Category Archives: public sector

Hammersmith & Fulham mutual Pathfinder on track for ‘early 2012’ launch

Posted on 05/12/2011 | 2 comments

By David Bicknell

I recently  spoke with the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham about their mutual ‘Pathfinder’ project, which is due to be up and running in 2012.

The current plan is for all three boroughs  – the other two are Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster – to join the mutual in ‘early 2012’.

The three boroughs are now developing the full business plan for the mutual and are looking at the sustainability of the project, with a shadow board of directors meeting regularly to discuss and work out the finer details about how to bring the three teams together across the boroughs.

Other work is going on to finalise the tri-borough mutual vision statement and create a company name (word has it that the current working title is 3BM: Three Borough Mutual) and logo ,which all staff members have been able to contribute to  to reinforce the employee ownership of the scheme.

Meanwhile a mentor from the John Lewis Partnership is working with the fledgling mutual to provide what’s described as ‘invaluable support’ on the shareholding model.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services, social economy

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Less than third of civil servants on strike says Maude

Posted on 30/11/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

The Cabinet Office says that “significantly less” than a third of civil servants are taking strike action today.

Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, said: “I want to thank the majority of dedicated and committed public sector workers who have turned up to work today to deliver essential services.”

He added that early indications indicate that the majority of key public services remain open.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, managing change, public sector, public services

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Strewth! Managing public sector IT projects is also a challenge Down Under

Posted on 30/11/2011 | 1 comment

By David Bicknell

A critical report by the Ombudsman in the Australian state of Victoria has meant that taxpayers will have to bear an additional A$1.44bn of costs because of mismanaged IT projects.

The Victorian Ombudsman George Brouwer looked at 10 major IT projects which suffered cost overruns under the Labour government, including the public transport ticketing system myki.

Mr Brouwer found each that project failed to meet user expectations, was delivered late and overran on cost.

The original budget for the projects was $1.3 billion but new estimates suggest the costs have more than doubled.

The report found the two largest projects, myki and the hospital IT system HealthSMART, would need almost $600 million more than originally planned, while Victoria Police spent $5 9 million on a Link crime database  over four years before it was cancelled. VicRoads spent $52 million on a licensing system RandL, which had not yet made it past the design phase.

The Ombudsman’s Report says:

“In Victoria over the last few years, in our respective roles as Auditor-General and Ombudsman, we have tabled in Parliament a number of reports relating to ICT-enabled projects. These reports have identified significant shortcomings in the public sector’s management of such projects and have included numerous recommendations about how such management can be improved.

“Despite these reports, we see little sign of lessons learnt in the public sector. The evidence to date is that the public sector is not managing ICT-enabled projects effectively, as demonstrated by the current difficulties that Victoria is facing in this area and the increasingly adverse public comment about major ICT-enabled projects. A new and more disciplined approach is required if the government is to avoid being faced with continuing cost overruns and failures to deliver.”

You can read the Ombudsman’s report here

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, IT projects, project management, public sector

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Why those driving the creation of public sector mutuals are Investors, not Conservers

Posted on 25/11/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

All those considering setting up public sector mutuals like Hammersmith & Fulham  – and those in the middle of running successful mutual pathfinders such as Central Surrey Health – know the importance of investing in their vision and backing it.

That’s why I liked this piece by Craig Dearden-Philips, who while discussing third sector organisations, makes a distinction between Investors and Conservers.

“My guess though is that the people who make the biggest difference in the world , certainly socially, are almost all on Investors. These people are not ‘born’. They make a choice about how to live. They know that the Investment Principle works – and they live by it.

“Of course, Investment isn’t just a one way street. Investments frequently don’t pay off. In people, in relationships, in business. You get burned as much as you get it right. And investments that are not made judiciously, in people or ventures that are wrong to begin with, are not defensible either. Being investment-minded isn’t about being a soft-heart. But it is about understanding the powerful link between investment and reward and making this, somehow, a feature in the way you operate.”

Wise words.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, health, managing change, mutualisation, mutuals, NHS, public sector, public services, SME, social economy, social enterprise

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The capital, contractual, governance and leadership questions facing creative councils over mutuals

Posted on 24/11/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

There are some good points raised in this article in about the challenges facing creative councils who may be considering the adoption of new mutual models.

It raises some useful questions around capital, governance, contracts, relationships, management, growth, leadership and how the private sector can help.

Worth a read.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services, reforms

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Officials pay supplier invoices – then raise purchase orders

Posted on 24/11/2011 | 1 comment

This morning the National Audit Office has published a report that says the Equality and Human Rights Commission, in up to 35% of cases, raises its purchase order after it gets the invoice from suppliers.

It’s unlikely that any private sector company could survive if it didn’t know what it owed, didn’t know what it had bought, and had to wait for an invoice from the supplier to raise the purchase order.

Amyas Morse, the head of the NAO, says in his report today:

“While I welcome the considerable improvements that the Commission has made in its controls over procurement, there are still areas where it needs to make improvements. In particular, up to 35% of the Commission’s purchase orders are still not raised until after the Commission has received an invoice for goods and services.

“This means that Commission staff are committing funds without going through proper processes and are avoiding some of the checking processes. Consequently the Commission does not have an accurate understanding of its committed expenditure at any one point in time.

“The Chief Executive has made it clear that he takes noncompliance with these processes seriously such that in cases of repeated non-compliance delegations will be withdrawn.”

A common practice? 

Is this absence of proper accounting worryingly common in central government and its agencies, particularly on IT contracts?

Auditors told us that in the case of NPfIT contracts they found some invoices that were paid when they came in, awaiting reconciliation with any past paperwork.

This, perhaps, ties in with the experiences of Conservative MP Richard Bacon, a member of Public Accounts Committee who, when asking civil servants for a breakdown of IT spending has, in the past, been referred to the department’s IT supplier.

On the C-Nomis IT project for prisons, the National Offender Management Service paid £161m without keeping any record of what the payments were for.

The Cabinet Office wants to cut the £17bn or so spent every year on public sector IT. But before departments, agencies and other organisations cut their costs they’ll need to know what those costs are. Maybe they should ask their major IT suppliers? We wonder if the domination of GovIT by a small number of suppliers has got to the stage where it’s the suppliers managing the civil service IT budgets. If that’s the case it is not the fault of suppliers.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, capacity building, change management, Government IT, managing change, managing outsourced services, operational issues, private sector lessons for the public sector, procurement, public sector, public services, supplier relationships

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Government CIO to retire

Posted on 22/11/2011 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

CIO reports today that Joe Harley, the Government CIO and CIO for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), is retiring next year.

Harley has been CIO for the DWP for seven years and just last year was promoted to Government CIO.

The DWP says on its website:

“After more than seven years of major accomplishments as CIO for the DWP and one year as the Government CIO, Joe Harley, CBE, has decided to retire from the Civil Service in the Spring of 2012.

“Joe has transformed IT in the Department which has made a huge difference to the efficiency and effectiveness of IT and of the DWP as a whole.”

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said:

“I would like to thank Joe for his significant and exceptional contribution to DWP and the Government – he has been instrumental in building reform and modernising our approach to technology.

“Joe leaves us with our highest regards having secured this Government well-placed to deliver major reform in the future.”

Harley said:

“It’s been a great honour and a privilege to have served the Department and Government over the years. It’s been a hugely fulfilling experience. I am proud to have made some contribution to improving Public Services for the benefit of the citizen and the tax payer.”

DWP Permanent Secretary Robert Devereux said:

“I want to thank Joe for his enormous contribution to the Department’s performance. He has been pivotal in establishing commercial arrangements which give value for money, and in the delivery of major changes to IT underpinning services which are critical for millions of people every day. The IT for Universal Credit, in particular, is on track. I wish him well in his retirement.”

Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary Ian Watmore said:

“Joe has accomplished great things in his time as Government CIO, having created and published a transformational ICT Strategy, along with plans of how it will be implemented.

“I would like to thank him personally for his leadership and huge contribution to Public Service and the ICT Profession across Government.”

Minister for Cabinet Office Francis Maude said:

“Joe has played an integral role in the past year whilst as Government CIO – he has led the delivery of a new ICT strategy and strategic implementation plan.

“These will ensure that the old siloed way of developing government ICT projects comes to an end, and leaves us with all departments working together to produce a fit-for-purpose and cost effective ICT system potentially saving £1.4 billion over the next 4 years.”

The process for selecting his successor, as CIO for DWP, will begin immediately. The Cabinet Office will run a separate process for the next Government CIO along with the process that is already underway to replace Bill McCluggage, the Deputy Government CIO.

Comment

Joe Harley has achieved much within the DWP – including cutting costs and helping to set up the administration, based on agile principles, of Universal Credit .

But it was always going to be difficult combining a full-time job as DWP CIO with that of Government CIO.

Harley’s retirement gives the government a chance to appoint a full-time CIO who is passionate about structural change and can build a strong public profile on the need for it.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, capacity building, change, change management, Government IT, managing change, managing outsourced services, operational issues, procurement, public sector, public services, reducing cost strategically, reforms, Universal Credit

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Getting the mutuals message across more effectively through knowledge networks

Posted on 21/11/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Despite all the discussion about mutuals – scarcely a week goes by without a new feature being written in a trade magazine about them – it seems the message has yet to reach some councils. A recent Transition Institute blog recently cited having to give a council director an ‘idiot’s guide’ to mutuals.

The blog made the excellent point that with the financial squeeze on local authorities getting ever tighter,  hard choices are having to be made to maintain public services. It points out that decision makers care about two things: one, maintaining a level of service so that outcomes do not seriously worsen, and two, saving money.

“Supporting staff ownership comes nowhere near these priorities on the agenda, if it features at all. If a staff-owned provider can deliver on both, then great, but a mutual is very unlikely to be given the kind of preferential treatment it needs and deserves to get off the ground if there’s an established voluntary or private sector provider waiting in the wings.”

What will make a difference? The blog suggests that apart from an effective Mutuals Support Programme,  what’s necessary are better knowledge networks than the public sector currently operates which can get over the need for new public service mutuals to have a real impact.

It rightly says: “At the moment we have small-scale, isolated, localised experience: brave pioneers beating a path through dense jungle, feeling like they have to do it all for the very first time, navigating the toughest political landscape imaginable. What we need are networks, a major cross-pollination and peer support effort that goes beyond the vague to the specific and real, and tackles head on the tactics and techniques you need to master to make the case for mutuals, to colleagues and political masters who are unlikely to care all that much.”

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Posted in Campaign4Change, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services, social economy, social enterprise

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Do councils have the management capacity to adopt a mutuals approach?

Posted on 18/11/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

There is more evidence of interest in mutuals in this article from Personnel Today.

It makes some good points, notably that cash-strapped councils may lack the management resource to nurture mutuals.

Peter Reilly, the Institute of Employment Studies’ director of HR research and consultancy, who is quoted in the article, detects a division in local government between those willing to experiment with the mutuals option and those who still need convincing. “I think you have got a much bigger number of councils watching and waiting to see what comes of it,” he says. He questions whether or not councils have the management capacity to undertake such a change “if you are also trying to take out 25% of your costs at the same time”.

It is a view backed by Councillor Steve Reed, leader of Labour-controlled Lambeth Council in London, who told Personnel Today, “It’s a huge ask of the organisation, if I am honest,” he says. “We’re dealing with cuts bigger than managers have ever dealt with in their lives and then you ask them to manage in a completely different way.”

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Posted in Campaign4Change, managing outsourced services, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services

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G-Cloud and agile briefings

Posted on 18/11/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

On 22 November the Government Digital Service is giving a briefing for potential G-Cloud suppliers. It’ll be streamed live.

Officials say the briefing will be particularly useful to suppliers whose employees have never participated in a government tender.

At the ApplyCamp, officials will explain G-Cloud, steps in the OJEU procurement process, what information potential G-Cloud suppliers need to give, and what happens next.

The event is particularly aimed at Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, Software as a Service and other specialist cloud service suppliers. It will be held at Google, 76 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9TQ – 3pm – 5pm.

Agile TeaCamp – 24 November

Between 4pm and 6pm at the Cafe Zest, House of Fraser, Victoria St, London, there will be talks on agile. Derrick Cameron, MD of software consultancy Eximium and COO of agile software house Procession will speak on “Becoming the Intelligent Buyer”.  Chris Parsons, a “freelance thinker, coder and trainer” will talk about the e-petitions project and the aims of the Agile Delivery Network.

Teacamps in November and December – Government Digital Service

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Posted in Agile, Business Intelligence, capacity building, change, change management, Cloud, Cloud Computing, EU procurement, G-Cloud, Government IT, innovation, Lean, managing change, procurement, public sector, public services, reducing cost strategically, reforms, SME, supplier relationships

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