Lessons for the UK from the United States modernisation prorgamme, National Partnership for Re-inventing Government, which was launched 7 years ago, will be drawn at a conference next month. John Kamensky, Deputy Director of the NPR programme, will speak at the Quality Forum Conference at the Queen Elisabeth Centre in London on 12 April.The UK Modernising government agenda has many similarities to the US experience. They share common features such as customer focus and making government more relevant to people. The goals of the NPR programme are to restore trust in American democracy by giving Americans a government that provides: best value for each taxpayer, best customer service, best places to work for its employees and best legacy for the future. US departments and agencies set targets to reduce overhead costs from one third to one sixth of all expenditure. Advice from front line services is used to find ways of doing this. Reinvention laboratories are used to pilot ideas and look for new ways of doing things.
A report by the Social Exclusion Unit calls for a National Centre for Neighbourhood Renewal to be set up. The review team, one of 18 which are following up an earlier report on a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal, were given the task of finding out what lessons could be learned for inclusion in a national strategy document They concluded that a Centre is needed for training public sector professionals working in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The Centre should provide initial and follow up training and give particular emphasis to the skills and knowledge needed to work in multi-disciplinary teams and partnerships. It would also become the repository of best practice.The report also recommends new forms of funding. It calls for a development fund to support social entrepreneurs and a bursary scheme to enable directors of new projects to acquire business and management skills. It also advocates new ways of promoting community leaders and social entrepreneurs.
The reports show that agencies met 75% and NDPBs 69% of targets, which is an improvement on last year. They show an emphasis on inward facing targets such as unit costs rather than things that matter to customers such as quality of service. There are few targets relating to innovation or making wider use of technology. There is also a suspicion that some targets are not particularly stretching with scope for a greater focus on continuous improvement in service quality.Reports available from the Stationery Office 0345 01 34 74.
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