I am delighted to be here to talk to such a large audience. I know that there is an interesting mix of people from all areas of the public sector. Many of you I know are newcomers to the Excellence Model: others are veterans and some are even experts. I am sure that there is something for everybody to learn over the next two days.

I am here to talk about modernising government, that means delivering on the commitments we made in the 1999 Modernising Government White paper – for today’s purposes I will be focussing on the drive to improve the quality of public services.

All of you are responsible for delivering vital services to the public, or for policies which determine the shape of those services. I am sure that you will acknowledge that you have embarked on a journey of continuous improvement and that means putting in a lot of effort over many years. I recognise this. Modernising Government is not about seeking quick short term fixes, it is a 10 year programme about sustained improvement.

With Modernisation we are talking about reform, not denigrating the vital service you provide and the real achievements you make every day. But however good you may be, and there are many examples of excellence throughout the public sector, we all continue to need to modernise and change. We are committed to excellence. To delivering efficient, responsive, high quality and integrated public services.

This commitment isn’t just about words. The 2000 Spending Review set out substantial increases in resources from this April focused on priority services including health, education, transport and tackling crime. Last weeks Budget took this further by allocating an extra £20 billion over the next three years for key public service priorities:

• an extra £1 billion for education
• an extra £1 billion for health
• an extra £0.3 billion to help tackle drugs

And we have made funds available specifically for modernisation projects. £2.5billion through the Capital Modernisation Fund over the next two years, £100 million through the Modernisation Fund last year and over £380 Million through the Invest to Save Budget.

Quality is at the heart of any successful organisation. Public Services must deliver the policies and services of government efficiently and effectively, so quality is vital to the Modernising Government agenda and the Excellence Model is central to this. The Cabinet Office, in partnership with the British Quality Foundation is pursuing a joint marketing plan to increase the number of effective users of the Excellence Model.

Last year PriceWaterhouseCoopers undertook a study of the use of the Excellence Model in the public sector. The research showed that almost half of all public sector organisations were now using the Model in at least part of their operations. That proportion is growing dramatically: since the study we have provided guidance to over 700 organisations looking to use the Model for the first time.

The Model is now being used in a more strategic way in government. The new vision and values for the civil service, drawn up as part of the Civil Service Reform programme, used the Model as a guide. And one of the reform programme actions is to encourage departments to use benchmarking to help them evaluate their performance and improve their business planning.

In Local Government, more than half of all Local Authorities are using the Model to help them to achieve Best Value.

An increasing number of NHS trusts and local education authorities are picking up on the Model as a tool to help them to deliver improvement programmes. Many schools have adopted the Model thanks to Lloyds-TSB’s Quality in Education Programme. I was delighted to be able to help André Haynes by contributing a foreword to his excellent CD-ROM resource for schools.

The majority of public sector organisations are however relatively new to the Excellence Model and we accept that it will take time for the full benefits to emerge. Already though there have been stunning successes from more experienced users.

The Inland Revenue Accounts Office, Cumbernauld, pulled off a unique double in winning the 2000 European Quality Award for public sector organisations and the UK Business Excellence Award. I am pleased to see that Anne Marie O’Donnell and a number of her colleagues from Cumbernauld are here today to share with you the lessons they learned on their way to achieving this success. Most of us have a long way to go to reach the standards set by the Accounts Office – but their success shows what is possible.

There are a number of other public sector organisations now winning awards for Excellence. Foxdenton School in Oldham also won a prize at the European Quality Awards. St Mary’s College, Londonderry won a UK Business Excellence Award 2000. There are many more award winners at national and regional level.

While awards can be important in boosting morale, still more important is the satisfaction that excellent organisations can take from the levels of service they can provide to their customers.

When looking at improving quality, the Excellence Model provides the framework and helps you to ask the right questions. Other quality schemes help you to provide the answers by looking in depth at particular aspects of your organisation.

Charter Mark is a quality improvement tool focussed on the customer and is the Government’s award scheme to recognise excellence in customer service.

There are now a record number of 2,061 holders of the Charter Mark. The scheme is being continually developed to ensure its value. The criteria now emphasise innovation, consultation with staff and co-operation between service providers.

Investors in People is a national Standard which sets a level of good practice for improving an organisation’s performance through its people. IIP will be familiar to most of you with 97% of the civil service having achieved accreditation.

ISO 9000 is a family of tools to help organisations ensure that their processes are managed to enable them to meet customers’ needs and expectations.

These quality schemes are making a significant impact on improving the delivery of services to the public. They are helping to raise the motivation and commitment of staff . I believe they are a key factor in ensuring that government policy is translated into action.

Today I am able to hold up examples that illustrate precisely the impact these schemes are having on public service delivery.

I am pleased to announce the publication of new guidance called "Getting it Together – A Guide to Quality Schemes and the Delivery of Public Services". This guide is intended to help all public sector organisations get to grips with the nature and value of the main quality schemes, the benefits to be gained from them, how they fit together and how they can help deliver Government policy on the ground. A large part of the guide focuses on health and education as significant areas of the Modernising agenda. But it is relevant across all public services as it focuses on the common ground of –

Practical experience is illustrated through a range of examples, for instance:

Cirencester College attributed their "ever improving services" to Charter Mark which encourages continuous self-assessment and review of procedures and results. As an example, their pass rate for examinations in the last academic year was 95 per cent and league table points of 19.7 - the highest for any college in the area.

The Greater Manchester Ambulance Service NHS Trust say that their pursuit of Investors in People provided many opportunities to involve staff and trade unions together and believe it helped to foster collaborative industrial relations which have led to significant benefits for the service. They also saw it as a means to match closely training and development to the planning process overall.

Wakefield and Pontefract Community Health NHS Trust have utilised the Excellence Model as a framework for the comprehensive mapping of the elements which need to be in place to deliver Clinical Governance. Their results are impressive, their Patient Satisfaction Survey 2000 showed what kind of organisation they have become, for example:

• 100% said that they were treated with respect by staff ;
• 99% had a lot or some confidence in the treatment or care they had been given; and
• 95% felt that their privacy had always been respected

South Tyneside District Hospital are using ISO 9000 to maintain and drive forward innovative practice. They say that it provides them with a systematic approach which enables them to focus on their current processes and to identify the gaps. They believe that ISO 9000 has provided a framework to enable them to embrace the philosophy and challenges of Clinical Governance.

These are just some of the examples covered in the new guide showing how the public sector is indeed ‘Getting it Together’ to raise standards and the quality and responsiveness of their services.

The guide is free and today you should all have received your own personal copy. It is also available on the Modernising Public Services website.

The quality schemes are also instrumental in the success of my Department’s good practice programme including the Central Government Beacon Scheme.

Because we wanted to create a scheme that offered a broad range of interactive learning activities to meet the needs of organisations, central government set the following selection criteria:

• a current user of the Excellence Model and able to demonstrate continuous improvement as a result; OR

• a current holder of the Charter Mark; OR
  
• an Investor in People
  

I believe the Beacon approach to sharing experience and knowledge through practical demonstrations and through open debate is one of the most effective means of learning. And by sharing and learning in this way - directly with our peers -

• We can get things right and
• We can make a difference.

And that is what the Beacon approach is all about:

• Sharing
• Learning
• And by example, encouraging others to do similarly well.

Why not see for yourself? It was my pleasure last November to announce the first 23 successful Central Government Beacons. Their programme of Beacon Learning Activities began last week. You can pick up a directory and talk to the team at the Central Government Beacon Scheme stand.

There are now a number of beacon programmes operating throughout the public sector, for example

• NHS Beacons
• Local Authority Beacons – Council Beacons
• Beacon Schools; and
• Police Beacons.

And they all share a common goal. They aim to raise standards by sharing excellence. The Central Government Beacon Scheme is the newest scheme and I’m not afraid to say that in keeping with Beacon philosophy, we have poached a few ideas and features from other public sector beacon schemes to ensure we got the balance right.

We will shortly be calling for applications for the second year of the scheme. And this year, we have decided to include the ISO 9000 standard as a criterion for selection. That way we are ensuring a well-rounded and all encompassing approach - all corners of the quality triangle – people, processes and customers will be covered. I encourage all parts of central government with a good story to tell - and you know who you are – to step forward and apply for Beacon Status when the call comes.

Knowledge sharing extends beyond Beacon Schemes.

We have set up a best practice site on the Cabinet Office web site to encourage the sharing of good ideas, including a database containing hundreds of examples from across the public sector of the many ideas being tried out to improve service delivery.

The Cabinet Office’s Civil Service College maintains a free service which enables you to compare the results of your Excellence Model self assessment with hundreds of others from across the public sector. The database is the source of regular knowledge pool reports, which help to spread the lessons learned.

The Cabinet Office sponsors 23 Quality Networks bringing together people from across the public sector on a regional basis to share ideas and encourage closer working.

The Cabinet Office, in conjunction with HM Customs and Excise, last month launched a Public Sector Benchmarking Service to promote benchmarking across government and, eventually, throughout Europe. This enables you to ask, via the telephone or Internet, for information on developments in other sectors or parts of the country.

Before I close, I should like to say something about the importance of your support for implementing change. The Excellence Model takes as its starting point that leaders should be role models and be personally involved in improvement activity. Experience from users over the last few years tells us that the successful introduction of quality schemes into an organisation is made very much easier with the support of senior management. Without that support, it is not impossible, but it is extremely difficult.

Of course the Excellence Model itself is only a tool, albeit a very useful and powerful one. The performance of any organisation depends critically upon its management and leadership.

Leaders who recognise the power of the Model and apply its lessons will undoubtedly improve their organisation but those who do it half-heartedly as just another fad will struggle to make any impact. The Model provides an excellent picture of an organisation, but it is what leaders at all levels do to improve that picture that matters. No quality tool can take the place of good management and effective leadership.

Leaders have a key role to play in delivering the modernising agenda. We need to make the changes that improve people’s lives. Generating those changes will involve commitment over a sustained period. We are looking to you to make a commitment to continuous improvement. In return we will do all we can to help you deliver.