14 Comments on A wake up call for the public sector

Ben Lucas on Fri, 27th Feb 2009 11:38 am


This debate certainly needs to be had. It is striking how both Government and Opposition seem to be avoiding the issue. Nether wants to talk about the reality of the challenge which public services will face in the future, which is why our Commission on 2020 Public Services has such an important role to play.

Two additional thoughts on this.

1. We will enter this period of prolonged public service squeeze with one big advantage. This is the infrastructure dividend, which is the result of this Government’s substantial public invesment programme on schools, hospitals, and other public projects. Far from ‘crumbling schools’ we have state of the art new facilities. So the question ought to be how can develop more imaginative ways of sweating these assets and using them as genuine community facilities, that can help create social value 24/7 and not just during the time that they perform their core function. The wrap around school is part of this, but there is much more which could be explored here about how communities can be empowered to own and manage local assets and get the most out of them.

2. The second opportunity is to use this period to open up a new dialogue between politicains, community leaders and the public about social responsibility. This was the major theme of the Obama inauguration speech and speaks powerfully to an era in which irresponsible greed will be less tolerated and in which the consequences of the credit crunch will be felt in economic uncertainty and long term pressure on public finances. Collectively and individually people will need to take more responsibility both for the direction of society as a whole and for what happens in their own lives. This is the new deal which will need to be struck between citizen and state. A key element of this will be what is clumsily called ‘co-production’. If that idea has value now is the time to test this. Because a major challenge will be redefining public service resource so that it iincludes peoples time and commitment and the work which is already undertaken in the ‘care economy’. The only way of ensuring that we can have better social outcomes at a time of reduced financial resource is to work out how the state can help mobilise social resource.

matthewtaylor on Mon, 2nd Mar 2009 8:41 am


Thanks Ben. Of course, I agree. Given these issues the 2020 Commission is incredibly timely. We must make sure it thinks very big – because that is the size of the problems facing public services.

PS Great result for Forest!

Joe on Mon, 2nd Mar 2009 9:33 am


I think it is a mistake to assume that we should automatically focus on central answers to civic problems. I was listening a while ago to someone talking about the assistance they provide to young people in their community. The gist was that they set up a network of additional voluntary schools to work with under-performing children in their community, working in partnership with the existing provision.

They had developed from issues from within one ethnic group with particular social issues, and the programme was asking whether similar things could be set up for white children.

I know this sounds like a random point, but maybe the answers are not in attempting to find things to throw money at. Maybe we actually need to inspire people to get involved themselves voluntarily in making the change in their communities. Hiring a hall doesn’t cost much, but taking a real interest in the children in a community could lead to dramatic changes – if a small group of people could be inspired to believe they could make a difference.

We have a social and voluntary system that seems preoccupied with money and hence this is the only thing people focus on. And the gaze moves away from the goal (eg disposal of waste, teaching children) and towards how much it costs to empty the bins or keep the kids in school five days a week. Projects only happen when people can access the funding available and these tend to be very short term.

Encouraging an attitude of service in communities where instigators get absolutely no personal benefit but enable change in their community seems to me to be the essence of the RSA.

matthewtaylor on Mon, 2nd Mar 2009 11:44 am


Hi Joe I agree, it’s not just about money. It is because I agree with this that I talked about pro-social behaviour in my annual lecture in 2007 and why I hope that we can get the RSA Fellowship to focus outwards on the contribution it can make to society rather than just being a social club. I also think that often when people do volunteer they often feel they are not being used as effectively as they could be or that they get caught up in in bureaucracy. Which is why I talk about the need for what I call civic innovation – new ways for people, especially younger people, to collaborate

marksany on Mon, 2nd Mar 2009 12:32 pm


Matthew, this was a good post, and so true. I’m going to see if I can get my school planning for this before it hits us and all is panic.

Looking for ways to save more, I suggest you look at “System thinking in the public sector” by John Seddon of Vanguard consulting. Lots of good, proven ideas in there to take failure out of the system, increase customer satisfaction and save money.

matthewtaylor on Mon, 2nd Mar 2009 4:14 pm


Thanks – good tip. We will need to improve systems but also, I think, be willing to explore radically re-engineeering services.

thelocalgovernmentofficer on Mon, 2nd Mar 2009 6:47 pm


Do you mean direct payments, or are you specifically referring to individual budgets? The evidence here is patchy, but I am unconvinced that they offer scope for significant savings in adult care services.

They may well provide better *value* for the money spent, but the savings you cite are often offset, or more, by the need to determine the available budget level, support individuals’ commissioning needs, the loss of economies of scale, and in the case of direct payments, helping people through the employment and taxation complexities that can arise.

matthewtaylor on Tue, 3rd Mar 2009 8:51 am


This is an important question. My understanding is that the evidence on individual budgets is mixed. The system is less effective and less popular with older clients than with young disabled people, for example. However, I have also heard some shocking statistics about the proportion of social service budgets spent on case management as against being spent on services. So, given the profound squeeze we face, I still think this is an area we should be willing to look at closely. I also think local government should be backing various on-line tools and social enterprises designed to help people manage their own budgets.

Thanks for the comment

thelocalgovernmentofficer on Tue, 3rd Mar 2009 5:58 pm


Agreed, local government is going to have to get very good very quickly at ‘market-making’ activity, which is a lot more complicated than straight procurement (which in itself is a lot more ‘complicated’ than it used to be, insofar as we’ve got better at it). There are some good examples of this already – The Kent Card is probably the most established, and the question is particularly relevant in the countryside where there are fewer service providers within a plausible travel distance.

While welcoming the cases where they help, and not trying to talk down that number, there are also some shocking abuses of direct payment, which in the context of what you correctly identify as a “profound squeeze” are going to come under serious scrutiny in local government and health budgets, from the media if nowhere else. I can just about cope with the couple who used them to subscribe to Sky Sports so that the housebound husband could be entertained while his wife got a break, but there are cases of people using them for homeopathy!

On your other point, it seems intuitively logical that older people, who have more set expectations of services, but more importantly are more likely at the time they need social care to be suffering at least one of poor memory, deteriorating eyesight, or social isolation, will be more resistant to a system which requires them to learn HR and accounting skills. They can be supported of course, but again that’s non-service spending.

In my experience (and I’ll be honest – this isn’t my specialist field) the biggest savings that can be achieved in delivering services for older people come from something that’s probably even more politically contentious than IB/DP right now, and that’s improved sharing (or, let’s be frank, any sharing at all) of data between GPs, A&E, and social care. Again, there are some good examples of how this is being handled, but they’re patchy and innovative pilots, rather than anything that’s hit the mainstream yet.

Karl Hallam on Tue, 3rd Mar 2009 6:26 pm


Matthew has been saying this sort of thing for years. It’s simple really, but maybe the media has a vested interest in not engaging with this question. It is so much more fun to blame Ministers and individuals like Sharon Shoesmith or Fred Goodwin for the recession or the broken society, rather than see our collective abdication of responsibility for many of the symptoms of current social concerns.

Matthew talks about more sensible ways of moving to, for example, 2 weekly bin collections. A similar argument could be made for better debates about reducing congestion or decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Much of Cadence’s work with clients is directed towards focusing on untapping the knowledge at the front line that is so often neglected. Strategy-speak and delivery chain mechanisms often obscure the fundamentals of what, who, how, when and especially the why.

Matthew’s blog is essentially optimistic and reminds us why.

We could probably all learn alot by Nigel Clough’s approach at Derby County too, but ulitmately I suppose he will be judged by results too …

Direct, and other, Payments « The Local Government Officer on Tue, 3rd Mar 2009 6:33 pm


[...] new jargon, Personal) Budgets. This was sparked off by a post by Matthew Taylor (RSA, not Truro) here, and picked up at Stumbling and Mumbling. A simplification for those new to the terms, these [...]

matthewtaylor on Wed, 4th Mar 2009 8:51 am


Thanks Karl. But would much prefer not to think about football at the moment. Tony Mowbrey is so obviously a decent man with a commendable commitment to play the beautiful game but we are going down and after failing ever to get more than 35 points in 4 Premiership seasons I’m not sure we’ll have the heart to want to come up again

matthewtaylor on Wed, 4th Mar 2009 8:59 am


Thanks Officer. Sounds like we are both short of reliable evaluation. There’s no point trading good and bad anecdotes. Anyway a system like this is bound to take time to bed down and – more controversially – some would argue the whole point about the payments is that you can spend them on what makes you feel better (and if homeopathy has a placebo effect or makes it less likely to get depressed who are we to quibble?). I agree about market making (vital but difficult) and also about data sharing. I wish the civil liberties people (and I am genuinely glad they are there making a noise) would be a bit more balanced about things like data sharing, which may have real risks but are genuine attempts to improve services and efficiency

The writing is on the wall for the public sector « Flip Chart Fairy Tales on Thu, 5th Mar 2009 11:08 am


[...] in his latest post on the subject he expresses some frustration that many executives in the public sector just don’t get it: [...]

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