By Sir Brian Briscoe Reproduced by permission of the Public Management and Policy Association. Local government has been in the middle of tensions between the unions and the Government and there is much to be learned from the way the two tier workforce issue and the first service dispute were resolved. Sir Brian Briscoe from his insider view gives insights into how processes have worked and he sets out a vision for how they could work better.
Public services should move from the traditional command-and-control style of management to a high-performance model based on autonomy and trust. This call for a re-think of the way public services are managed comes from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in a report ‘People and Public Services: Why Central Targets Miss the Mark.’ The report’s author, Observer Management Editor, Simon Caulkin, argues that public sector organisations should develop their own quality-based ‘routes to excellence’ to allow them to turn the rhetoric of ‘new localism’ into reality. People management, not targets should be at the heart of the reform process.Calculating the number of targets that the public sector is subject to is difficult, but at national level the Public Service Agreements that departments and agencies conclude with the Treasury contain around 125 targets. The NHS alone has at least 60. One estimate is that local government has more than 600 targets to meet.
The multi-agency cross cutting approaches to deliver sustainable reductions in crime and promote safer, more secure communities are struggling to make a difference. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has found that none of the 374 partnerships provided an excellent service. Of the 24 partnerships that were subject to Best Value inspections only 9 were judged as providing a good service.The partnerships bring together the police and local councils as well as other local public bodies such as health, probation and education. They invite the participation of private, voluntary and community groups and the community itself.
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