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Last updated: 08 December 2009
No country in the world offers excellent public services to all its citizens without active, enabling government. This means government that provides both a clear sense of direction as well as the freedoms for front-line staff to innovate; that guarantees minimum standards without putting a ceiling on quality; and that ensures value for money without controlling how each pound is spent. In short, government that provides strategic leadership.
Governments cannot simply leave the provision of services to the market or individuals. If left simply to private markets, excellent and equitable outcomes would not be achieved in health, education or welfare. As the health care system in the United States demonstrates, such approaches can be more expensive, less equitable and lead to poorer outcomes overall.82,83
Nor should governments seek to micro-manage the performance of front-line public services. The establishment of national minimum standards – and clear national targets which reflect the views of the public – have played an important role over the last decade in rebuilding public confidence in the NHS and the state education system. But getting from ‘good’ to ‘world class’ cannot be mandated from the centre. Instead, central government should increasingly play a less interventionist, more strategic role.
The best performing systems in the world encourage innovation at the front line and create the conditions under which services can be responsive to the aspirations of citizens. In these systems, central government's role is to ensure that bottom-up accountability mechanisms and incentives are in place, and power is devolved to local organisations and local government where they can help citizens most. Direct intervention by central government is reserved for situations when local systems underperform or are in crisis.
Under this more strategic approach, it is often not central government's job to provide services directly, but to ensure that the system delivers services to meet both existing social needs and newly emerging ones. Thus, central government's role is:
Leading change
The first role of government in a world class system is to provide the vision and direction of change for public services, so that everyone working in them understands the guiding principles within which they should be operating. Such leadership lies at the very heart of the strategic role of government.
This does not mean micro-managing the detail of implementation but rather setting out priorities and how they will be achieved. Government's vision should inspire and energise leaders and front-line professionals, engage the public and challenge the system to continually raise its game. To achieve this, government must focus on assessing where public services need to adapt and policy needs to change to meet new circumstances.
For example, childcare, pre-school education and tackling youth unemployment were identified as major priorities a decade ago. Tackling antisocial behaviour, speeding up asylum claims and making policing more locally responsive have been similar major developments in the last five years. In the decade ahead, establishing new approaches to funding and delivering social care for the elderly is likely to become increasingly significant, as will ensuring that those who have suffered from long term sickness are supported to return to work.
Government has an important role to play in leading changes in people's attitudes and behaviours. For example, the success of the ‘Think!’ road safety campaign has helped the UK to have one of the best road safety records in the world. Current campaigns include educating people about the warning signs of heart attacks and encouraging the public to pay closer attention to the number of units in different alcoholic drinks. In doing this the Government will work more closely with civic organisations, such as campaign groups, and with local agencies.
The lesson from around the world as well as in the UK is that public services thrive when local and national leadership operate in tandem. Central government retains an important role in promoting minimum standards, reducing postcode lotteries, and intervening where local systems fail. However, local leadership and accountability become more important as the agenda shifts from simply raising core standards to a greater emphasis on increasing responsiveness to the users of services. As the Local Area Agreement negotiations on local targets and funding show, local leaders are well placed to bring services together and help professionals weigh up competing priorities, bringing legitimacy to difficult local decisions.
The Government is committed to building up the capacity and powers of local leaders in health, education, policing and welfare and other services. Local authorities and cities are gaining greater responsibilities for local economic development and transport and more freedoms to set local priorities for public services.
In turn, local commissioners of services, including local government, must also act strategically rather than micro-manage or control front-line services. For example, recent legislation gives local authorities a crucial role for commissioning schools and children's services, managing the local market for childcare, supporting people to manage their own social care services and ensuring that no local schools are below nationally set minimum standards. Direct intervention from central government is only necessary where local organisations and authorities lack the will or capacity to act.
Measuring what matters
The Government's priorities for the next three years are now set out in a streamlined set of 30 Public Service Agreements (PSAs). There are now fewer national targets, fewer indicators and, instead of being constrained by the boundaries between Whitehall departments, the PSAs are focused on the outcomes that matter to citizens and public service professionals. This allows a greater role for local communities to set local priorities and more space to deliver personalised, flexible services.
Alongside reforms to the PSAs are changes to the way local authority performance is measured. Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are three-year agreements between local authorities, other local partners and central government which set out key priorities for a local area. A limited number of core outcomes are agreed, linking to the national priorities set out in PSAs and local areas are given the freedom to deliver. Local control of funds is being increased – from 2008 the LAAs no longer have funding ‘ring-fenced’ for specific priorities, there is a single pot of money, with fewer conditions on how it is spent. In this way LAAs allow greater flexibility and capacity for the development of local solutions to local problems, rather than having policies implemented in a top-down way from central government. Local authorities are encouraged to innovate and to work with government to remove any barriers to innovation.
For more information on the new Local Performance Framework see An Introduction to the Local Performance Framework - Delivering Better Outcomes for Local People, Department for Communities and Local Government, November 2007, Ref: 07 LGSRU 04949.
For more information on the new PSA framework see 2007 Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review – Meeting the aspirations of the British people [External website], HM Treasury, 2007 and the treasury website [External website]
Guaranteeing standards and fairness
The providers of public services enjoy many freedoms in world class systems, allowing them to innovate and raise standards further. These freedoms exist within a clear framework, established by the Government, in conjunction with regulators and inspectorates. This framework must, among other things, set the standards below which providers must not fall and clearly state the implications of failure. In short, as services in this country seek to match the best in the world, the Government will set high floor standards but no ceiling on quality.
Minimum standards are particularly important for ensuring that services help those in greatest need. Historically, poor performing schools, hospitals and other services have been clustered in deprived areas, compounding the disadvantage already faced by residents.84 This approach applies equally to regenerating entire areas as well as single services.
The Government is clear that its priority must be to eradicate such underperformance, as recent announcements have demonstrated.
The Government will apply this approach more widely and support swift action to ensure high standards for all.
But high minimum standards alone are not sufficient to ensure that services are fair or world class. World class services exceed minimum standards by encouraging diversity and experimentation while still ensuring equality of access. The Government will therefore continue to ensure that fair access to schools, NHS treatment, social housing and support for victims of crime is embedded in services, such as through the recently revised schools admissions code, the new NHS Constitution, the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, and expanded entitlements to student grants that help pay university tuition fees.85 And we will ensure that local people have the comparable information necessary to scrutinise performance and the local accountability systems necessary to challenge those services that need to improve.
Investing for the long term
All governments have a responsibility to ensure that taxpayers' spending achieves value for money and that public services are as efficient as possible. World class systems achieve high levels of productivity but they do so without dictating how every pound should be spent. Resources are often allocated through multi-year funding settlements and without ring-fencing. Expected outcomes are described rather than inputs. Clear accountabilities are established so that each part of the system knows what is expected of them and who is responsible for what.
Over the last five years, the Government has developed a number of ways to develop a more strategic relationship with service providers, transferring direct accountability to local people and service users and unlocking the insights and motivation of those working on the front line.
We have significantly reduced the number of central targets and introduced greater autonomy for local authorities to work with other services to set local priorities (see the box - Measuring what matters).
The Government is now developing this long term framework further. Multi-year pay agreements covering over 1.5 million employees have already been negotiated to give greater certainty to both front-line staff and service managers.
Increasingly, departments will ensure that incentives are in place to encourage innovation and prevent problems occurring rather than spending large sums on dealing with them after the event. For example, as set out in the budget, the Government is exploring a new funding mechanism to reward private and voluntary sector specialist providers for investing in helping long term incapacity benefit claimants into work. And over time, the Government's strategy is for investment in prevention to become a far greater priority for the NHS.
Getting people into work and on in work
In future it will no longer be the shortage of jobs but the shortage of skills that will be the biggest barrier to full employment. Jobseekers therefore need seamless services that both help them get back into work and, in the process, start to give them the skills they will need for the future.
In the West Midlands, approximately 75,000 customers who remain unemployed for more than six months will be able to benefit progressively from enhanced and tailored provision at all stages of the flexible New Deal, starting from April 2009.
The programme will build on the existing City Strategy Pathfinder and the forthcoming Integrated Employment and Skills trials to develop a co-commissioning approach. It will bring Learning and Skills Council funding, including Train to Gain, together with the flexible New Deal, and link employment and skills with wider services, such as health.
See Work Skills [External website], DWP and DIUS, 2008
Capacity-building and connecting
The quality of the professionals working in public services is a key determining factor of world class performance. Government therefore has an important role to play as a capacity-builder – ensuring sufficient numbers of skilled staff are recruited and developed; and that incentives are in place to encourage innovation and appropriate levels of risk taking.86 In Whitehall, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills is responsible for public sector innovation and will support government departments in responding to this challenge.
In the past, too many new initiatives have been introduced from the top down – rather than testing out reforms first. To become world class, services must take a more systematic approach in which new ideas are developed by professionals in conjunction with service users, tested on a small scale and, if successful, implemented more widely. Personal budgets in social care are such an example – originating from the demands of services users, tested by pioneering councils and now adopted as government policy.
Building service capacity in Canada
Canada is a world leader in building the capacity of public services. For example, they have invested heavily in providing rapid analysis and dissemination of policy evaluations and statistics, and in ensuring that public services measure customer satisfaction in standard ways. In 2004, Canada established the Canada School of Public Service, providing a focal point for training. Since 2006, all senior managers in the public service have had a responsibility for ensuring that their staff are trained and for promoting innovation within their organisation.
Lindquist E, A Critical Moment: Capturing and Conveying the Evolution of the Canadian Public Service [External website], Canada School of Public Service, 2006
Central government is one of the few actors able to take a system-wide perspective, which means it is well placed to bring organisations together to broker agreements and build coalitions of change. Government has successfully worked, for instance, with manufacturers to reduce car crime and with charities to invest in science and medical research.
This perspective also means that government is best placed to change the organisational architecture – changing the type of organisations that deliver services and how they relate to one another. This is important given how fragmented public services can be from the citizen's point of view – especially for the most disadvantaged. The value of a more joined up and integrated approach to public services is already established: examples include Children's Trusts, the UK Border Agency, and current pilots involving HM Revenue and Customs and Jobcentre Plus that make it easier for people to claim tax credits and housing benefit when returning to work. New rules for sharing information safely between agencies also promote integrated approaches. PSAs and LAAs also require collaboration and joint working across government.
In turn, these changes will require central government departments to renew themselves and improve performance. They need to be able to identify long term challenges; establish overall operating frameworks; develop external partnerships that can create change; understand the aspirations of citizens; foster a culture of innovation; and avoid the temptation to dictate change. They require the agility to address crises and intervene if basic standards are under threat, and step back quickly when these problems are addressed.
This means that the next stage of public service reform will be as much about improving the work of central government as about change among front line services, establishing a more highly qualified, flexible and smaller civil service.
Building the capacity of public services to exploit new technology
Technology enables personalisation and precision in public services not dreamed of in 1945. Supporting organisations to make the most of this potential will remain a critical role for government in the years ahead.
Decades of underinvestment in technology was made good in the 2002 Spending Review with an injection of £6 billion of new money. Today's public services would not function without some of the world's biggest information processing operations running in the background.
There has been a dramatic increase in public access to technologies like mobile phones, home computers and the internet. In 1997, only 10% of people had used the internet, now around 70% have done so. This has fundamentally changed the way people consume all sorts of services including public ones. Nearly half the population want more access to government services online, and equal numbers want to communicate by phone, online and face to face.a
This is changing the way people engage with public services. In 1997, NHS Direct was a phone-based service, now it receives more visits online than telephone calls. People increasingly belong to online communities, providing support to one another on issues important to public services like parenting, health and caring. Government has a role to play in fostering and supporting these communities.b
Technology also changes the nature of the services that government can offer the public. Technology enables public services to offer personalised support to millions of citizens efficiently and in real time – such as helping with more than one query while someone is on the phone, as well as sharing information more safely and reliably in order to improve and protect people's lives.c
With the necessary funding now in place the challenge for technology in public services is a continued focus on the needs of the end user, joining up between public service systems instead of duplicating and increasing complexity, and increasing professionalism in applying technology to the business of public services. There are already 10,000 IT professionals, led by Chief Information Officers, working on small and large projects in public services ensuring that technology is used effectively and efficiently to improve public services.
Government's overall strategy for how technology can enable government services can be accessed at www.cio.gov.uk/transformational_government [External website]
a Work Foundation, Public Services and ICT – Final Report. How can ICT improve quality choice and efficiency in public services [External website], 2005
b NetMums.com [External website] is a successful example of a large online community, partially funded by government but still an independent space where the public can support one another and do things for themselves.
c Government response to Power of Information review Cm7157
It is clear that for public services to be driven more by users and professionals, the Government's own role will need to evolve. The new focus will be on setting the overall direction – identifying the biggest priorities, providing the necessary resources and working with professionals, users, local authorities and private and voluntary sectors to speed up innovation and change.
Alongside retaining the capacity to intervene rapidly and effectively to address failure or a crisis, the Government will play a more strategic role:
From setting the overall objectives, agreeing funding and monitoring minimum standards to intervening to tackle failure, central government still plays a crucial role. But in future it must take a different approach – facilitating and empowering not directing and controlling to achieve truly world class public services.