STANDARDS CONFERENCE 2000

Church House

10 April 2000

Introduction

Modernising Government involves the whole public sector - from Whitehall departments and local authorities, to individual schools and hospitals.

Therefore very pleased to be talking to you today about our work on Modernising Government and how it involves us all. It is not only important that you understand what Modernising Government is all about. It is also important that you take the message away, that you pass the message on to you colleagues, and that they, in turn, understand and spread the message.

My starting point is the Modernising Government White Paper. We published this in March 99; and followed up with an action plan and milestones in July. Our first annual report will be published in July this year.

The paper makes five key commitments.

The first is about policy making. We must be forward looking in developing policies to deliver outcomes that matter, not simply reacting to short-term pressures.

Here, in central government, we are striving to identify and spread best practice through the new Centre for Management and Policy Studies. CMPS will, for the first time, provide a resource at the centre of Whitehall, to gather information on what works and ensure that Departments learn from others’ experience when making policy.

We have begun to provide induction training for new Ministers, introducing some of the practicalities of their role and so helping them to get to grips with the important policy issues more quickly.

We have brought in joint training of Ministers and civil servants. These seminars provide an environment to share experience and discuss practical solutions to major policy development themes associated with cross-cutting issues across Whitehall.

We are also introducing peer review of Departments. This builds on and develops work that the Improvement and Development Agency is undertaking for local government. I know that the CMPS and the Agency are exchanging experiences. I am delighted that the Cabinet Office has volunteered to be one of the first Departments reviewed.

The second commitment is for responsive public services: deliver public services to meet the needs of citizens, not the convenience of service providers.

We must identify the problems. Consultation is vital – we must listen to people’s concerns. Best Value emphasises consultation in local government and Better Quality Services similarly in central government.

One mechanism we have is the Peoples Panel. This is a group of 5,000 people from whom we can seek answers about public service developments. MORI and the University of Birmingham manage this project.

We have specific programmes for involving and meeting the needs of different groups in society:

Last year we conducted the Government’s first ever Listening to women exercise, when we consulted over 30,000 women around the country about the issues that most concerned them. We published our findings in the magazine Voices - the first ever Government report to be prepared with and for women.

We heard one message over and above all the others: the biggest challenge women face today is balancing their caring responsibilities at home with working outside the home.

That is why since 1997 we have introduced extensive measures to help women. These are making their lives easier to balance and more prosperous. Just some examples are:

• A National Childcare Strategy which will provide one million new childcare places;
  
• The National Minimum Wage which disproportionately benefits women. This has already, in just 1 year, closed the pay gap between men and women by 1%; and
  
• The New Deal for Lone Parents and the New Deal for Partners have helped many women back into employment.

The Better Government for Older People project is a partnership between central and local government, the wider public sector and voluntary organisations. 28 pilots, covering a range of services and in conjunction with a variety of partners, provide services that older people want and in the way that they want them – so that we can draw lessons for more general use. These projects include:

• In the Waverley Better Government for Older People pilot, a new "handyman" service has been launched, more help with applications for renovation grants is being provided and a new community centre is being built;

• In the Bolton pilot, an audit of council services has resulted in a new community care centre targeted at the needs of Asian elders.

We know that we must deliver the services that fit the convenience of the customer. Customers do not care who supplies services. Dividing lines between different tiers or sectors of government mean nothing to many of our clients. They simply want services that are responsive and accessible.

We are taking actions to get rid of obstacles in the way of partnerships between service providers and encouraging working across organisational boundaries:

• One-stop shops enable people to conduct many of their dealings with central and local government in one place, dealing with one official who has access to information about a whole range of services;
  
• For example, Bassetlaw District Council have amalgamated and decentralised all frontline services to improve user access.
  

We are determined to drive up the quality of public services, and to open up new, and sometimes innovative ways of accessing them:

• We all know how much hard work is involved in changing address (finding a house is the least of it);
  
• We will make it easier for people to notify their new address to Government departments by developing a single electronic portal into Government services:
  
• The change of address facility will be fully implemented by the end of 2001.
  We are putting the customer first in public service delivery by finding out what the public wants:

• We asked the Peoples Panel what out-of-hours services they’d like access to. They reported back last week. There is considerable demand for certain services and we will meet that demand.
  

We are involving front-line staff in ‘learning labs’ to ask for their suggestions about improving service rather than relying on back office "experts".

Invest to Save Budget. The Government is spending £230 million over the next three years to fund projects that involve two or more public bodies getting together to deliver services that are more innovative, more joined up, more locally responsive and more efficient. About half the projects funded so far are piloting new ways of joint working that have the potential to be used more widely within the public sector. For example:

• A project involving the Department for Education and Employment, education welfare services, youth workers, careers and probation services and voluntary bodies, which will provide ‘youth advocates’ as dedicated case workers providing continuous one to one help, support and guidance to meet the needs of disaffected young people;

• A pilot by HM Prison Belmarsh and Greenwich Healthcare Trust, which will allow prison patients to be assessed or followed up by hospital specialists without having to leave prison, in order to enhance the delivery of healthcare to prisoners.

The third of the five commitments is for quality public services. Efficient, high quality public services.

Spreading best practice is a key way of raising performance. We already have a number of approaches within the various parts of the public sector. For example, we have Beacon Councils, NHS Beacons and Beacon Schools. We are now working on a scheme to spread best practice in central government, agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies. We consulted on proposals at the end of last year and the responses have been very positive. As part of the next stage, we are seeking a contractor to run much of the process. And we will be inviting applications for the first round next month. If you work in central government or its agencies, I urge you to think about what you do well and what you could encourage your colleagues similarly to do well. Then start preparing an application for the new Beacon Scheme.

Those of you in local government will not need reminding of Best Value. But you may be less aware that in parallel we are reviewing all central government department services and activities. Under Better Quality Systems, all departments will have to identify the best supplier in each case over the next five years.

We are also further developing the new outcome targets for central government in the Public Service Agreements that include a focus on real improvements in the quality and effectiveness of public services. For example:

• The Government wants all people with suspected breast cancer to be seen by a specialist within two weeks - 72% of people were when the target was set in the Comprehensive Spending Review, and now 95% of people are, with the trend continuing upwards;
  
• DfEE have been set the target of raising the percentage of age 11 children reaching the required literacy standard, from 63% to 80% by 2002. Already the percentage is past 70%;
  
• The Inland Revenue have a programme aimed at achieving a 5 point increase in overall satisfaction - from 65% to 70% - by 2002, with more services available simply and electronically, a higher standard for correspondence and waiting times, and improved targets for telephone services.

We make use of the various networks for quality schemes like Charter Mark, IIP and the EFQM Excellence Model. There are 24 quality networks supported by the Cabinet Office with a large membership drawn from across the public sector.

We have also developed a new website to help share best practice. The site contains information on over 500 innovative ideas introduced in different parts of the public sector to improve service delivery, as well access to an electronic library of Cabinet Office publications, and links to web based sources of best practice information both in the UK and abroad.

In addition, the Cabinet Office promotes quality schemes, particularly use of those schemes closely associated with this conference:

• We run the Charter Mark Award Scheme, which had a record number of winners in 1999. And there is clear evidence that Charter Mark promotes better quality services.
• A recent MORI poll showed increased awareness of the Charter Mark among the general public. Over a third of those questioned thought that Charter Mark winners provided a better service.

• Through on-going consultation, Charter Mark winners have developed their services to meet the users’ needs. For example:
  

• Extending hours available for access;
  
• Free seminars on services available; and
  
• Greater use of IT to receive planning applications.
  

• We are also experimenting with new forms of seminars to encourage more prospective applicants. In Leeds last month, we ran a ‘market place’ where those seeking information on quality schemes could talk informally with representatives of the schemes, not just Charter Mark.
  
• And we promote public sector use of the EFQM Excellence Model. Use of the Excellence Model is growing among local authorities. A recent survey showed that over 40% of authorities that had completed Best Value reviews had made some use of the Excellence Model. Devon was the first local authority to use the Excellence Model and is now basing its corporate strategy for Best Value around use of the Model.

• And we also promote public sector use of the IIP.

The Cabinet Office chaired the Quality Schemes Task Force comprising representatives of IIP, ISO 9000, EFQM Excellence Model and Charter Mark, to see how these schemes could deepen co-operation. The Task Force published the report of its findings in February, including a 10-point action plan. The report can be found on our website. We are working on follow-on arrangements to implement the Task Force’s proposals. A first fruit has already been seen with the guidance we published in February for local authorities on how quality schemes can be used to help achieve Best Value. And we are working more general guidance following on from the Best Value guide; it will explain how quality schemes help deliver policy initiatives in other sectors.

In addition, we are working on Task Force proposals for:

• Co-ordinated marketing of the schemes to the public sector;
• Further co-operation on assessment; and
• Encouraging widespread adoption of best practice.

The Task Force identified several obstacles to the implementation of quality schemes. For instance:

• A lack of understanding of how the different schemes might fit together. This has been addressed for Best Value Authorities with the publication in February of the ‘Guide to Quality schemes and Best Value’. Similar guidance for other sectors will be published soon.
  

I won't go into greater depth on the Task Force work now as I know Steve O’Leary will be talking more about this later today.

Information Age Government

The fourth White Paper commitment concerns information age government. The use of new technology to meet the needs of citizens and business, and not trail behind technological developments.

We have set out our strategic framework for public service in the information age in a document called ‘e-government’. It was published at the beginning of this month.

E-government sets out how the public sector can transform itself through business models that exploit new technology. We have a detailed strategy for achieving the new electronic service delivery target agreed by the Cabinet and announced by the Prime Minister at the end of March. This speeded up the pace of change in government by bringing forward the target for offering all services online from 2008 to 2005.

The fifth commitment is about the public service itself. We must value public service, not denigrate it.

We have also published plans to modernise the civil service, revise performance management arrangements, tackle under-representation of women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities and build the capability for innovation.

It is not an adjunct to Modernising Government but an essential component.

The Civil Service must also change with the times. No organisation can continue to succeed if it stands still.

Conclusion

There is a lot in Modernising Government, there are a lot of challenges involved and there is a lot to communicate.

Those that work to you need to know they are valued and have a significant role to play in delivering Modernising Government. Tell them the reasons why this initiative is important to the future of our public services.

Make sure you go and talk to your front-line people. Be inclusive. Ask them how they would deliver their services better. Ask them how would they improve the jobs they do. Don’t fear their answers. Use them. Embrace them. And make it on-going, not a one-off.

Whether you work in central government, local government or the wider public sector you should be thinking now about how you, and your organisation, can rise to the challenge of e-government:

• If you have not already done so, I suggest that you read the strategy and think about its relevance for your own work and for your organisation;
  
• If your organisation is already reviewing its business processes and seeking to modernise, I would urge you to support and contribute to this process;
  
• If it is not, I would recommend that you raise the issue with your colleagues, staff and managers.

We at the centre will do our best to communicate the Modernising agenda, its meaning and its practical effects. We are working on an improved communications strategy right now. But mostly, of course, it’s down to you. It has to be. We need everyone on board. No one in the public sector should be outside the tent.

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