CABINET OFFICE News
Release (CAB/074/08) issued by The Government News Network on 27
June 2008
The Prime Minister
today outlines a bold vision for transforming England's
public services. In a Cabinet Office report "Reaching World
Class: The next stage in improving public services" published
today, he argues that although public services have improved
dramatically over the past decade they are not yet world-class and
a new stage of reform is required.
The paper provides a framework for further improvement. Using
evidence from the best-performing public services around the world
it sets out the Government's overall approach to public
service reform for the coming years.
It identifies three key characteristics of world-class public services:
* empowering citizens who use public services by: extending
choice and complementing it with more direct forms of individual
control, such as personal budgets; giving people opportunities to
do more themselves; stronger local accountability; and making sure
there is greater transparency on service performance.
* fostering a new professionalism in the public service workforce
that combines: services responding more directly to users'
needs; consistent quality in day-to-day practices; higher levels
of autonomy from central government wherever front line
professionals show the ambition and capacity to excel; and greater
investment in workforce skills.
* strong strategic leadership from central government to ensure
that direct intervention is more sharply concentrated on
underperforming organisations, while creating conditions for the
majority of services to thrive more autonomously.
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:
"Excellent public services lie at the heart of any civilised
society. They express our core values of fairness and common
endeavour and they underpin a strong economy. But more than that,
they are essential if we are to meet our commitment to improve
social mobility.
"I want world-class to mean what it says: every element of
our public services to be the best in the world."
There have been two major stages of reform of public services
over the past ten years. Firstly the Government introduced
national standards and targets to drive up performance while
increasing investment. The next stage saw improvement driven by
incentives from within public services themselves rather than from
central Government.
Only strong, reformed public services can deliver the secure
communities Britain needs to thrive in the coming decades.
Achieving this will require a new set of relationships at the
heart of our public services; between empowered citizens and
professionals; between professionals and government; and between
citizens and the state.
This does not mean rolling back the investment and reforms of the
past ten years. On the contrary the report argues that we must
build on the progress already made. This means empowering citizens
not only by further extending choice, but also by strengthening
accountability mechanisms and radically increasing transparency of
public services. It means unlocking the creativity and ambition of
public sector workers to innovate and drive up standards in
partnership with service users, and it means more strategic
leadership from central government.
Summary of the report's recommendations
Citizen empowerment
With power directly in the hands of citizens, services become
more responsive to the individual's needs. This would lead to:
* services that reflect people's aspirations and lifestyle,
such as more flexible opening hours for GP surgeries;
* services reshaped around people's complex and interrelated
needs, such as continuity of care between home and hospital for
those with long-term health problems; and
* a stronger relationship between the citizen and public service professionals.
Ways this can be achieved include:
* giving people real choices between and within services, such as
through greater use of personal budgets;
* giving citizens and communities a greater say in local services
by measuring customer satisfaction, and strengthening local
accountability over services like the police;
* strengthening partnerships between service users and professionals;
* improving the availability of real time information on the
performance of services.
New professionalism
In order to raise standards to the next level, it is vital to
unleash the creativity and ambition of public sector professionals because:
* they have the knowledge about what works and make the
day-to-day decisions that determine how well the system performs;
* They form direct relationships with citizens and so can
understand and respond to their needs and aspirations;
* and front line workers are often best placed to create
innovative services that respond to new challenges, such as the
Islington police officer who thought up the Acceptable Behaviour
Contracts as a simple way of reaching an agreement on how an
individual would change their behaviour.
New professionalism is about a shared commitment between
Government and public sector professionals, and also about making
them accountable to citizens and service users. But it would also
give the best professionals space to manage and run their own
services through:
* greater freedom and flexibility for high performers to respond
to service users and instigate innovation and higher standards;
* raising skills and increasing consistency in the quality of practice;
* rewarding success;
* more front line workers running and managing services as in
Foundation Hospitals and City Academies;
* professionals defining their own standards of excellence and
dealing with those who are not up to the job
* sharing knowledge and collaborating with each other.
Strategic leadership
World class public services need strong but strategic leadership
from central government. This requires a carefully balanced
relationship between central government and local services in
which the former devolves more to local authorities while
focussing on four strategic roles:
* establishing clear values and direction for change and
communicating them effectively;
* establishing the operating framework for public services then
devolving responsibility tot the frontline;
* allocating resources;
* unlocking talent within services.
For public services to be driven by empowered users and
professionals, central Government would take a very different
approach - setting the overall direction rather than directing and
controlling services. In practice this would mean the Government:
* establishing overall strategy but not specifying detailed implementation;
* agreeing and enforcing baseline standards, not setting targets
and intervening on a regular basis;
* providing stability;
* sharing leadership by learning from those at the cutting edge
and refining the system accordingly;
* giving local government, communities and services power and
responsibility to decide what is right for their area rather than
controlling everything centrally;
* reducing central bureaucracy.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
1. The report only covers public service policy for England as
such policy in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is under the
remit of the devolved administrations.
Cabinet Office Press Office 22 Whitehall LONDON SW1A 2WH
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk