Tag Archives: public services

Mutuals: Government must deliver on radical public services agenda, says Institute for Government

Posted on 15/07/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Responding to the Government’s Open Public Services White Paper launched by David Cameron this week, the Institute for Government says the agenda is a radical one, but failure to deliver will come at a cost.

Commenting on the launch, the Institute’s Programme Director, Tom Gash said:

“There’s not much that is new in this white paper but it is still a radical agenda for change. Other governments have tried and failed to remodel public services. The difference this time is that the stakes are higher. With massive cuts to public spending, if these measures don’t work, the state will not be in a position to shore up services.

“A white paper by itself doesn’t change anything. To make this vision a reality, a lot of work lies ahead. Failure to take these next steps in any of the policy areas covered by the paper will lead to the risk of future u-turns, uncertainty and failure”.

The Institute argues that several key issues need to be addressed going forward. These include:

  • Mechanisms for accountability in service delivery must be thought through. Voting in a local election is very different from choosing your GP but in future there are likely to be different combinations of accountability mechanisms for different services.
  • Whilst removing top-down targets  and giving greater autonomy to frontline professionals, government must still be clear on the lowest level of service permissible before this autonomy is withdrawn or restricted.
  • Transparency – data will need to be accurate, timely and accessible if people are going to be able to use it to exercise their choices.
  • Ministers will have to be willing to relinquish power. They’ll still be held responsible for local decisions even though they no longer have control over them.
  • As public services are opened up to new providers, ministers must be absolutely clear about who is responsible for what.
  • Mutuals will need to have the scope to blend state and private investment and not be soley dependent on a single source of funding.
  • Commissioning for outcomes must focus on those outcomes that are measurable. But measuring outcomes is often harder than measuring outputs. For example, it is easy to measure whether a hip operation took place. It is less easy to measure whether or not the operation has improved the patient’s quality of life.

The Institute argues that policies in the white paper are at different stages of their development.  Ministers, central and local government and practitioners will all have work to do if they are to ensure that they are implemented in a way that genuinely improves public services and the lives of citizens. Drawing on its publication Making Policy Better, the Institute recommends that departments will need to:

  • Carry out a “reality check” on policies, involving implementers and/or users of services in testing or piloting them.
  • Consult those affected by changes and address the issues that arise as a result of these consultations.
  • Ensure that policies have been properly costed and that they are resilient to external risks.
  • Make sure the role of central government is properly thought through and that it is clear who is accountable for delivering particular services and the criteria on which they will be judged to have succeeded or failed.
  • Have plans in place for collecting feedback on how policies are being delivered in practice and the mechanisms are in place to act on this feedback.
  • Make sure that policies are implemented in a way that allows government to assess whether they have worked or not and how they can be adapted and strengthened.

 Gash added:

“In order to avoid repeating the experience of the beleaguered NHS reforms, the coalition will need to invest a good deal of time and resources in delivering its radical programme for reforming public services. To publish a white paper and then walk away will not be enough but today’s announcement, with its emphasis on consultation and analysis seems to show that government has learnt from its mistakes and is ready to take the time to deliver something which could change forever the way citizens choose and receive their services”.

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What the FireControl disaster and NPfIT have in common

Posted on 01/07/2011 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

From today’s National Audit Office report on FireControl project which wasted at least £469m:

“FiReControl was flawed from the outset because it did not have the support of the majority of those essential to its success – its users”

Were the Fire and Rescue Service’s FireControl project and the National Programme for IT in the NHS launched to discover all that can go wrong with a large IT-based project?

One could be forgiven for thinking so. The two projects were conceived in the early part of the new millennium as national, centralised schemes which, in the main, did not have any support from the people who would be using them.

The schemes were launched by civil servants and ministers with good intentions and little or no experience in the many IT-related project disasters that went before.

The projects that had failed since the late 1970s and early 1980s went wrong for similar reasons. As early as 1984 the Public Accounts Committee met to question civil servants on the common factors in a succession of “administrative computing” failures.

Since then every department has come to its IT-based projects and programmes with little understanding – and very little interest – in the lessons from history; and it’s said that those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat past mistakes.

The FireControl system, which is the subject of an NAO report today, and the NPfIT, had something striking in common: the fact that the system users were the ones with the control of money and decisions on how they spent it – and they did not want technology imposed on them by civil servants in London. That was clear from the start. But it did not stop either the NPfIT or FireControl going ahead.

Indeed a Gateway Review by the Office of Government Commerce in April 2004, after the FireControl project had been approved, found that the “extraordinarily fast pace” of the project was introducing new risks to its delivery, and was escalating the risks already identified. The review concluded that the project was in poor condition overall and at significant risk of failing to deliver.

That review was, at the time, as with similar reviews on the NPfIT, kept secret, so those outside the project, including MPs and the media, were unable to challenge the projects with a credibility that could have influenced decisions on the future of the schemes.

New gateway reviews are still kept secret today, despite the coalition’s promise of openness and transparency.

The good thing about the FireControl project and the NPfIT is that the Cabinet Office has taken control. A Cabinet Office Major Projects Review Group in in July 2010 concluded that negotiations should begin to terminate the FireControl contract – and indeed a settlement with the supplier EADS was reached successfully and amicably in December 2010. The Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority is now  reviewing the future of CSC’s £2.9bn worth of NPfIT contracts.

The bad thing is that the FireControl scheme has wasted at least £469m, according to today’s report of the National Audit Office. The NPfIT may have lost a great deal more.

NAO’s conclusion on FireControl

This was the NAO’s conclusion on the FireControl project. Much the same could be said of the NPfIT:

“This is an example of bad value for money. FiReControl will have wasted a minimum of £469m, through its failure to provide any enhancement to the capacity of the control centres of Fire and Rescue Services after seven years.

“At root, this outcome has been reached because the Department, without sufficient mandatory powers, decided to try to centrally impose a national control system on unwilling locally accountable bodies, which prize their distinctiveness from each other and their freedom to choose their own equipment.

“At the same time, it tried to rush through key elements of project initiation and ended up with an inadequate IT contract, under-appreciating its complexity and risk, and then mismanaged problems with the IT contractor’s performance and delivery.”

 Links:

FireControl project a comprehensive failure.

The failure of the FireControl project – NAO report.

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NHS IT supplier “corrects” Health CIO’s statements

Posted on 30/06/2011 | 3 comments

An IT supplier to the NHS has written to MPs to “correct” statements made by Health CIO Christine Connelly.

The implications of the supplier’s corrections are that Conservative MP Richard Bacon might have been right all along:  that the Department of Health may be paying BT as much as £200m more than necessary to install the “RiO” patient record system at 25 trusts in the south of England.

The corrections by CSE Healthcare Systems – supplier of RiO – call into question some of the Department of Health’s justifications for the high costs of NPfIT versions of RiO.

RiO is an electronic patient record system that is supplied to mental health trusts and community service organisations. Trusts can buy directly from CSE Healthcare or via its partner BT Global Services which is the local service provider to London under the National Programme for IT.

Through the NPfIT, BT is installing RiO at 25 trusts in the south of England under a £224.3m NPfIT deal – £8.9m per site, compared with £500,000 to £1.5m per site if supplied to the NHS directly by CSE outside of the national programme.

At a hearing of the Public Accounts Committee on 23 May 2011, Conservative MP Richard Bacon asked Connelly to explain why RiO costs so much more when it is supplied by BT.

Connelly told the Committee that the Department of Health had investigated the RiO costs at Bradford District Care Trust, which is a mental health trust.

Bradford bought RiO outside the NPfIT, using the ASCC framework contract, which enables trusts to buy systems directly from suppliers without going through NPfIT local service providers.

The total cost of RiO at Bradford was £1.3m, which Connelly said was for a 59‑month contract.

She told MPs:

“So the comparison: in terms of the services that we provide, there are a whole set of services that are not within that £1.3m that are inside the Local Service Provider contract.

“Earlier somebody said, ‘Well, doesn’t everybody have disaster recovery.’  Well, actually, no, and at this Trust only 25% availability is provided in their local arrangements, which are not included in these costs.

“So we have a cost in terms of the BT LSP in the South for the same period, which includes the hardware, the support, the disaster recovery at 100%, the Spine connectivity, all of which are not supplied inside this Bradford system.

“If we looked at those costs through BT’s cost profile, it would be valued at £2.5m.”

Bacon pointed out that £2.5m was still much less than £8.9m being charged by BT. He wanted the difference explained.

Connelly said:

“So first there is the period. So we need to take a look at the average period that you would expect to be there, because we pay a one‑off deployment charge and then we pay a monthly charge.  So in terms of the figure that you quote, it is generally for about a four-year period, and the figure we quote is generally for about a six-year period, sometimes a little more.  I think what we get is 24/7 support.

“We get full disaster recovery.  I think it is fine to say, “Oh, anybody has that.”  The cost of full disaster recovery is significant, when you look at the costs that BT have; we invited an external auditor to go look at the cost build-up, and they have audited these costs.  We looked at BT’s profit margin, and they have taken a significant reduction in their profit margin between the original contract and the contract that we have today…”

To which Bacon replied:  “But it is not the taxpayer’s fault if BT has unbelievably high costs.”

Bacon said that one reason the costs are so high is that CSE cannot talk directly to NHS trusts and must go through BT.  “That is the problem with this structure,” said Bacon. “It is like having you over here, and the customer over there, and an enormous thicket, a forest of lawyers, in between.”

Connelly replied that a change to the programme means that suppliers of RiO are now on site “talking to Trusts themselves”.  In London and the South, for RiO, a new user group brings together all the Trusts. Cerner, the supplier of NPfIT patient administration systems in London and the south of England, also deals directly with trusts rather than through BT, said Connelly.

Taking issue with Connelly’s comments about Bradford, this was CSE’s written statement to the Public Accounts Committee:

“During the evidence presented by Ms Christine Connelly, one of our contracts for RiO,  Bradford Mental Health Trust was referenced.

“Ms Connelly’s statement was that Bradford is receiving a lower standard of service than provided by BT in London and hence the lower price charged by CSE Healthcare Systems to Bradford.

“CSE Healthcare Systems wishes to correct the evidence given.

• Ms Connelly stated that the service is NOT 24*7 hours – the service is a 24*7 service.

• Ms Connelly stated that Disaster Recovery (DR) was NOT included in the service – a DR service is included.

• There was no mention of Facilities Management – we provide remote Facilities Management

• The service contract is for five years – not four years as stated.

• Ms Connelly implied that the system only had 25% availability – our records demonstrate that this is not true; the system is architected to achieve an availability of over 99%.”

**

Another NHS IT supplier Maracis has provided evidence that RiO costs several times more under the NPfIT than outside the programme, for similar levels of service, disaster recovery, availability and support periods.

On its website CSE Healthcare says its system is compliant with the NPfIT data “spine” and supports established standards for interoperability such as HL7 and XML.

The Public Accounts Committee is finalising a report on the NPfIT detailed care record systems. Its findings will be based on its questioning of Connelly and other witnesses, written evidence from CSE and others, and a report of the National Audit Office in May.

Connelly, who is Director General of Informatics, has announced she is leaving at the end of this month, after three years. She is being replaced in the interim by Katie Davis, who is from the Cabinet Office.

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Cabinet Office takes on open-source specialist

Posted on 28/06/2011 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

“Let’s not waste this great opportunity to make British government IT the most effective and least expensive service per head in Western Europe.”

 An open source advocate and critic of the high costs of government IT, Liam Maxwell, is joining the Cabinet Office for 11 months  to provide expertise on how civil servants can use innovative new technology to deliver better, cheaper solutions.

His secondment from Eton College where he is ICT head underlines the determination of Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, to continue bringing in strong people to oversee major changes in the way government works.

What remains unclear, however, is how much influence the Cabinet Office will have on autonomous government departments and their permanent secretaries.

Although David Cameron has given his personal backing to the changes being sought by the Cabinet Office, the PM has  little or no direct control over what departments do or don’t do.

Simon Dickson at Puffbox points out that Liam Maxwell has said all the right things in the past. Maxwell co-wrote a 2008 paper for the Tories on ‘Open Source, Open Standards: Reforming IT procurement in Government’, and also a 2010 paper Better for Less‘ for the Network for the Post-Bureaucratic Age, which said:

“British Government IT is too expensive. Worse, it has been designed badly and built to last. IT must work together across government and deliver a meaningful return on investment. Government must stop believing it is special and use commodity IT services much more widely.

“As we saw with the Open Source policy, the wish is there. However, the one common thread of successive technology leadership in government is a failure to execute policy.

“There is at last a ministerial team in place that “gets it”. The austerity measures that all have to face should act as a powerful dynamic for change. Let’s not waste this great opportunity to make British government IT the most effective and least expensive service per head in Western Europe.” 

In a statement, the Cabinet office said that Maxwell will help to develop ideas for how technology can:

– increase the drive towards open standards and open source software

– help SMEs to enter the government marketplace

– maintain a horizon scan of future technologies and methods

– develop new, more flexible ways of delivery in government

Ian Watmore, the Government’s Chief Operating Officer said: “Liam’s insight and knowledge will make him a valuable source to the team over the coming year. He has a strong track record of delivering success in government ICT and he also brings significant experience of turning the theory into practice.”

Dickson said that Maxwell was a Windsor and Maidenhead councillor who drove the debate a year or so ago on councils switching to Open Document Format, part of OpenOffice.

The Guardian said Maxwell has been an adviser to the  Conservative party on government ICT.  At the Cabinet Office he will advise the Efficiency and Reform Group and Ian Watmore. He will begin the job in September and is taking a sabbatical from Eton.

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Third Sector: “Pathfinder mutuals suffering mixed fortunes and need more support mechanisms”

Posted on 24/06/2011 | Leave a comment

Third Sector has taken a look at the fortunes of the current mutual Pathfinders and concludes that they have been suffering mixed fortunes.

Plans for lecturers to take over Newton Rigg College in Cumbria were hit when the college was taken over by another institution.  And a project to spin out youth services in three London councils has been held up because the councils – Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea – are currently negotiating to merge many of their services as a result of the financial squeeze on local authorities.

Many mutuals, though, are making good progress, and some have already been launched successfully, Third Sector says. However, although the government has created a lot of buzz around mutuals, the piece argues that mutuals need more frameworks and support mechanisms in place.

That particularly includes a framework for council workers to take over services, which will be partly solved when a ‘right to challenge’ is enshrined in the Localism Bill towards the end of this year. However, many observers feel the right as it currently stands is not strong enough.

Third sector has also interviewed Julian Le Grand, who is leading the government’s Mutuals Taskforce. He suggests there are five key issues that the taskforce must help mutuals tackle:

  • Business Planning
  • External opposition, notably from unions
  • Procurement
  • Money issues
  • Getting start-up funding

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Katie Davis for new Health CIO?

Posted on 23/06/2011 | 2 comments

The Cabinet Office’s Katie Davis, who takes over next month, on an interim basis, from Health CIO Christine Connelly,  is ex-Accenture.

But that shouldn’t be held against her.  Accenture left the NPfIT in 2006 with its reputation untarnished.

A profile of Davis appeared in The Telegraph in 2007. The newspaper described her as a yank at the court of King Tony, set on excellence in IT.

Though it could be assumed that Davis has a “big company” approach, and so would welcome the continued dominance of the NPfIT, she told The Telegraph she found her time at Accenture highly satisfying but after a while she stopped having fun.

“The overheads of working for a huge corporation had slightly impaired my ability to deliver. By overheads, I mean travel and the demands of process. My needs and those of the corporation did not overlap so well.”

She also said she worked in the NHS.

“I had worked with the NHS before, and was seconded to work with some of the cleverest and most committed people I’d ever been in a working environment with. It opened my eyes to the challenges and the excitement of working in the public sector.”

Davis has the advantage of having started her career as an engineer (electrical). Which makes it sound as if she’s more practical and realistic than visionary and idealistic. She may make an excellent (permanent) Health CIO.

Telegraph profile of Katie Davis.

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Who’ll support the NPfIT now?

Posted on 23/06/2011 | 5 comments

By Tony Collins

The departure of Christine Connelly as health CIO at the end of this month will leave the NPfIT’s main civil service supporter, Sir David Nicholson, Chief Executive of the NHS and Senior Responsible Owner of the NHS IT scheme,  more isolated.

That Nicholson is a supporter of the continuance of the NPfIT is not in doubt. He spoke about the NHS IT scheme last month in terms of life and death. At a hearing of the public accounts committee on 23 May 2011, Nicholson said:

“We spent about 20% of that resource [the £11.4bn projected total spend on the NPfIT] on the acute sector. The other 80% is providing services that literally mean life and death to patients today, and have done for the last period.

“So the Spine, and all those things, provides really, really important services for our patients. If you are going to talk about the totality of the [NPfIT] system … you have to accept that 80% of that programme has been delivered.”

But without Christine Connelly, who put detailed arguments in favour of continuing with iSoft’s Lorenzo, and who was solidly behind the costly implementations of Cerner by BT, Nicholson may not have the civil service backup he needs to promote the continuance of the NPfIT.

The Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority, under the directorship of the independently-minded David Pitchford,  is now reviewing CSC’s £2.9bn worth of NPfIT contracts. It is known that the Authority regards the new proposals worked out between CSC and the Department of Health as poor value for money, even with CSC’s willingness to reduce the value of its contracts by £764m, to about £2.1bn.

That promised reduction comes at a cost. A leaked Cabinet office memo said that the CSC’s proposals would double the cost of each Lorenzo deployment.

The easiest thing for Nicholson and the Department of Health would be for the Major Projects Authority to approve the deal worked out between CSC and the Department of Health, and simply sign a new Memorandum of Understanding which would be, in part, legally binding.

Strong grounds for ending CSC’s NPfIT contracts

The more difficult but more practical alternative is for the Cabinet Office to require the Department of Health to end CSC’s NPfIT contracts, which would leave the NHS more able to decide its own IT-based future.

Indeed the signs are in some trusts that officials are not unhappy about Connelly’s departure in that they perceive it may weaken the centre’s control over NHS IT.

Legally it appears that an end to CSC’s contract would be feasible. The Department of Health has accused CSC of a breach of contract because of its failure to achieve a key milestone; the Department has also notified CSC of “various alleged events of default under the contract” which are “related to  delays and other alleged operational issues”. The Department is considering its position on termination of all or parts of the contract.

But the Department has not taken its claims to arbitration; its allegations are only a formal legal manoeuvre at the moment.

CSC accuses NHS of failures and breaches of contract

CSC has reacted by accusing the NHS of a breach of contract. The company’s formal legal position is that it has cured or is preparing to cure the faults that led to the alleged breach; it says that failures and breaches of contract on the part of NHS have caused delays and issues.

The DH could end CSC’s contract for reasons of convenience which could trigger a request from CSC for a large sum in compensation. But the Department could give strong legal reasons for not paying. Although CSC could pursue its claim for compensation, it may be on soft ground because of its failures. Also, CSC, if it pursues any legal action, could jeopardise its other work for government: some of its other major contracts with the UK government are with the Identity and Passport Service, which is part of the Home Office.

The Coalition is now supervising its major suppliers, including CSC, in the round, which is reason enough for CSC to do all it can to maintain a good relationship with the Cabinet Office.

CSC would support NHS trusts even if its contracts ended

The  Department of Health is concerned that if it ends the NPfIT contracts with CSC, the supplier may leave unsupported many trusts that have CSC’s iSoft software installed. That is highly unlikely, however, because CSC has a $1.03bn investment in the NPfIT contracts according to the regulatory reports to US authorities.

In the NHS CSC has a large customer base. Through its acquisition of iSoft, CSC will want to capitalise on its investment in iSoft’s Lorenzo software by selling it across the globe. That’s its stated plan. So CSC’s continued support for NHS trusts that have installed iSoft software is not in doubt.

What NHS Trusts want

The best outcome of the negotiations with CSC, for NHS trusts that have installed iSoft software, is that they have the:

-choice to continue with CSC if the price is right

– buy support elsewhere, or

– choose a different product.

Will CSC’s NPfIT contracts end by mutual agreement? – it’s possible

The question is: does the Cabinet Office have the courage to end CSC’s contract, freeing up billions of pounds that would otherwise have been spent on the NPfIT without a commensurate return for taxpayers, the NHS or patients?

It seems  so, even if it means paying a relatively painless sum to CSC as compensation for termination.

Leaked memo reveals CSC’s plans.

A sign that coalition reforms will change behaviour of major suppliers.

Health CIO resigns – Cabinet Office executive steps in.

Example of a trust that’s succeeding without the NPfIT – Trafford General Hospital.

Connelly at odds with PM over NPfIT value for money?

NHS CIO in dramatic resignation.

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Health CIO resigns – Cabinet Office executive steps in

Posted on 22/06/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

The Health CIO Christine Connelly has resigned. I understand it’s for personal reasons and that she has no new job lined up.

She is being replaced on an interim basis by an executive at the Cabinet Office Katie Davis. It’s likely that Davis will remain Director, Operational Excellence at the Cabinet Office until she replaces Connelly on 1 July 2011.

Connelly says in her statement that the Department of Health faces a major reorganisation of its top structures that will result in fewer Director General posts. “I have been reflecting on whether I would wish to go for one of those roles and decided that I will not.”

The Cabinet Office has indicated in recent months that it wishes to have more control over negotiations of a £3bn contract with CSC under the National Programme for IT, NPfIT.

This was the Department’s statement this morning, in full:

“Christine Connelly, Chief Information Officer for Health, has announced that she will be leaving the Department of Health at the end of the month.

“Christine said: “The Department of Health faces a major reorganisation of its top structures that will result in fewer Director General posts. I have been reflecting on whether I would wish to go for one of those roles and decided that I will not.

“I have had a fascinating and challenging time in this role and I have decided that this is the right time to step back and think about what I might do next.

“I believe that information and technology have the potential to dramatically change the way health services are delivered to patients, and we are already seeing this happen in many parts of the service. I am confident that informatics will have a major role to play in delivering both the quality and efficiency challenge that the NHS faces.”

NHS Chief Executive, Sir David Nicholson, said:

“Christine has made a major contribution to the NHS, in promoting both the sharing and management of information, and as a professional with considerable experience of leading change.

“She has tackled a very difficult set of issues around the National Programme for IT, and moved them forward. I wish her well in her future career.”
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said:
“Christine has brought a huge amount of experience, talent and technical knowledge to the National Programme for IT. For almost three years, Christine, as the first Chief Information Officer for Health, has worked to deliver the Department’s information strategy. I wish Christine the best of luck with whatever she chooses to do next.”
“Christine will be replaced on an interim basis by Katie Davis. Katie joins us on loan from the Cabinet Office where she has been Executive Director, Operational Excellence, in the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) since 2010. Before that, she was Executive Director of Strategy, Identity and Passport Service in the Home Office and Director of the Government IT Profession in the Cabinet Office. Katie will be joining us on 1 July 2011.”
**
Comment: One of Connelly’s strengths is her lack of artifice. She answers the most difficult questions about the NPfIT with openness and honesty. Not everyone will agree with her strong support for the continance of the NHS IT scheme but her arguments are made with a genuine conviction, clarity of thought and explanation, and without distortion of the truth. I wish her well.

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Agile is brilliant says DWP’s head of major programmes

Posted on 17/06/2011 | Leave a comment

Steve Dover, head of major programmes at the Department for Work and Pensions, is qu0ted in Computer Weekly as saying of agile methods:

“It’s a brilliant, brilliant methodology … Get it right. Don’t pay it lip service.”

 Mark O’Neill, CIO at the Department for Communities and Local Government and leader of the government’s “skunkworks” team to promote innovation, is quoted as saying: “SIs [systems integrators – large IT companies] must recognise that the old world is dead and they have to change their model”.

But Malcom Whitehouse, DWP deputy CIO, implied there was some work only systems integrators could handle.

Agile can fix failed GovIT says lawyer.

Steve Dover on YouTube – the benefits of agile in GovIT [for the Institute for Government]

Cabinet Office turns to agile SMEs to reform Whitehall IT.

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Will private sector involvement in mutuals make for a perfect partnership?

Posted on 16/06/2011 | Leave a comment

Although The Times today has been reporting that the Coalition might be getting some cold feet about its plans for public service reform – the Public Services Reform White Paper now looks as if it may be delayed in the wake of  recent discussions about NHS reform – there is little doubt that the role of the private sector in partnerships is being discussed.

The Guardian recently carried a piece in which Craig Dearden-Phillips, founder and chief executive of Stepping Out, a business helping parts of the public sector become a social enterprise, wondered  whether the marriage between public manager and the private sector will work?

“One concern is the compatibility of each side’s goals,” he says. “So far, public sector mutuals tend to be more focused on social rather than commercial aims. Few appear to have share capital financially worth much to staff. They tend to be defined by a passion for people, place or profession, and they often aspire to stay local and be more personal. Every person I have met who leads a spun-out organisation is motivated by social purpose. They identify strongly with public sector values – albeit ones that see a mutual or social enterprise as the appropriate vehicle for this.

“A private company, however, will, quite rightly, be mostly concerned with its shareholders’ or directors’ interests, and that will include a strong focus on growth, either by merger or acquisition and on cutting costs quickly.

“These are legitimate goals, and, arguably, the only way to create large organisations. But you can see a potential tug-of-war here, with one side driven by a growth agenda and the other living in fear of becoming remote from its community – and of losing control to a private partner.

“Can both sides meet at least somewhere in the middle, with private investors accepting the potential constraints on return introduced by being partly employee-owned and former public managers bowing to some of the commercial imperatives of  investors?

“As someone working every day alongside public managers, I hope we can find ways to bring necessary investment and expertise to the table. Unlike in continental Europe, this is unlikely to come from the state. So we need to examine closely how to do this while ensuring the values we hold close are upheld.”

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