On face value the announcement of more than £6bn of immediate spending cuts, most of which will be used to reduce Britain’s £156bn fiscal deficit, can only be bad news for the stretched public service? We don’t think so.
The public service has some great people working in it. Many of its leaders are visionaries for their service and run complex organisations with multiple stakeholders. Not an easy task - and we know as many of our team come from front line managerial roles. But in our observation, far too much of this talent ends up frustrated at a lack of support to drive through the radical changes that will improve service quality and value for money.
The problem has always been that ‘playing it safe’ as a public sector leader is a better career option than making real and lasting change. The changes underway in the public sector take away any sense that playing it safe is an option. Those that wait will see their organisations deteriorate. Those that are brave therefore have an opportunity to get ahead of those that aren’t.
Here are some examples of what we mean:
“A civil service recruitment freeze will apply across all government departments and agencies. There will be a few exceptions such as the graduate fast stream already underway.”
In the short term this will be tough, no getting away from it. But this intention gives a mandate for change, and change more rapidly than ever before. In our view the public sector has been too quick to replace vacant roles, either substantively or in using interims. This means that historic practices are hard to shift and wave after wave of new leaders come in, set out their vision, and then grow frustrated at the lack of movement under them.
Our Strategic Services Partnership model is a new way of delivering essential back office functions that ensure the leaders can remain in control and delegate the task of sorting out the people aspects. You concentrate on moving the agenda forward, we make sure that services are delivered at a lower cost, allowing you to tackle historic practices without need for the energy sapping task of managing a large team.
“Quangos will have their budgets cut by £600m. Efficiency savings, identified on behalf of the Tories by Sir Peter Gershon and Dr Martin Read, will lead to cuts of £1.15bn in discretionary areas like consultancy and travel costs; £95m through savings in IT spending; and £1.7bn from delaying and stopping contracts and projects with the 70 major suppliers to government.”
Again this is tough. But our observation is that there is a lot of scope and this is recognised by many leaders. What stops leaders driving this forward now is a strong political mandate and the backing from the Authority / Board. That mandate will be there now and this offers the opportunity to tackle some of the issues that have been ‘parked’ by successive leadership teams. But how do you do this without spending money on firm’s like us? We are prepared to put our money where our mouth is. We have a ‘hands on’ approach to driving savings, using evidence, not assumptions. And then our own remuneration is based solely on what is delivered. We can also help you manage the cost of tax, improve systems, control risk exposure and put in software to automate processes.
“£1.165bn savings from local government which will be achieved by reducing grants to local authorities. The government says it will give local authorities greater flexibility over their budgets by removing restrictions on £1.7bn on grants in 2010-11.”
Progressive Local Authorities and other public sector bodies will look for more innovative models of delivery, and it would seem that the new Government will empower that innovation. There are lots of private sector companies formed or capable of being formed (perhaps as Social Enterprises) to take on the burden of delivery, allowing the public sector to concentrate more on commissioning. This trend is already underway in health, local government and all parts of the sector. We believe that organisations will need ‘hands on’ support to enable the start-up business to get established or the existing business to grow. Working with such businesses we can help them and you bridge the divide between the public and private sectors.
In conclusion, George Osborne said:
“We have conducted the fastest and most collegiate spending review in recent history. That is what this new government is all about. Rolling up our sleeves, getting on with the job, working together in the national interest, delivering on our promises, getting a grip.”
This is an approach that we take as a firm and we know that a number of you would like to work in that way, only politics has prevented you being as ‘brave’ as you think the organisation should have been. For those of you, now is your time. And where so we would want to work in partnership with you, delivering real change where rewards are based on outcomes.