In anticipation of the CSR outcomes, nearly all public service budget holders will now be taking a long hard look at where the money gets spent and what is achieved. I can almost hear the distant clicks of numerous hatches being battened down.
Less money, probably a lot less money is going to be spent on not only on the 'frippery' of change management, organisational development and public engagement (etc.), but also on the wages of people providing direct services to some very vulnerable citizens.
Whilst there may well be very limited room for manoeuvre with the amount by which budgets will have to be reduced in these austere times, I am wondering how much scope there is in just how budgets are reshaped.
Who has the ideas? Who needs to be involved? How will those people be involved?
I am concerned that many managers will feel driven to retreat behind closed doors, perhaps with a tame accountant, to craft the changes to be made. This is not an unreasonable course of action, of course. If people's jobs & indeed livelihoods are being questioned, if services to people in severe need are being scrutinised or if some critical priorities are being examined then confidentiality is to be expected.
The stakes are so high and the interests so potentially in great conflict, as to prevent anyone else (staff member, other connected departments & agencies, the wider public & service users) being involved in a more open & transparent discussion... would be the argument from many people, I suspect.
I have argued previously on this blog for 'Austerity Charters' (see below or click here for the original post on my blog) and I stand by this.
But, am I alone in thinking that there is much to be gained from having more inclusive approaches to deciding just where and how budgets should be cut? I take the view, that given the right context, the right leadership and the right information, many more people could contribute constructively to building these new austere budgets. Yes, there will be conflict and yes, people will seek to express and protect their interests. But also, I think, people could earnestly, collaboratively and creatively find many more ways to do more with less than a manager (with tame accountant) is able to achieve on their own.
Or am I living in some fairytale world a million miles away from the grinding & crushing reality of austerity budgets where the only 'involvement' of staff, colleagues and citizens must only be during the titular 'consultation' periods?
Hi Jon,There are two very critical aspects to your statement, one is 'with the right information' and the other is 'who makes the decisions?'Most private sector organisations have very poor information, and the public sector tends to be even worse, after years of feeding the audit commission, rather than managing in a business-like manner.Then, there is this move to the all powerful 'accountants'. I remember the good old days when accountants, IT and HR were genuinely 'support services', and the service managers were the people who were listened to, so as part of the austerity direction of change, perhaps we need far better information to service managers, who then in turn can help manage out of the mess that the former 'support services' people have largely created?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely Dave - information is critical. I do also worry that for some people the world has become one big spreadsheet with neat square compartments...
ReplyDeletePerhaps we could get away from the doom and gloom language of austerity and start to see some opportunities for applied common sense....... let's face it, there is plenty of scope for cost savings and improved services, if we move from top down silo service provision, where everyone eligible gets the same mediocre offer.... which means we all get more than we need, but not actually what we want..... to mutual solutions, involving all the citizens (whoops - sounds a bit like Big Society!)
ReplyDeleteI agree Steve - there are opportunities here to provide more creative solutions to the social challenges faced by the public services. Helping make a safer, happier, more prosperous, cleaner & healthier society is an extraordinarily complex task. This is a dynamic task that requires everyone involved with the delivery of public services to be engaged - not just a few people in darkened rooms staring at spreadsheets.My worry is that there will be too much focus on cost and not enough on value. And I agree there is huge scope for greater partnership between public services and the public to achieve more with less. This is what I call 'empowered citizenship' and have written more about here. But right now, I am guessing, many public sector staff are feeling a little less than optimistic - as are contractors who are also facing a bleak future such as the Connaught news yesterday.Certainly Linda - times were far tougher in the past. Sadly it seems that it won't be the people who have chased the dollar and gambled with out money who will be coming off badly (see news of Bob Diamond and his £11.5m wage packet) - the people who are far more likely to suffer are the very people who have been working to create a wealthier (in all sense of the word) nation.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of friends in the public sector, is that fear rules. Having sacrificed freedom to do the right thing for the comfort blanket, hugely frustrated by the dysfunctional organisations in which they pass their time, they are now worried that the comfort blanket is going...... however, many do aspire to do things better, to get away from the culture where no-one seems to say yes and drive things through, whilst everyone can say no and slow things down...........So, real change programmes have to incorporate psycho-social modules so folks can really overcome their fear and embrace the opportunities to be found at the edge of the comfort zone................ and community led services really do offer more for less, because mutuality comes into play and folks help each other before seeking professional assistance.
ReplyDeleteWe can only hope that Austerity brings her good friend Commonsense with her.Having been recently reading the rules for work in 1852, we have no comprehension of hardship now.When the rules dictated that the clerical staff must use their own pens: when the workforce took in a piece of coal each day: when you were told how to dress: when you were allowed to wear a hat and scarf in the office when it was cold (no coats were permitted):when there was no talking allowed during business hours; when the standard hours were from 7a.m.to 6p.m.I'm not suggesting that we go back that far, but if everyone willingly contributed: more time, more effort, more giving, wouldn't we all be better off?If the goal was not personal wealth, but to create a wealthier nation, would our circumstances and therefore wealth, not improve automatically? By making the country poor, we all suffer.The question is: how do you make people see that by looking past their own desires, by not chasing the dollar for their own ends at all times, the benefit achieved can be greater?
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest costs to society is not the cost of services provided by the public sector, but the cost of paying people to not be working, if we can afford a range of payments to not work, to have a home, to have children, then why not take that forward a stage and say that anyone on job seekers allowance must do x hours work a week in the public sector / voluntary sector.We could use that resource to cut back hedges, open up paths, repair pot-holes, clean off grafitti, generally support the infrastructure and social well-being of the community.Social care is the largest public sector cost, we deal far too much with the issues caused by issues, rather than work on prevention. If the NHS and Social Care elements could be combined more and work on prevention rather than treatment, then a far greater value of life-style would be achieved. The press and public often get prevention badly wrong, complaining that 2% of NHS costs go into adverts and campaigns, if it were more and better integrated, the whole cost would be less and the value more.
ReplyDeletegood discussion thread1. we are conducting reviews at present of various services and the sense i got was there will be blood on the floor when it comes to pensions and jobs no matter which way you do the review...2. yes yes local authotiries do need awakening into a brave new world. at the same time i suspect we do need some form of local administration and i suspect the theory of what may work and the practice are two different things and any brave new world will have its own peculiar challenges..3. the back office e.g. recharges for services such as accounts can appear all too worryingly like a dark mystery!4. as we suggest things i suspect we will be challenged to do them...thanks Jon for the post...
ReplyDeleteGreat thread Jon and Gerry, great response. I share your cautious sceptism and pessimism but with that (albeit faint) glimmer of hope that local government may come out the other side better for it. We could probably loose 10-15% and not have too detrimental effect on service levels as there are perhaps that level of 'inefficiencies' around. But 30%+ is going to make a serious impact and the already efficient services are going to be destabilised and become ineffective as a result (if blanket cuts are imposed).I too am concerned about the level and source of 'challenge' applied to how we decide to proceed and manage ourselves in all this. External and objective challenge has been effectively removed (abolition of CAA) and internal entrenchment and focus on cash saving reduces the ability (and enthusiasm) to objectively say how well services are being delivered. I have yet to see an effective mechanism being offered to replace any appraisal of organisational capacity etc. Its all loaded on the effectiveness of front end services.Active and meaningful involvement from the public in all this will only come if they are given the details of what is being provided and how it is progressing. A reticience to provide accurate performance information openly will not generate meaningful dialogue. At the end of the day, 'professionals' decide on a 90% performance target rather than 100%. Can the public make this judgement? Indeed if we admit (and publish) failure to deliver key services, how much of the reasons given will be honest enough to say are because of the cut backs? Ultimately, we may not be able to 'afford' truly customer orientated services. What if the public 'majority' call for a reduction in a 'sensitive' key service e.g. adult care because it comes from those who have a limited 'personal' perception and/or need of the wider societal benefits of that particular service?We need to be pretty clear what the boundaries and expectations of all this are. The 'how' and the 'why' are in danger of becoming less important than the 'what'.
ReplyDeleteI suggest we are all looking at ways to steer a course between the fear of austerity and the, sometimes over played, mantras of efficiency. Therefore, we might all consider how imagination and creativity can be brought to bare to come up with ways to do things differently. It’s not just silo thinking, but more of the same thinking, that can cripple progress. The great thing about problem and solution focussed work is that it cries out for fresh approaches. What would a fresh approach mean to each of our relative fields? Once that question is tackled, are local authorities capable of bringing that potential wealth of ideas and talents to the fore? Local Government tends to favour the teflon desk; that’s understandable because ratepayers want councils doing straightforward things. The challenge is to find a way to mix and match in our world of possibilities. You may think that sounds as contradictory as a cubist police impression artist. You may similarly think you automatically get a Frankenstein’s monster of services. I think this is a matter of will power to make combined / integrated services more and better than the sum of their parts. Welcome to the new world.
ReplyDeleteJust catching up with this thread. Going back a few days to Gerry McMullan's point, I think he's making some very good points. My experience - as someone external to public service organisations but often working with them through my job or through my voluntary roles - is that there are often many very committed and knowledgeable individuals, who have plenty of experience that they bring to bear in terms of ideas for what can be done. However, it's also clear that they are often working in a system over which they have relatively little control, largely because (as Gerry points out) of the statutory requirements on what they do and how, but also because a local authority tends to be a fairly large and lumbering beast. This mitigates against one of the key things that contributes to a constructive response to enforced austerity, i.e. flexibility and imaginative thinking. I agree with others that now is a time to do things differently - we have to because the world is now a totally different place. Some people find this exciting and are keen to act proactively; others find it quite threatening. There is more to this than involvement. We all know that leadership is crucial, and it feels to me that that's the place to start. If the person 'at the top' can create an atmosphere where creativity, imagination and new ways of thinking are welcomed, that sets the tone. This would need to be followed by some realism, and of course there are difficult decisions. In summary, I feel that there are people with the will and the ability in place to help get public service organisations through this unbelievably difficult time, but they need the freedom to find their way through.
ReplyDeleteThanks for everyone's contributions - I like the way this thread is developing - into a discussion of what needs to happen or change to ensure that austerity measures don't just become a way of carrying on doing the same old same old - but with fewer staff working harder providing a smaller quantity of service to those people who need it.There is a huge amount of fear around present and the danger that heads will be ducking behind all manner of parapets. I have blogged here (and on my own blog) about the dilemmas facing managers in the public services - especially managers stuck in the middle. So what to do? Whilst acknowledging the Guardian's advice on Saturday regarding "On a more simple level, Mills says that if you're employed, stop whingeing" - for me the challenge is what action to take to help create the conditions which will allow for creativity in the face of austerity so that deep damage is mitigated.My starter for ten is to keep framing and asking good questions. (One of my favourite stories at present is that Einstein was once asked what he would do if he was faced with the problem of the world ending in an hour's time. He said he would spend 59 minutes working out the right question to ask - because finding an answer would then become possible in the last minute.)A well timed, directed and constructed question can (to cite another physicist) be like a long enough lever and move a planet.So what are the questions that we should be posing - to ensure that the forthcoming austerity measures do not result in a cruel & inefficient mess of epic proportions that will damage people's lives for decades to come?
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