, the boundaries between which have become invisible.”

Tackling the “culture” within the existing empires poses a huge challenge which, if left unaddressed – allows silo mentalities to predominate and borders to remain defended. Mature and confident leadership, effective Organisation Development and Human Resources teams will be needed to drive these initiatives locally.

The Workforce Forum discussed the benefits and the legal and employment challenges of creating and staffing “New Economic Vehicles”, joint ventures and social enterprises which can remove barriers and allow partner organisations to focus efforts on delivering services and efficiencies together.

The NLGN report concludes billions of pounds could be saved by delivering joined-up service provision but warns that a lack of coherence and over-centralisation could derail the programme and prevent benefits being realised. Read the rest of this entry →

At its conference in June 2010, the NHS Confederation published a report challenging the wisdom of constant NHS reorganisations. In “The Triumph of Hope Over Experience”, the Confederation examines a history of rapid and turbulent creations, mergers and disestablishments over 20 years.

Presenting a very interesting analysis of structural change in the NHS, the Confederation’s stated aim was -

“to review the history of restructuring, what is known about its results and the reasons for the pattern of increasingly frequent organisational change to draw out some important lessons that are particularly salient at this time.”

In some respects the report’s messages are relevant to other areas of the public sector. Attractor would encourage leaders of QIPP, Total Place and Efficiency and Reform programmes to read the report as they set about tackling the current financial crisis.

The report suggests a tendency to enthusiastically advocate reorganisation as a solution to all problems, regardless of their nature. It indicates reorganisation can provide opportunities for politicians to demonstrate action, for managers to advance careers, remove “problem people” and take generous redundancies – none of which have anything to do with the “reason” for making change. But the forces supporting reorganisation seem stronger than those resisting.

The Confederation recommends far closer scrutiny for such proposals, better review of the results of organisational change and holding proponents to account for results. In conclusion the report recognises the need to embrace change but expresses strong doubts over the kind of top-down redesign that has been all too common.

“Organisational change is necessary to allow organisations to adapt to changes in the
environment. Experiment and evolution may be a more effective approach to this than
insufficiently intelligent design.”

The analysis and conclusions are clear and ring true. While changing the shape of an organisation can support other business change, simply “moving the chairs around”, redrawing boundaries or lines of accountability rarely addresses fundamental or underlying systemic problems with the way “real work” is organised, supported and delivered.

Weakness in resource allocation and deployment, business processes and systems, communication and information-flows, skills and competences are best addressed by action “close to the coalface” with the teams who are delivering services – not by fiddling with the tiers of management way over their heads. This might suggest programmes like “Total Place” – close to customers and service delivery – are more likely to succeed than other approaches. Read the rest of this entry →