Involving Front-line Staff

Background

Successful organisations, public and private, have found that staff involvement is critical to business success. This message was reinforced in the Modernising Government White Paper, which made clear that staff had a key role to play in making the Government’s vision for delivering the first-class public services that users expect and deserve a reality. 

Front-line staff understand the services they are delivering, know the needs of their users, can identify the barriers to delivering a better service, and are well-placed to propose effective solutions. 

We are looking to identify and encourage the adoption of practices which make it easy and rewarding for staff to put forward their ideas, for example through schemes to reward innovative ideas on which guidance has recently been issued. And we support a number of Quality Networks to encourage the sharing of ideas, help the development of partnerships, and to facilitate front-line input into policy making. But we need to build on these initiatives if front-line staff are to help remove the unnecessary bureaucracy which prevents public servants from experimenting, innovating and delivering a better product.

If you have ideas on ways of involving front-line staff, good practice to pass on, or would like further information on initiatives such as Learning Labs then contact: 

David Bird
Telephone 0207 276 1765
e-mail David.Bird@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk