WRITTEN ON October 1st, 2007 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized

This business of “emailing all authors” when we’re grappling with a question sure pays dividends. Here’s another very thoughtful reply, this time from our friend Alex in Scotland.

Thanks very much for prompting me to give some thought to the question. I had seen the original post, and was mulling over a reply.

Your event at GC earlier in the year (see ThePublicOffice) showed the almost impossible situation that some people find themselves in when needing the public sector and its support mechanisms. Comments from my group about recent experience with the NHS suggested that in a variety of interactions, the member of the public really has to fight to get the treatment they feel they or their relative deserve.

Perhaps there is merit in segmenting the reasons that people need public services, in order to establish whether there are differences in the service providers’ readiness for change :-

1) “routine” transactions such as DVLA licence renewal, council tax collection, property registration, student loans
2) transactions requiring some level of subject matter expertise – planning, environmental health
3) services such as schools and hospitals
4) intervention in people’s lives – social services ; care ; drugs ; alcohol ; emergency services
5) policy formulation, advice

Is there a simple way of measuring how ready people are to change?

There is no simple measure that I am aware of, but there are perhaps ways of gauging whether an organism (such as the public sector or internet providers) and its environment is likely to have to change, and is able to, in order to survive and grow. Contrast the government where I would equate the organism to a monopoly, and the environment as changing, but crucially the monopoly can legislate to preserve itself. An internet provider must change in the face of competition in order to survive.

Many public service providers are characterised by monopoly leviathans. GPs, hospitals, teachers, police, social workers, civil servants are all very powerful vested interests that governments are loathe to take on. These people may not be particularly ready for change as a group, but there will be committed individuals.

In the list above, I think that

1) will potentially face more and more out-sourcing but only if politicians are prepared to face up to the loss of jobs. However it is a “softer” target.
2) is facing a major challenge because of labour shortage and an ageing workforce. Also young graduates today may not be willing to join what is seen as a low-profile career.
3) is a monopoly that is failing and under threat
4) is where publicservicevillage identified how difficult the “system” is, so it may not be the people who need to change, but the environment in which they operate. Some services here may also increasingly be commissioned from the third sector to stimulate change.
5) is answerable to Ministers so able to change to accommodate their policies, but not necessarily to deliver and execute change in the broader sense

One of your correspondents had some statistics to quote here, and I think that I broadly agree with the numbers. Sun Microsystems did a lot of research in this area and lent extensively on General Electric’s experience. In their industries, there seemed to be a rule of thumb that if one in six were ready for change that was enough to take the organisation.

However public servants are not the same as industrial employees. I would hazard a guess that their average age is higher, length of service longer, and number of employers fewer than their private sector comparators.

Reasons for this might be less incentive to leave (a very attractive pension ; extremely low turn-over of staff due to a combination of union strength, the politics of promising “ no compulsory redundancies).

Here we had a three year programme called “ Changing to Deliver “. However, what is telling is that there has been no post-programme review or measurement process to see what quantifiable benefits it may have delivered. Performance measurement in government is light-touch.

If the people are not going to change of their own accord, then change may have to be made. However, that takes exceptional political courage. While the economy is growing ( as it has done for ten years ) the private sector is not minded to complain too much over the public sector’s performance. The next ten years may be very different.

Also, what incentive is there for the politicians to take on the public sector employees ? If there are five million of them, and that equates to perhaps fifteen million in household numbers, then that is a very high percentage of the electorate. When voter turn-out is so low, and public sector employees might be presumed to vote at higher engagement levels than other sectors of society, it is perhaps not worth politicians taking them on in a battle. The public sector is the last strong-hold of collective union strength as well, so readiness to change is again limited.

Accountability is the crux, though. As a publicly owned company, Northern Rock is now going to be broken up for making the wrong decision. The market exacts a quick price for their decision making. But what of politics – there is simply no equivalent mechanism to deal with mistakes. Farmers can go unpaid by the RPA for months, the Scottish Parliament can be ten times over budget, tax credits can be a fiasco for millions of people, but there is no apparent accountability that means people are motivated to think more sensibly the following time. The great British public simply accept the outcome, and move on. The means of exacting a price for such outcomes are extremely limited.

Is there a simple way of seeing if change can come about ?

Here, the example in France of not replacing public sector employees who leave is an interesting one. There must be scope for Ministers to insist on efficiencies being realised by doing the same with fewer people.

In all of this, I do feel that government is not likely to tell it as it is. If health care costs rise inexorably, if population ages, and if there is to be no change, then the equation of revenue and cost will break. But in the long term we are all dead, so the debate can be avoided. Britain has never had a revolution, and we prefer evolutionary change. However, perhaps we are the frog in the water that is being boiled very slowly !