Following a rise in the failure of major IT projects last year the Central IT Unit in the Cabinet Office launched a review to find ways of preventing disasters such as the failure of the Passport Office system. The Review Team is examining public and private sector projects, as well as international experience to identify the causes of failure and the ingredients of success.Because the findings will not be available for some months, an interim Plan has been published. It addresses the problem facing project managers of the once in a lifetime challenge to manage a project far larger than anything experienced previously and unlikely to be experienced again in the remainder of a career. In future major projects will be subjected to Peer Reviews at the planning stage to provide assurance that the project is safe to go ahead. A system is also being set up to share knowledge about IT projects so everyone can benefit from best practice experience.
Research findings published by the Department for Education and Employment show that pilot Early Learning Excellence Centres, providing integrated care and education for children in their early years, are benefiting families and taxpayers.The research, which was carried out by Worcester College found that for every one pound invested in Centres, eight pounds were saved on alternative services such as foster care and counselling. The findings also show that early intervention for children with special needs leads to a greater likelihood of a child being successfully educated in mainstream schools. This produces an additional saving because mainstream education costs 7000 pounds less per child than special school education.
Report by The Audit CommissionThe report stresses that core financial disciplines are more important than ever in the move from Compulsory Competitive Tendering to Best Value. It describes how local authorities should approach the financial management of trading units under Best Value, highlighting the lessons learnt from the final years of CCT when a number of authorities experienced severe difficulties with their Direct Labour Organisations and Direct Service Organisations. Its main findings include the requirement for annual business plans of trading units to be approved by council members and the key role of Finance Directors.
As local councils, police and fire authorities prepare for the introduction of Best Value on 1 April, the use of schemes to raise quality takes on greater significance. In a move to encourage more extensive use of such schemes, details of how they are being used to develop Best Value have been published.The Excellence Model, which identifies strengths and areas for improvement, has been incorporated into the framework for Best Value performance reviews. The Model is also being used to benchmark performance with similar local councils. Over 40% of councils that have submitted Best Value plans so far have made some use of the Model.
The Employment Service is re-focusing on its customers following a wide range review and consultation. As an Executive Agency of the Department for Education and Employment its task is to find work for people without jobs and to fill employers vacancies. As a result of asking employers, voluntary, public and private sector organisations and other Government Departments what they wanted from the Service a new vision and purpose for modernisation has been devised.Key features of the new vision are working in close partnership with a wide range of public, private and voluntary sectors, greater emphasis on equal opportunities and the use of new technology to deliver services.
Prisoners are benefiting from a pilot learning lab that helps them deal with public services on their discharge from prison. The project is also designed to re-integrate them into the community and reduce the risk of re-entering the offending cycle.A commitment to set up learning labs was made in the Modernising government White Paper of March 1999 to drive forward schemes for involving and motivating staff. It is recognised that public servants often know how to overcome problems and inefficiencies but are held back by red tape and established procedure. Learning labs encourage the testing of new ways of working by suspending rules that stifle innovation. They operate successfully in the United States.
The move towards a one stop shop for public services takes a step forward today as the London Borough of Lewisham extends its Tellytalk service. With 13 Tellytalk booths in supermarkets, libraries and neighbourhood offices, journeys to the Town Hall or other public offices have been eliminated. The extended service allows users to get face to face contact with the Benefits Agency in Belfast, Child Support Agency, Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise, police and the local college, as well council staff in the Town Hall.Users select the service they want to contact by using a touch screen menu. The computer and video equipment then allows face to face contact. Form filling is a popular use of the system and there is a document scanner to send the form or other document to the screen contact.
Hendriks F, Tops PPublic Administration, (UK), 1999 Vol 77 No 1
Start page: 133. No of pages: 21
Compares trends in local government in The Netherlands and Germany, chronicling the progress of local government reform in both countries over the past twenty years. Sees the 1980s in The Netherlands as being a period in which the New Public Management, with its emphasis on business-like practice, took hold; the 1990s as being a period in which a number of problems emerged within local government which led to a rethink and a renewed emphasis on involving citizens in decision-making processes. Sees Germany as reversing these trends – the 1980s characterized by citizen participation; the 1990s by the rise of concepts associated with New Public Management. Assesses why these two countries should have travelled in different directions, analysing the influence of the financial crises, legitimacy crises, and the role of formal and informal institutions in shaping local government.
Outpatient waiting lists for the early winter months have fallen for the first time in three years. This is despite an annual first attendances rise of 2.2% to 11.8 million.This speeding up of the outpatient system is the first sign that the hard hitting report of the Treasury’s Public Services Productivity Panel published last year has diagnosed the problems and prescribed practical solutions. The Review Team found archaic systems, many dating back to the 1950s. They also found wide variations in outpatient performance across the NHS. This was the first time there had been a major emphasis on reducing outpatient waiting lists.
The torrent of area based initiatives such as health and education action zones has produced a co-ordination nightmare. Local authorities, with a responsibility for community leadership are suffering from the bureaucratic burden of initiatives conceived and managed separately by individual central Government Departments. The Performance and Innovation Unit in its report ‘Reaching Out: The role of Central Government At Regional and Local Level’ paints a depressing picture of non joined- up government.The Unit’s Review Team found initiatives that affect the same people, such as children, are run separately and not linked in any way. They also found that the number and extent of narrowly focused plans required by central Government from local authorities is inhibiting their ability to take joined-up co-ordinated action.
