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 Cabinet
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Introduction
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Ian McCartney’s announcement of successful Central Government Beacons on 29th November 2000
I am delighted to be here this afternoon to formally announce the 23 successful Central Government Beacons. And I am equally delighted to have been invited to present each one of you - each Beacon – with a specially engraved plaque which I know will take pride of place in your offices. Congratulations to you all. Before I begin the presentations I would like to say how very impressed I have been with the overall standard of applications received - 33 in all - very good and high calibre submissions. That in itself, is I believe, testimony to your success, to improving standards in public services in general as well as your own particular Beacon organisations. Well done! We made a promise in the Modernising Government White Paper to establish a new scheme to encourage Charter Mark holders and high-scoring users of the Business Excellence Model to stage open days for peer organisations building on the new beacon approach – and that is what we have done. We expanded on the criteria to include Investors in People. Because we wanted to create a scheme that offered a broad range of interactive learning activities to meet the needs of organisations across the full and varied spectrum of central government and so we set these quality tools as the threshold for selection:
You are here today to be recognised and congratulated for your achievements in a variety of areas. You are representative of the many central government organisations who consistently show that they can thrive on change and adapt to new ways of working. But you can be distinguished by your willingness and your ability to share your success – and your failures – to show how you have made significant quality improvements and excelled in particular activities. Taken risks and managed them successfully. You are all amply qualified to share your experiences and demonstrate practical solutions in key areas such as: Leadership Joined up working and partnership A variety of people issues - staff related and customer focused Innovation, and so on You represent a range of some very different central government organisations across the UK: Tax Customs and Excise The Military Prisons Law courts Science and statistical agencies Social security Employment, and Education You are responsible for delivering some very different services with varying policy objectives and priorities. Your services, and how you deliver these, impact on people’s lives - the public as well as your staff. Common amongst you is your approach to achieving service excellence. Collectively, you demonstrate the enthusiasm and commitment to embrace modernisation and change. You show that Modernising Government isn’t just another initiative - its about raising standards until they match the best within and outside the public sector and to continue improving after that. We have made a good start. And I would like to thank all of you in public service for working together to deliver so much. But Modernising Government is a long-term programme and there is a lot more to do – like painting the Forth Rail Bridge! I am pleased to see a number of Departmental heads amongst the audience. Your presence here, in support of your Beacons, and to celebrate their success, confirms your commitment to achieving excellence; to delivering efficient, responsive, high quality and integrated public services. You lead the change programme in each of your organisations. And so your support for the Central Government Beacon Scheme is imperative. You should actively encourage your people to make use of the scheme and to visit beacons and to think about prospects for applying to become a beacon next year. As successful Beacons, you have learnt through your respective journeys, and you are now ready to share with your peers. To transfer your knowledge and lessons, to demonstrate what you do well in a practical and direct way will encourage others to strive to do similarly well. We must firstly capture knowledge and then harvest it, share it, explain it, teach it. We must engender a sense of ownership in the process of change.
I am more than happy to extol the benefits of learning the ‘Beacon way’. From my own experience, I find the face to face, direct approach a very effective way of learning, especially in the context of work where time is a precious commodity. I know that across the public sector, and industry, the ‘Beacon approach’ has become a favourite means of sharing and spreading best practice. We already have NHS Beacons, Beacon Schools, Beacon Councils and the business to business scheme, the DTI’s Inside UK Enterprise, which has been going for many years. Its longevity and feedback on all the schemes suggests that this is a right way and an effective way to spread best practice.
The Beacon approach is a popular approach precisely because it is practical, it is hands on, it is learning directly from your peers. It offers organisations the chance to network, build new contacts and of course, quite deservedly, to blow your own trumpet and gain justified satisfaction from making a difference. For visitors it offers the chance to call on you, the organisation, who has faced similar challenges and to look beyond their own area and assess working practices and benchmark their own performance against yours. Without further ado, I’ll now begin the presentations:
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