Developments in the Public Sector
| Author | Permanent Secretary,Richard Mottram |
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| DOI | 10.1177/095207679400900107 |
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Richard Mottram’s and Diana Goldsworthy’s are both revised versions of papers
presented at the 23rd Annual Conference of the Public Administration
Committee held in early September 1993.
Developments in the Public Sector
Richard Mottram, Permanent Secretary,
Office of Public Service and Science
Introduction
I was asked by the organiser of the 1993 Public Administration Committee
Annual Conference to provide a strategic overview of public service reform, in
particular the way in which Whitehall is adapting and changing in the light of
current developments.
The Office of Public Service and Science, of which I am the permanent head,
reporting to William Waldegrave and Robin Butler, has interests both across the
public service as a whole - under the banner and framework of the Citizen’s
Charter - and, within this, more direct responsibilities for the Civil Service itself.
We are responsible for promoting improvements in management in central
Government through the &dquo;Next Steps&dquo; and &dquo;Competing for Quality&dquo; initiatives,
efficiency scrutinies, and the application of information systems - on which my
colleague Colin Muid addressed last year’s conference. We take the lead in a
range of programmes to encourage and facilitate best practice in staff recruitment,
development, training, equal opportunities and welfare. Our aim is indeed to
provide a strategy for, and a coherent approach to, public service management, as
I hope I shall show. This is a task shared in a complicated, but constructive, way
with the Treasury. For both central departments a key element in this strategy is
increasing delegation and decentralisation: we, therefore, act as agents for change
no longer by centralisation, standardisation and diktat, but by encouraging new
ways of thinking, spreading best practice and putting our weight on the side of the
angels. This is an interesting test.
A
final preliminary. Part of the exam question is the way in which Whitehall
is adapting and changing. This is at one level no doubt simply shorthand. A
journalist turned academic - a reversal of the usual direction - wrote a rather
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good book with similar shorthand in the title. But it is a potentially dangerous
shorthand. Our interest is in how £250 billion of public expenditure is handled
through, amongst others, 5 million public sector workers; or in the activities of
554,000 civil servants, not just the minute - and still reducing proportion - that
work in Whitehall, crucial though their contribution is, in support of Ministers, in
policy making and strategic management.
It is equally important, as I shall touch on again later, to sustain and enhance
those features of our system of constitutional importance - effective Ministerial
accountability, an apolitical civil Service, recruitment and promotion on merit, the
highest standards of propriety, and, in the broadest sense, respect for the rights of
the citizen. They continue rightly to be the focus of attention for much
commentary.
But we need too, to build on other driving considerations: for example, the
challenge of rising expectations and limited resources, and an unwillingness to
put up with shoddy goods and services simply because their delivery is in the
hands of the public sector. Government is, of course, not a business or capable of
being run as a business; but for many in the public service the dominant day-to-
day considerations are, or should be, quality management and effective service
delivery, financial and project planning and management, effective development
of human resources and so on. The scale and complexity of the management
problems to be tackled often equals or substantially exceeds that in the private
sector: the scope and need for cross-fertilisation of ideas, and best practices and
people is clear. In other words, the M in New Public Management cannot be
over-emphasised.
The Government’s strategy for public service reform
What then are the key elements in the Government’s strategy for public service
reform, and how can we see these reflected in its approach to the Civil Service?
The aims are clear: raising the standards of public service while improving value
for money within the tax bill the nation can afford. At one level, these may seem
motherhood and apple pie; and other descriptions may come to your minds as a
group grappling with the problems of delivering high quality education within
constrained resources. But the emphasis is very significant: quality; value as well
as money. And it represents, I suggest, an important shift from the earlier,
narrower focus on inputs and cutting costs.
What of the mechanisms through which these aims are to be achieved? These
cover a range of overlapping categories which we can see being followed up
across a number of public services:
-
the processes in underpinning better quality associated with the Citizen’s
Charter: standards improving over time, performance targets, information
on standards achieved, tougher inspectorates, and so on. In simple terms,
making organisations citizen - or consumer-driven rather than producer-
driven. Important though these are, I shall largely leave them to my
colleague Diana Goldsworthy.
-
restructuring. Here, we see a move away from organisational models
emphasising vertical integration and tight central planning and control
50
towards delegation and decentralisation, separating purchaser and provider
functions, and injecting competition and choice in the provider function. It
involves revisiting the boundaries of the state.
- linked to this, injecting better accountability at the point of service
delivery in addition to that available through the political process.
Providing more, better-presented, relevant information and greater
openness.
-
a stronger emphasis on performance, in terms of management systems,
the selection, training, development and career management of staff, and
incentives and rewards.
This is a formidable agenda. To turn it into a strategy requires consistency of
purpose and leadership, and effective communication. Hence the Government’s
commitment to the Citizen’s Charter as a 10 year programme and its sustained
support for the Next Steps programme, as I shall describe. Of course, emphases
change over time as new challenges arise; there is no magic moment when the
compass is finally set or the ultimate destination reached. But public service
reform presents a particular challenge because the political process is hungry for
initiatives and not always too interested in the time-horizon for effective
implementation. One task is to communicate externally what has been and is
being achieved and to guard against initiative fatigue.
It is too an agenda we share in varying degrees with other countries and both
the similarities and the differences - in terms of history, constitutional framework,
political and economic pressures - are of interest both to you in the academic
community and to practitioners. We have close links, for example, with the New
Zealand Civil Service as well as with...
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