By David Bicknell
A couple of recent pieces caught my eye, both of them from the Daily Telegraph. One discussed the state of the Coalition and whether, instead of being a catalyst for reform and change, the Liberal Democrats become the roadblock to it, and a surprisingly positive piece – for the Telegraph – about David Cameron by Peter Oborne.
Posted in Campaign4Change, Uncategorized
Tagged change, Coalition, David Cameron, Liberal Democrats
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, has today announced plans for the mutualisation of the 400-strong My Civil Service Pension , which administers the delivery of Civil Service Pension schemes.
This will be the first major mutualisation of a central government service. Mutuals, as they are known, give employees a financial stake in a business whose ownership is shared between the public and private sectors.
The Cabinet Office is also considering the potential for offering a stake to 1.5 million pension scheme members.
Maude said: “Too often there’s been a binary choice between the Government providing a service itself, or outsourcing it to the private sector. These choices have historically been driven by a belief that services have to be controlled centrally – with a one size fits all approach that has left little room for innovation.
“We are looking for more innovative ways to structure services. We know that employees who have a stake in their business, or take ownership of it completely, have more power and motivation to improve the service they run. They can also benefit from partnerships with private or voluntary sector organisations which can bring in capital and expertise.
“For the private sector, which can no longer expect the generous margins of the past, tapping the talent of frontline staff to improve efficiency will be a priority. The state too can keep a stake so that taxpayers benefit from the rising value of an improved service.
“I’m impressed with entrepreneurial zeal of Phil Bartlett and his team at My Civil Service Pension. They are pioneering the mutual joint venture model and the Government is committed to ensuring they have they right support to succeed.”
Phil Bartlett, CEO My Civil Service Pension, said: ” By taking the opportunity to mutualise we can better acknowledge our people and their expertise – and access valuable additional resources and expertise in the private sector.
“This new and innovative structure will give us the agility to exploit opportunities in the changing pension landscape and grow our business, and the taxpayer will benefit from the increased value of an improved and more efficient service.”
Mutualisation is being supported by dedicated resource within the Cabinet Office. Earlier this month Maude announced that the entrepreneur and business leader, Stephen Kelly, has been appointed as the Crown Representative to support the creation of mutuals from existing service teams within central government departments.
He also announced the establishment of an Enterprise Incubator to help civil servants create successful enterprises from within central government, including employee and management teams who wish to form mutual companies under the Right to Provide previously announced by the Cabinet Office.
The Government is developing mutual models through the Mutual Pathfinder programme which is supporting 21 existing and potential mutuals with mentoring and advice from experts in employee ownership.
Every department will put in place ‘rights to provide’ giving staff new rights and support to form mutuals.
The Cabinet Office has appointed Professor Julian Le Grand to head the Mutuals Taskforce which will support staff interested in mutualising their service.
Links:
Government signs over civil service pensions to private sector mutual.
David Pitchford, who has been Executive Director of Major Projects within the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group, is to run the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority which has the power to intervene in failing projects.
Last year Pitchford delivered what Lindsay Scott, co-director of Arras People, called an “amazingly frank assessment of the state of major projects within the UK Government”.
Pitchford said failures of government projects were because of:
The new Major Projects Authority is run as a partnership with the Treasury and approves projects worth more than £5m. The Guardian reports that the Authority has an enforceable mandate from the prime minister to oversee and direct the management of all large scale central government projects.
It will be able to:
– tell departments if there is a need for additional assurance
– arrange extra support for a project
– take disputes or problems to ministers.
Departments will be required to provide an integrated assurance and approval plan for every project at its inception. The MPA will approve these before the Cabinet Office and Treasury approves projects, and run an assurance process at key stages to assess whether they are on course to deliver on time, within budget and to the required quality.
It will also compile a portfolio of major projects, reporting on them once a year, and work with departments to improve their skills in the management of projects and programmes.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said the Authority is being set up to improve government’s poor record on project delivery.
“The MPA will work in collaboration with central government departments to help us get firmer control of our major projects both at an individual and portfolio level,” he said. “It will look at projects from High Speed Two (for London to Scotland rail services) to the Rural Payments Agency’s ICT system.”
Comment:
Pitchford’s increasing influence on major projects within the Cabinet Office is welcome, especially after the departures of some other reformers who include John Suffolk and Andy Tait.
By David Bicknell
As mentioned yesterday, the Coalition said it would be unveiling a Carbon Plan this week, effectively a Government-wide plan of action on climate change, including domestic and international activity, which sets out department by department, actions and deadlines for the next 5 years.
It has now released the Plan, which is available here. The Carbon Plan presents ongoing and planned cross-Government action on climate change with specific deadlines providing for both internal accountability and public transparency. Quarterly updates on progress against actions within the Plan will be published on the No.10 website.
The Plan sets out what has to happen and by when if the Government is to live up to its green ambitions, meet tough domestic carbon targets and encourage greater action internationally. It is focused on the jobs and economic opportunities of the low carbon economy and on policies that will help insulate Britain from future energy price shocks.
By David Bicknell
The Cabinet Office has published a series of documents which discuss how the public sector could utilise the Cloud Computing approach to ICT delivery and explore what benefits and challenges this approach would create.
The project, known as Phase 2 of the G-Cloud Programme, features a number of reports which were developed under work strands of the ICT strategy that was published on 27th January 2010. As the Cabinet Office says, they provide a well informed baseline of public sector Cloud thinking from 2009 to early 2010.
While publishing the papers on its website – minus one on information assurance for security reasons – the Cabinet Office says further development of plans for the adoption of the Cloud Computing approach to ICT and the delivery of cloud based services to the public sector is on-going and will reflect the objectives of the Coalition Government. It adds that Cloud Computing principles are evolving rapidly and these will be incorporated into this work.
Posted in Campaign4Change
Tagged Cabinet Office, Cloud Computing, Coalition, G-Cloud
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