Case study taken from:
Learning Labs - Evaluation of the Pilot Projects 
University College Northampton

Citiserve is a City Council direct services organisation (DSO) established to run the catering and cleaning services of the Education Service following the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering. The DSO has 3,500 employees and following the delegation of budgets to individual schools it now has four hundred and fifty catering customers and some three hundred cleaning customers, each having the power to dispense with the services of the DSO.

The lab emerged from a workshop held in December 1998 seeking to find more effective ways of tracking and reconsidering consultation activities and processes within the DSO after participating in the catering "Best Value" Pilot. Prior to this workshop there was a relatively informal process of business planning in place and the organisation was beginning to face what was referred to as initiative or decision overload. This was caused by work on ‘Investors in People’, the delegation of budgets to schools, the "Best Value" pilot and the organisation having to respond to clients immediate needs. For all these reasons senior managers in the DSO decided that they needed to develop a more structured approach to business planning.

One manager said "we felt that using someone from outside the DSO, but inside the wider City Council, would help to get issues out on the table that might not emerge if handled by one of us".

A group of managers met on a fairly regular basis to explore performance indicators, bench marking and other elements of the "Best Value" process within the context of a learning lab.

The lab focused on all aspects of Citiserve’s business and involved managers of all sections but did not involve frontline catering or cleaning staff. This is partly because, as a manager observed, "we are not yet certain enough in our strategy or confident enough in our abilities to run such a process". However, the management team see staff involvement of frontline staff as the next stage but they understand that this will be restricted to some extent by the fragmented nature of the catering provision.

The service has been subjected to Compulsory Competitive Tendering for the last 10 years and the head of service commented on how this had affected morale.

"We've been putting in tenders every three years just to stay in work. I think a problem is that many staff will say we've had cuts, tenders, cuts and now subjected to "Best Value" evaluation on top, how much more can we take?"

The impact of CCT and the delegation of budgets to schools is seen as a major problem in both involving staff and finding the time and resources to make labs work. Staffing has been cut to the bone and it is difficult to find time for activities not directly associated with service delivery. Employees are suspicious of new initiatives and the impact they may have on job security and the intensification of work. The fragmentation of staff into 450 different contracts creates major logistical problems.

The participants in the lab suggest that the process they have been engaged in so far has engendered a culture change in the management team itself. They are better planners and the team has developed coherence. One manager explained "We're a much stronger team now and we are better business planners … Working like this has helped us stand back and think more strategically. You can be too close to the problem and get caught up in day to day operations to the extent that you don't think about why you're doing it".

In discussing the development of learning labs one interviewee held the view that learning labs should become a part of the central part of Citiserve’s culture: "learning labs should not be sold as an initiative but as a resource or process which is integral to the way we do things. For example, ‘Investors in People’ would be wonderful if it was adopted as an ongoing process rather than simply to get a plaque".

The management of Citiserve have an intention to involve frontline staff and discussion is underway about ways of achieving this, including the possibility of catering staff engaging with school staff on their school sites to counter the problem of fragmentation.

Managers accepted that the absence of frontline staff in their lab raised important questions in promoting labs as a new way of working and indicated that it would be helpful if senior management promoted them through management briefings. They have asked questions such as "does a learning lab work if only management representatives are involved?" And "How can we move from a management only lab to an all inclusive lab?" The head of the service believed management training is needed for developing the necessary skills to enable them to win the confidence of staff for the process and to be able to facilitate and operate learning labs effectively

Learning labs can engender more effective team working and contribute to cultural change but in areas affected by competitive tendering, consideration has to be given to how labs can operate and involve frontline staff who have to maintain service delivery in under resourced and fragmented workplaces.

Initiative overload has to be avoided. Labs must not be seen as simply another initiative but as a new way of working and should be viewed as a tool to be used rather than a task to be undertaken.

Contacts for further information

Birmingham City Council web site

Tarik Chawdry Birmingham City Council

Steve Trivett Birmingham City Council

Last Updated: 05/2002