Tag Archives: Efficiency and Reform Group

Cabinet Office publishes SME action plans today – a good start.

Posted on 03/06/2011 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

The Cabinet Office has today published SME “action plans” for each department.

It says the  reforms are “designed” – which is not the same as a commitment – to   “significantly open-up the public sector marketplace to small businesses”.

The new  plans support what the Cabinet Office calls an “aspiration” for the Government to spend  25% of its budgets on SMEs.

The actions range from:

  • breaking large contracts into smaller lots
  • working with major suppliers to increase SME access to sub-contracting opportunities
  • increasing the amount of information that is available to SMEs about contract opportunities
  • holding “product surgeries” for SMEs to pitch innovative ideas
  • piloting new procurement methods that are more open to SMEs.

Some of the documents published today could be more aptly  described as goodwill gestures to SMEs rather than  action plans.  Indeed, when read carefully, some of the action plans appear to be a civil service response to an unwanted ministerial decree.

HM Revenue and Customs, which is tied into an £8bn IT outsourcing deal with Capgemini, uses phrases in its SME action plan that are vague and non-committal, such as “build on the work done …”

These are some of the promises HMRC is making to SMEs:

– From June 2011, HMRC will develop and maintain information on its website relevant for SMEs. The information will include, but will not be limited to, signposting for SMEs to access relevant procurement details and how they can work with the Department. The Department will provide clear contact points for additional information and queries.

– Work with the 12 largest prime HMRC suppliers (representing c80% of 3rd party spend) to ensure they identify and engage with their own SME supply chains, including 3/4th level suppliers and agree actions (such as advertising suitable sub-contracting opportunities on Contracts Finder) with them to increase value of spend.

– Build on the work done on the recent open procedure procurement for Debt Collection Services …

– HMRC to consider appropriate procurements that are suitable for SME competition.

The Home office’s action plan is better, though.  It says it will:

– review forthcoming procurements and develop standardised processes and procedures to remove barriers to SMEs. “This will ensure the method used is as SME friendly as possible for the contract on offer.”  By June 2011.

Alongside publishing the action plans the Cabinet Office is creating a central team, Government Procurement, which will contract for widely-used goods and services for the whole of Government at a single, better price.

This, says the Cabinet Office, will end the “signing of expensive deals by individual departments” and “end poor value contracts such as those where government departments and agencies paid between £350 and £2,000 for the same laptop and between £85 and £240 for the same printer cartridge from the same supplier”.

Central procurement of common items is expected to save more than £3bn a year by 2015 – 25% of the Government’s current annual spending on these items.

Francis Maude says the Government is on track to have saved more than £1bn from tighter spending on discretionary goods and services including consultants and agency staff in the last year.

“Changes to make Government contracts more accessible to SMEs have already led to one not-for-profit SME successfully undercutting larger competitors and winning a £1.6m contract to provide office support services to HM Revenue and Customs,” says the Cabinet Office.

Maude said:

It is bonkers for different parts of Government to be paying vastly different prices for exactly the same goods. We are putting a stop to this madness which has been presided over for too long. Until recently, there wasn’t even any proper central data on procurement spending.

“So, as Sir Philip Green found, major efficiencies are to be found in Government buying. The establishment of Government Procurement means that the days when there was no strategy and no coherence to the way the Government bought goods and services are well and truly at an end…

“We are also determined to press ahead with measures to create a more level playing field so that small organisations and businesses can compete fairly with bigger companies for Government contracts. SMEs can provide better value and more innovative solutions for Government and the actions set out today will support their growth as the economy starts to recover.”

The Cabinet Office says that greater use of the ‘open’ procurement procedure  has increased by 12% across the public sector between March and April alone, helping to ensure that all suitable suppliers have their tender proposals considered.

And following the Innovation Launch Pad, five further Dragons’ Den style ‘product surgeries’ are planned so that innovative SMEs can pitch their proposals directly to Government.

The Government bought £66bn  of goods and services in 2009/10. An Efficiency Review by Sir Philip Green, which was published in October 2010, found that the Government had not made the most of its size, buying power or credit rating.

Green wanted the mandation of “centralised procurement for common categories”.

Are officials undermining ministerial plans to boost SME work?

There is some evidence emerging, however, that the civil service is misinterpreting ministerial will and standardising contracts by taking work away from SMEs and putting it with a few large companies. Campaign4Change will be looking at this in coming weeks.

We also hope this will be investigated by the new Government Procurement team which will be headed byGovernment Chief Procurement Officer, John Collington.

Link:

Home Office SME Action Plan.

HMRC SME Action Plan

All departmental action plans.

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CSC’s future in NHS IT – an analysis

Posted on 02/06/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

              We trust the Cabinet Office more than the Department of Health to terminate or re-negotiate CSC’s £3.1bn NPfIT contracts.

  •  CSC’s strong position in NHS IT
  • Could CSC claim hundreds of millions from DH?
  • We’d be over a barrel, warns Connelly
  • More expense to cancel CSC’s contract than complete it, says Connelly
  • Are Connelly’s arguments flawed?
  • What happened to the concept of cutting your losses?
  • Remove life support for CSC’s contracts says Techmarketview 
  • CSC sees NHS IT as global reference site
  • CSC MoU is “ready to go”
  • Coalition reviews of CSC contracts a “stamp in the passport”
  • CSC will split Lorenzo into smaller chunks
  • No one NHS trust will dominate requirements

The share price of CSC, one of the biggest NHS IT suppliers, fell by 11% in New York trading this week, after its financial year-end forecast fell short of analysts’ estimates, according to Bloomberg.

Computer Sciences’ share price fell $4.76, or 11 percent, to $39.33 and although today [2 June 2011] the price is up slightly it is far below the 52-week high of $56.61. Bloomberg says that CSC has been hurt by delays in federal contract decisions and is also working to revise its NHS contract in the U.K. CSC has £3.1bn worth of NPfIT contracts.

CSC’s strong position in NHS IT

Despite the temporary knock in confidence for CSC over its share price, in part because of the NHS uncertainties, CSC remains in a strong negotiating position over the future of its work for the UK health service.  

Could CSC claim hundreds of millions from DH?

Christine Connelly, the Department of Health’s CIO, told the Public Accounts Committee on 23 May 2011 that if the DH terminated its contract with CSC for convenience [rather than terminate for breach of contract] CSC could claim hundreds of millions in compensation.

Connelly also said there is the “potential that the supplier may then come to us and seek damages based on the work in progress that they have on their balance sheet today, with a view—not that I am saying at this point that we would share it—that we have impacted their ability to get return on that asset that we were holding.

“So they may come to us and seek damages as a proportion of that balance sheet value. Again, that may be several hundred million pounds”.

Further, by terminating CSC’s contract, the Department of Health would have to support NHS trusts that had bought CSC systems under the NPfIT.

Connelly said:

“I am not talking about what it costs in terms of running those other systems, but there would be a cost if we decided no longer to have Lorenzo or [iSoft’s] IPM or whatever. We would have to take the people who are currently using those systems and move them to something else; that would be a transition cost.

“There then is likely to be a period where we would still be running the systems that we had now terminated. If you look at what happened to us in the South with Fujitsu, Fujitsu increased the cost of supporting the systems. They almost doubled the cost compared to the contract that we had.

We’d be over a barrel, warns Connelly

“So for the period before we had transitioned the systems across, we would expect to pay some premium on that support and obviously we would seek not to do that, but given that we would then be over a barrel, because we are running systems that one supplier has provided and we have now terminated, if we do not manage that well that could be a very difficult position.

More expense to cancel CSC’s contract than complete it, says Connelly

“So potentially, if you ask me about the absolute maximum [the DH is exposed to on its CSC contracts] we could be exposed to a higher cost than the cost to complete the contract as it stands today.”

Are Connelly’s arguments flawed?

But Connelly’s comments appear to make several assumptions namely that:

a) the DH hasn’t a strong legal case against CSC for breach of contract. In fact the DH should be able to credibly contest any claim by CSC for hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation.

b) CSC could withstand a long legal case against the UK government. In fact Fujitsu wants to settle its legal dispute with the Department because the row could damage its relationship with the coalition.  The policies of the coalition mean that suppliers no longer have isolated relationships with departments. Damage to a relationship in one department could affect a supplier’s relationship with government as a whole.

CSC is one of the top 10 suppliers to the UK Government. It will wish to avoid any dispute with the DH that could affect its relationship with the Cabinet Office’s new Crown representatives.

c) it would cost a fortune supporting NHS trusts that had bought NPfIT systems from CSC. In fact there are several healthcare suppliers – other than CSC and BT – that have been supporting and enhancing NHS trust systems outside of, and within, the NPfIT. They could support former CSC trusts at a fraction of the cost of BT [or CSC].

What happened to the concept of cutting your losses?

Anthony Miller, managing partner at market analyst Techmarketview, says it is “utter rubbish” to suggest that cancelling CSC’s contract will cost more than seeing it through to the bitter end. “Has the Government no idea about the concept of ‘cutting your losses’?” asks Miller.

Remove life support for CSC’s contracts says Techmarketview 

He adds:

“It should be clear to everyone involved that CSC’s NHS IT programme has deteriorated from ‘walking wounded’ to ‘do not resuscitate’. The sooner life support is removed, the better for all concerned.”

CSC sees NHS IT as global reference site

CSC, however, continues to see the NPfIT and its NHS IT work as a global reference site for healthcare IT.

Guy Hains, CSC’s President, Global Healthcare, told analysts last month that the NHS component of its business “is still the largest programme globally [and] is the reference point for most of our conversations with other national governments”.

He added: “It’s that experience, the learning points, the good and the bad, that carry forward into most of our development work we are doing elsewhere…”

CSC MoU is “ready to go”

Hains appeared confident that a new memorandum of understanding on its NPfIT work would be signed imminently. “We’ve got government reviews to complete. That’s imminent. We’ve done a lot of work regarding alignment with the NHS, and the MoU in that sense is ready to go”.

Coalition reviews of CSC contracts a “stamp in the passport”

He referred to the reviews of CSC’s NHS contracts as a “stamp in the passport before we go forward”. He said that creating Lorenzo code is “80% done”, adding: “We’ve got some important work to do and it relates to the clinician use and the very much frontline use of the system, and we’ve been learning with the NHS about the better way that we can deliver that”.

CSC will split Lorenzo into smaller chunks

CSC is to release Lorenzo in smaller chunks. “We’re doing it in ten smaller delivery units rather than two major releases. And we’ll be able to deploy those in a separable, incremented way. There’s no question that that will help digestion as it goes into the NHS”. As for working with early adopters, CSC is going through a “radical change in development”.

Hains said that rather than develop the software and then go through extended testing, “we are bringing the engagement of those lead clinicians and lead trusts upstream right into the requirements, refinement and capture stage, so that will allow us to shorten the time to market for the whole programme”.

No one NHS trust will dominate requirements

CSC is putting “governance into the programme” that means that one single trust doesn’t dominate in its requirements. “We’re getting a more common requirement through an expert user group.”

**

Comment:

The Department of Health gives the impression that it is over a barrel, that it cannot afford to fall out with CSC. But it’s clear to others that it is the Department’s commercial lawyers that are cringing before CSC, asking to be forgiven for being a nuisance. In essence the Department is saying to CSC’s lawyers: “Do with us what you will.”

Can public funds be entrusted to the Department of Health in such circumstances?

Richard Bacon, a Conservative MP on the Public Accounts Committee who has followed the NPfIT for many years, told ComputerworldUK that CSC’s contract should be abandoned. He said that the company “should not be rewarded for failure”. He reacted with disbelief to the suggestion that it would cost more to cancel the contract than complete it.

“I find that idea incredible, staggering,” he said. The Department’s comments could be a negotiating ploy to strengthen its arguments around the continuation of the programme, he added.

He said:

“If it’s actually true that it would cost more to cancel, then it’s a scandal. It would be an enormous indictment of [NHS chief executive] David Nicholson as the project’s Senior Responsible Owner, and of Connecting for Health, which allowed such a deal to be signed. “If it’s the truth, then those officials should be dismissed.”

It’s hard to argue with Bacon’s logic. Indeed we are not sure the Department should be taking a lead in any negotiations with CSC or BT. The NPfIT contracts should be in the hands of the Coalition government, via the Cabinet Office, not the Department of Health’s.

The Cabinet Office represents the taxpayer. The Department of Health’s informatics directorate represents a variety of interests including its own. Those interests seem tied to the continuance of the NPfIT.

*Thanks to David Moss for drawing my attention to the Bloomberg article on CSC’s share price.

Links:

Richard Bacon’s views on NHS IT.

NHS urged to turn off life support for £3bn CSC contract.

NPfIT – Our view on what should happen now.

Why did the NPfIT fail?

Health CIO Christine Connelly hits back at National Audit Office.

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Alpha.gov.uk shows how agile can work in government

Posted on 02/06/2011 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

Harry Metcalfe, managing director of Dextrous Web, has written an excellent article on Alpha.gov.uk.

Alpha.gov.uk is a prototype, built in response to some of the challenges laid down in a report by Martha Lane Fox last year. The two main objectives of Alphagov are to:

– test, in public, a prototype of a new, single UK Government website

– design and build a UK Government website using open, agile, multi-disciplinary product development techniques and technologies, shaped by a preoccupation with user needs.

It’s clear from Metcalfe’s post that he  understands the unbending ways of government. He sees the opportunities too. He says:

“As a technical solution, this [Alphagov] is brilliant. If you’re going to have a single [web] platform, this is the right kind of platform to have, because it embraces change.

“If you want some new functionality, add an app for it. If you need a new department, add a new instance of the department app, add your content, and you’ll have 90% of what you need.

“If you want to run a consultation using someone’s third-party tool, just have them brand it appropriately and write an app that gives you as much integration as you want, or as the tool can support. But this kind of flexibility is powerful. In many respects it’s anathema to the way government works.

“For a start, it requires something government unwisely gave up on long ago: an in-house development team…”

Campaign4Change comment:

Alphagov is not yet handling transactions. Indeed there are no agile-developed systems that handle passport applications or tax self-assessment.

As Metcalfe says: “…transactions are complicated, messy beasts, unavoidably bound up with business processes and legislation; empires, politics and entrenched positions; long contracts and vast sums of money.. it’s not primarily a technological problem. It’s a process problem, and those are much harder to fix.”

It may be a matter of time, though, before agile becomes far more prevalent in public sector IT. Universal Credit is based on agile, in a programme run in part by the redoubtable Joe Harley, the UK Government’s CIO.

Harley told the Public Accounts Committee last month:

“In the waterfall it takes quite a while to do a design – maybe a year or two … By the time we come to execute, things have moved on.

“In the agile world, it is a way of providing rapid solutions very quickly. Normally, and in Universal Credit it is monthly, one designs, develops, implements and produces a product very early on in the cycle. It is particularly useful and appropriate when the users themselves – in the universal credit, citizens themselves – can participate in the creation of it. It is about user-centric, rapid deployment solutions. That is what we hope to achieve.”

Ian Watmore, Chief Operating Officer at the Cabinet Office, told the same committee that the government objective is for the first claims under Universal Credit to be paid by October 2013. He said: “I would have thought that if we achieve that, it will become the precedent and benchmark for Government projects.”

We hope Universal Credit is a timely success and that it becomes a benchmark for government projects. It’s easy to talk down the chances of agile in government on the basis that it ill suits the way government works. But Francis Maude, officials in the Cabinet Office, and Alphagov’s developers want to change the way government works.

To say that agile won’t work in government is like telling someone who’s obese that they need not eat less because history shows they won’t be able to.

Government must spend less. And agile is one way to cut spending. Alphagov is showing the way.

How Alpha.gov.uk came about:

Last year Martha Lane Fox published suggestions on reforming UK Government’s online. At the launch of her report (subtitled “revolution, not evolution”) she recommended:

“…Putting the needs of citizens ahead of those of departments”

She made a strong case for the UK Government to adopt a single web domain, analogous to the BBC’s use of BBC.co.uk, and recommended a radical change in how gov.uk sites are produced:

“Government should take advantage of the more open, agile and cheaper digital technologies to deliver simpler and more effective digital services to users.”

Links:

How Alphagov might change UK government for the better.

Institute for Government: what’s wrong with government IT?

Agile in government IT – don’t knock it.

10 things Alphagov gets right.

10 things Alphagov gets wrong.

Alpha.gov.uk

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NHS IT minister talks of “fantastic” NPfIT system at Royal Free

Posted on 18/05/2011 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

Interviewed by a BBC Radio 4’s “Today” presenter James Naughtie this morning, Simon Burns, the minister responsible for the NHS’s £11.4bn National Programme for IT [NPfIT], explained why he has no plans to stop the NPfIT.

Burns was responding to a report of the National Audit Office, which was published today, which questioned the value-for-money of the billions spent on the detailed care records systems at the heart of the NPfIT.

Just before Burns’s interview, Naughtie spoke to Richard Bacon MP, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, who  called for the NPfIT to be scapped.

Naughtie asked Burns: “Do you accept that critique from your colleague Richard Bacon?”

Burns replied: “Yes.  We inherited a system we would never have devised ourselves. To have a centralised top-down approach where everyone had to change their systems to conform to the new system was the wrong way forward and was, as it has been shown, a gross waste of public money.

“But I think everyone will agree it is crucial to have an effective IT system in a modernised NHS because when patients go to see their doctor, or go to hospitals to see nurses or consultants, they do not want to have to be explaining to each different person their medical background.”

Naughtie said that Richard Bacon had made the point that a national system is not necessary, and that it’s rare for patients in one part of the country to need treatment in another part. So why do patient records have to be available at every NHS site? Why do it that way, asked Naughtie.

Burns:  “That was the model the last government decided to go ahead with and we think they made serious mistakes…  If you take the north, the midlands and east of England, after 10 years and £6.4bn of money spent, only four out of 97 trusts have had their hospital records installed. That is a farce and an utter waste of money.

Naughtie:  “If it is a farce why not stop it now?”

Burns: “Because everyone is agreed that to improve patient care in a modernised NHS one has to embrace IT in a responsible and realistic way for the reasons I have already given.

“What we have been looking at in the interim is allowing local trusts to adapt their existing systems rather than having to get rid of them and bring in new systems.”

Naughtie: “How much of the £4.3bn that hasn’t been spent will need to be spent to make that happen?”

Burns: “We have already saved £1.3bn with the changes. But what we are doing to move forward is we have set up a major projects initiative which is going to look at this.

“The Department of Health and the Cabinet Office are going to look at this to see how we can move forward in a way that is not going to waste taxpayers’ money but will achieve having an IT system for modernised NHS that actually does serve patients, and doctors and nurses who treat them, so that it is effective and delivers.

“For those who doubt that can happen, if you look at the Royal Free Hospital [Hampstead]  about three years ago they had installed by BT the system the government wanted and it was chaotic.

“They have now worked on that, adapted it, and it is now working to a way the Royal Free thinks is fantastic because it is improving patient care and it is part of a modernised process that they welcome and have embraced with vigour.”

The interview ended with Burns giving the impression that a review of the NPfIT by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority will not have the option of halting or cancelling the national programme.

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A sign that Cabinet Office reforms will alter behaviour of major IT suppliers

Posted on 05/05/2011 | Leave a comment

 

By Tony Collins

There are signs that a long-running £700m dispute between Fujitsu and the Department of Health over the NHS IT programme will reach a settlement without a court hearing.

 A settlement, it should be said, will be due largely to reforms of central government initiated by the coalition and Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister.

Maude’s reforms mean that major suppliers to the government are now managed centrally, at “Crown” level, not contract by contract. So a dispute with one department can affect a supplier’s relationship with government as a whole.

That didn’t happen before, when each department managed separately its relationships with major suppliers.

It’s likely now that Fujitsu will want to improve its relationships with government, particularly since the:

– Tsunami in Japan which has weakened the company’s operations.

– premature ending of Fujitsu’s £330m desktop contract with the Department for Work and Pensions.

The wish for improved relations with government makes it more likely it will reach a settlement over its withdrawal from the National Programme for IT in the NHS – NPfIT – in 2008. Fujitsu was said to have been seeking £700m after its departure. It’s now thought to be seeking a settlement without any formal proceedings.

Comment

It has long been obvious that government should be a “single customer” to its major IT suppliers. Only now is that happening, thanks to the coalition’s reforms. It means that, for the first time in living memory, it’s the government – the customer – that is in control of its major IT suppliers, and not the other way round. 

Few of the top 20 IT and services suppliers to government will now be willing to carry on a dispute with a department when it could cost lost contracts with other departments.

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Six entrepreneurs to coach SMEs for Government “Dragons’ Den” panel

Posted on 14/04/2011 | Leave a comment

 

By Tony Collins

Six entrepreneurs will coach SME representatives before they present their ideas to a Government “Dragon’s Den” panel of officials.

The coaching will help chosen SME representatives improve their  proposals for reforming parts of central government.

Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said the entrepreneurs will coach representatives from SMEs that have submitted successful ideas for innovative and cost-saving Government goods and services to the online Innovation Launch Pad.

The Innovation Launch Pad  opened on the Cabinet Office website in March and closes on 22 April.  SMEs are invited to submit proposals – up to 500 words – on how their goods and services could help save the Government money or deliver better outcomes.

Civil servants will vote for ideas with the greatest potential. The chosen SME representatives will then present their ideas to the Dragon’s Den-style panel of senior government business officials, following coaching by the entrepreneurs.

The entrepreneurs are:

– Jon Moulton, founder and managing director of private equity firm Better Capital and member of the British Venture Capital Hall of Fame

– Mike Lynch OBE, co-founder of a software start-up that is said by the Cabinet Office to be the UK’s largest software company Autonomy. He is also a trustee at NESTA

– Hermann Hauser, CBE, founder of over 20 technology companies including Acorn Computers, who has an honorary CBE for ‘innovative service to the UK enterprise sector’

– Sherry Coutu, founder of two successful businesses in the financial services industry and investor in 35 businesses, and rated as the ‘top CEO mentor in Europe’

– David Cleevely, co-founder of Abcam and founder of Analysys and Chairman of Cambridge Angels

– Stephen Kelly, former CEO of Micro Focus and the Government Crown Representative for mutuals.

The chosen businesses will be invited to a reception at 10 Downing Street.

Stephen Allott, one of nine Crown Representatives appointed by the Cabinet Office to drive procurement savings across Whitehall, told The Telegraph that the initiative would raise the profile of the businesses within Whitehall, although there were no guarantees of contracts at the end of the process,

He said departments were taking the Government’s pledge to acquire more goods and services from small firms seriously.

Francis Maude said: “This Government does not believe there is a one size fits all approach to delivering services.  That is why we want to make it easy for small businesses to tell us their ideas, as they will have a vital role to play in helping us to find new, innovative and more cost effective ways to improve services to the public.  

“We also believe that supporting small business will help to kick-start growth in the economy.  As part of this, we are doing everything we can to open up business to SMEs.

“We have committed to publishing all contracts online for business to see, got rid of the bureaucracy to allow new companies to supply government and appointed Stephen Allott to represent SME interests in Government.

“Our Innovation Launch Pad means that all SMEs now have the opportunity to present their business solutions to us. I am delighted that such senior business figures have volunteered to help us to get the very best out of small business for Government.”

Stephen Allott said: “I am certain that there is substantial opportunity for Government to save money and deliver a better service through much greater use of SMEs.  If you’re an SME with a product or service that could save money, use the Innovation Launch Pad to tell us about it.”

Entrepeneur  Sherry Coutu said:

“The Government buying more goods and services from SMEs is key. One pound of a customer’s money is worth ten times the amount of investment money to a small business.

“Given that 54 percent of jobs are created by six percent of small, fast-growth companies, this is excellent for everyone as small fast growing businesses will continue to drive the economy.”

Jon Moulton said:

“Small businesses in the UK have a fantastic reputation for innovation. The Innovation Launch Pad is a real opportunity for SMEs to showcase their proposals to Government.”

The Innovation Launchpad is here.

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Can you outsource to cut costs and boost service levels?

Posted on 14/04/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

At an outsourcing conference on 7 July at the Barbican, London, two of the main discussion points will be around these questions:

– What is the role for outsourcing in cutting the public sector deficit?

– Can outsourcing cut costs and improve service levels?

Organisers of the “Delivering cost-effective public services” conference are hoping to have as a speaker  Katharine Davidson, Director, Efficiency and Reform Group, Cabinet Office, who is a linchpin in the Government’s plans for a radical reform of the machinery of central government.  

Davidson has been invited to give a keynote talk on private sector involvement in the way public services are delivered.

Confirmed speakers include:

– Veronica Mansilla, Project Director, Office of Fair Trading

–  Derrick Anderson, Chief Executive, Lambeth Council 

– Sue Gregory, National Director, Inspection Delivery, Ofsted 

Further details are here.

 

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First major Government mutualisation announced

Posted on 12/04/2011 | Leave a comment

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.

 FSA Mutuals public register.

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Cabinet Office’s chief projects troubleshooter – a good choice

Posted on 07/04/2011 | 3 comments

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:

– Political pressure
– No business case
– No agreed budget
– 80% of projects launched before 1,2 & 3 have been resolved
– Sole solution approach (options not considered)
– Lack of Commercial capability  – (contract / administration)
– No plan
– No timescale
– No defined benefits

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.

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Shining a light on the Government’s ICT strategy

Posted on 31/01/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

My Campaign4Change colleague Tony Collins has written an illuminating piece today on his ComputerworldUK blog.

He says the Cabinet Office has prepared an interim Government ICT strategy which is due to go before the CIO Council for ratification at its meeting today. 

It’s an interim strategy designed to offer the incoming Government CIO a chance to make changes before the final document is published. Joe Harley, currently CIO at the Department for Work and Pensions, is expected to be the new Government CIO, after John Suffolk leaves.

Tony suggests in his article that the new strategy is likely to give departmental CIOs more power, including an ability to stop, or call a halt to, unnecessary projects. 

The piece adds that the Coalition’s strategy for savings, as enacted by the Office of the Government CIO and the Efficiency and Reform Group, has apparently worked well so far, under the minister Francis Maude and his key officials Ian Watmore,  Katherine Davidson (Ex-McKinsey and head of implementation at the Conservative Party and now Director, Efficiency, Reform Strategy), Chris Chant, formerly CIO at DEFRA, and Bill McCluggage, Deputy Government CIO and Director of ICT Strategy & Policy.

That success so far has been largely because the Coalition has insisted that all projects costing over £1m have to be submitted to the Efficiency and Reform Group for approval.   

According to officials, it seems that about a third of IT-dependent projects have stopped, some of them large, merely because managers decided not to submit them to permanent secretaries for approval, in case their usefulness or importance were challenged by the ERG. 

Tony’s piece says many of these savings are regarded as easily made. However, it is likely to be harder to achieve savings that some officials estimate to be, potentially, £8bn on the annual public sector IT spend of about £17bn. G-Cloud and data centre consolidation are likely to be key elements of the new ICT strategy.

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