Introduction

My background is in the public sector

So I understand some of the challenges you face. Here to talk about the role of the Cabinet Office, the toolkit that we can provide to help you do your job effectively and how we can work together to deepen the scope and impact of the whole modernisation agenda.

The Chancellor announced the results of the Comprehensive spending review yesterday. The need to invest in front line services was the key announcement that Gordon Brown made. The money is on a condition though. It is on the condition that funds are linked to modernisation. Modernisation that has specific outcomes and a precise timetable for delivery.

Strong, dependable public services are a priority for this Government and around 80% of the spending increases will go to the development and modernisation of key services such as education, health, law and order, health and other public services.

The Spending Review was innovative in other ways.

Old Departmental boundaries can sometimes hinder the provision of services. For the first time there were 15 cross cutting spending reviews, looking at long term care, drugs and the knowledge economy to name a few.

We need to get away from short term planning by allocating spending over a 3 year period. This will give you ability to spend money when you need to spend it and not in the end of year rush.

I know that you and your colleagues have been asking us to put our money where our mouths are for some time and now we have. The next step is to use the increased funding effectively.

White Paper last year:

• more strategic policy making – look at long-term problems rather than short-term crises
• more responsive services with joined-up delivery - so that we organise around the individual’s needs and help the public navigate around public services more easily
• better quality public services - focus of today’s event
• information-age government - exploit the opportunities of IT to improve the convenience, efficiency and quality of service
• valuing public service

These are fine aims, but too often they are seen as vague aspirations. Let me tell you what I mean by modernised government:

Services that can be accessed by the user at their convenience.

Services that are joined up, so that the user can find out information on related services from one point. Not necessarily about moving administrative boundaries between, for example central and local government, it’s about making those boundaries invisible to the user.

It is about providing the quality of service citizens’ have a right to expect. Ensuring that users get the right service, on time, every time. Quality models can play an important part in this.

Using IT effectively to give users greater choice, and to deliver the improvements in public services that new technology makes possible.

A public service which values and develops its staff. There are some five million public servants accounting for a large part of most services annual budget. Staff are our largest, most valuable resource. You have a wealth of ideas, and a depth of experience and knowledge. You deserve to be treated as such.

Used to explore with front-line staff new way of working to overcome bureaucracy and improve service delivery. As a result, the Cabinet Office is working with the Benefits Agency, Birmingham City Council, the Prison Service and others to pilot the lab approach. And experience so far suggests that this approach has great potential for wider applicability across the public sector.

As well as the Modernising Government agenda, the Cabinet Office has a role to make sure that your ideas for improving services are not held back by bureaucracy or red tape.

Cabinet Office previously focused on cutting the burden on business, and paid too little attention to the burden Whitehall places on front-line public services. Determined to address this.

• The Team is expected to achievements not produce reports.

• The Team has already come up with practical proposals. £4.9m can be saved (equivalent of 90 police hours a year) by changing their forms.

• The Team identifies red tape and bureaucracy by asking you - people delivering services on the front-line. Listens to your frustrations and works in partnership with the relevant departments and agencies to do something about it.

• We have already identified schools and local government as an area for future work and, when the time comes.

Cabinet Office needs to encourage innovation and risk taking - vital if we are to deliver better services.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Award for Innovation and Risk held for the first time last year.

Designed to encourage an environment where innovation and risk taking is the norm – essential if we are to bring about the culture change needed in UK public services.

Last year’s winners included the Public Records Office for their innovative educational web site – the Learning Curve, and Companies house for its web based business documentation service.

More information on this year’s award will be available later this year – look out for it on the Cabinet Office website.

We are also here to provide a toolkit and to help steer you through the quality initiatives.

• Best Value
• Better Quality Services initiative in central government
• OFSTED framework in schools
• health improvement programme

All powerful drivers for change, but they can become a barrier if you do not have access to tools that help you make sense of them and apply the concepts effectively.

The four main Quality models are an important part of your toolkit.

Concentrate on how quality schemes can help you to modernise and change in order to meet the challenges we face.

Quality Schemes Task Force

Quality Schemes Task Force reported at the end of last year.

Results showed:

• confusion about the different quality schemes available. Few understood how they fitted together, let alone how they fitted with other Government policies, like Best Value and Better Quality Services.

• ‘initiative overload’.

• demand for further guidance.

Already produced a guide to how quality schemes can help deliver Best Value. Publishing a further guide looking at the part quality schemes can play in raising quality across the public sector more generally.

The Task Force survey confirmed that the quality schemes most widely used in the public sector were:

• The Excellence Model - high-level analysis across an organisation. Identifies strengths and areas for improvement. It fits well with the review requirements of Best Value

• Investors in People - help you tackle staff training and development

• ISO 9000 will assist with process issues

• Charter Mark - concentrates on service delivery

Many organisations have used one or more of these four schemes. For example, the Land Registry uses the Excellence Model, is a three-time Charter Mark Winner, and achieved IIP status in September last year. Looking at these schemes in a little more detail will show how they support quality and continuous improvement.

Use of the Excellence Model is growing rapidly - 40% of authorities that had completed Best Value reviews had made some use of the Excellence Model.

• Brings out information about the strengths and areas for improvement in an organisation
• valuable platform for designing and monitoring a review programme.
• ensure that reviews are performed consistently across an organisation.
• Promotes continuous improvement. The review process can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it.
• It is flexible. In central government, a number of departments and agencies, including the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, are piloting use of the model in central policy areas as part of the Better Quality Services initiative.
• Very effective in engaging staff in the process.

Announcing the 39 winners from the first round of applications for this year’s Charter Mark award scheme today.

Charter Mark is unique among the quality schemes in that it focus on service delivery from the users’ perspective. Applications are often led by front-line staff themselves.

Charter Mark has been growing among local authorities over the years. 1669 current holders - 600 from local authorities. This is because Charter Mark stresses many of the key themes identified by Best Value.

But equally relevant to other quality improvement programmes. For example:

• Consultation with users and staff is a key criterion of Charter Mark. Consultation is also central to improving services and ensuring they meet users’ needs.

• Charter Mark also looks closely at the provision of suitable complaints procedures.

• Charter Mark also stresses the need to use the customer feedback that is received.

• Setting clear standards and publishing performance results is another Charter Mark criterion.

• Working with others is another important Charter Mark criterion.

• And finally, providing user satisfaction is essential to gaining a Charter Mark Award.

Best Practice

Another role that Cabinet Office has is to identify and spread best practice.

• Dedicated Cabinet Office website. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Over 600 examples from across the public sector of innovative ideas introduced to improve service delivery, as well as links to many other sources of advice and information. You may even have innovative examples of your own., If so get them on the website.

• Importance of networking. Critical role of face-to-face contact and peer validation in encouraging the spreading and take up of good practice. In addition to the Sevenside and West Midlands Quality Network, we support 19 other regionally-based networks, and three sectoral networks running workshops, newsletters and other networking

• TNT Modernising Government Partnership Awards. The awards are based on the partnership elements of the Excellence Model. We designed the Awards around the Model so as not to present you with yet another initiative. Working in partnership is an excellent way of improving services for users.

• Beacon schemes. We will shortly be announcing a beacon scheme for central government, building on the success of similar schemes in the public and private sectors.

• We have set up centres of excellence to encourage learning.

• Improvement and Development Agency in local government
• Centre for Management and Policy Studies for central government
• National Institute for Clinical Excellence in health.

I have spoken about how the Cabinet Office can help you succeed. Cabinet Office does not delivery front line services. You that deliver results on the ground. We can help you deliver excellent services to your customers. Use us and the quality schemes to help you to meet your objectives

Lack of funds has been a traditional barrier to change. We must all take advantage of the additional resources that the Comprehensive Spending Review has given us as well as the Modernisation Fund and the invest to Save Budget to really make a difference.

We need your help in getting the message to others. The sceptics and the detractors won’t listen to me but they will listen to you. You understand the issues that they face. You have been through the process. You have worked through the challenges and you can explain what benefits you have achieved through change.

We also need your help to bring the Modernising Government agenda to life for the public. We can only do that by demonstrating improvements in service.

I hope that you get a lot out of the rest of the day. I hope that you will also join us and be ambassadors and an advocates for change with your colleagues and with the public.