Who will lead the drive to get better services for less money? Suzannah Brecknell learns at CSW’s sixth annual conference on public services that civil servants must do their bit – but ministers must also play a key role.

At the recent Top 200 event – which brings together leaders from across the civil service – the prime minister praised civil servants for reducing the deficit through efficiency savings, but emphasised that 2012 must be a year to focus on policy implementation (see Ian Watmore’s Opinion, p4). Public services have already begun to cost less; but as resources decline, civil servants must reform the structures and processes behind services if outcomes are to improve. 

The task is not an easy one: as budgets fall, service cuts can seem the simplest response. At a recent CSW conference on delivering ‘better for less’, supported by software provider SAP, the Design Council and the British Standards Institute (BSI) (see also news section), Katherine Kerswell, managing director of Kent County Council, said that given the scale of the cuts, sometimes public services will need to deliver less for less. Fundamental service reform will be needed to achieve better for less wherever possible – and that in turn will require new skills and strong leadership.

This might mean leadership of specific efficiency drives: in a session looking at the future of shared services, Kerswell emphasised the importance of strong leadership to drive through reform. But this will have to go hand in hand with stronger strategic leadership: Bernard Jenkin, chair of the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC), explained that a recent PASC inquiry into civil service reform had concluded that “unless the government can rapidly develop and implement a comprehensive plan of cross-departmental reform in Whitehall, the government’s wider ambitions for public service reform are likely to fail”.

The PASC report argued that the civil service has three traditional core capabilities: giving policy advice; managing public services; and supervising public bodies. If the service is to achieve better for less in a new world of devolved public services, the report said, it will need to develop a fourth core capability: commissioning and engaging with external bodies. “People in Whitehall with that capability can almost be counted on one hand,” said Jenkin; this skill will need to be consciously developed across the professions.

Jenkin’s count of commissioning experts may have been unfair, but David Smith, commercial director of the work and pensions department, also identified a lack of commercial and commissioning skills as an issue across government. Smith, who is also a member of the Major Projects Review Group (MPRG) – which oversees large projects such as the Universal Credit reforms – said that having the right team in place is crucial to the successful delivery of a major project, but just half of the projects he had reviewed as part of the MPRG could demonstrate they had achieved this. Half, he said, have “inadequate commercial procurement resource, and don’t know where to get it from”.

Smith was speaking in a session on achieving better for less through major projects, where he was joined by David Pitchford, head of the Major Projects Authority: a joint Treasury and Cabinet Office unit which provides the oversight and support for 209 major projects across government. This portfolio, he said, has a total value of £402bn and is running at a “successful delivery rate of 27 per cent”. That is, as things stand three quarters of the projects will not be delivered successfully – he mentioned one project running 14 years late, quipping that one could get “less for murder”.

Improving this delivery rate will be fundamental to getting better for less across government, he said; it would not only save money, but also improve policy outcomes. “The majority of major policy initiatives are delivered through the vehicle of a major project,” he said. “If you can deliver them much more successfully – elevate the 27 per cent to 75 per cent – policy outcomes would be improved for the government and for the poor bloody taxpayer, who funds this wasted spend and completely unacceptable timelines.”

All of the speakers at the session agreed that leadership is a key factor in deciding the outcomes of major projects. Malcolm Noyce, of the Major Projects Association, said that departmental governance structures should play a role: departments need “good people on boards who can ask the right questions”. Smith later backed up this point, saying “the right oversight allows you to move quicker when you need to move quicker, and it slows you down when you’re not ready. Good governance can be your best friend.”

Below this governance layer, Noyce pointed out, the individuals leading each project must have a core set of skills including good communications skills to build trust, and the confidence to operate in “the fog of uncertainty” surrounding very large projects, in which long-term decisions must be “a best guesstimate of the future”. Pitchford shared details of a dedicated academy which the government plans to set up with an independent business school to improve civil servants’ skills in major project leadership, describing it as a “mid- to long-term initiative to return to Whitehall world-class project leadership that’s been outsourced by departments over the last 20 years”.

All three men argued that one of the key tasks facing the leaders of major projects is to ensure that projects have realistic and clear goals before they begin, and that they stick to those goals as they progress. However, given the political environment in which government major projects operate, the speakers also acknowledged that this is a tall order: ministers typically want to start and progress their projects quickly to demonstrate action, and the scope can shift with the political climate. In response to a question from an audience member, Pitchford acknowledged that ‘starting gate reviews’ can’t stop all dubious projects with a strong political driver, but said “we can cause some of these political wild horses to be reined in and re-examined – we’ve done that on three occasions.”

Noyce also suggested that projects should attempt to distance the top-level, political interface from the day-to-day operations as much as possible: he praised the Olympics Delivery Agency for doing this through the two-tier management structure of its so-far successful project to build Olympic infrastructure.

What of long-running projects that should be stopped? Smith argued that civil servants are being encouraged to be more courageous and speak out if a project is going wrong. “It is as laudable to close something down and terminate it because you think it’s not working as it is to deliver a successful project,” he said, adding that he had “never thought” he would see the day where civil servants feel able to sit together in the setting of a MPRG meeting and recommend to their peers that projects should be stopped: that day, he suggested, has now arrived. Pitchford supported this, referring to “a very senior project manager” in the Department of Health who spoke out about the problems associated with a long-running project. She “took it on herself to say: ‘This has got to stop,’ and that woman was promoted”, he said.

By touching on the political elements of project leadership, the discussions at this session pointed to the need for clear and effective political leadership in public service reform. Speaking of PASC’s calls for civil service reform, Jenkin was clear that ministerial engagement will be vital: “Ministers need to realise that they are ultimately responsible for driving the changes which are necessary in order to achieve a civil service capable of achieving the policies they want,” he said.

The committee has called for a white paper outlining plans for civil service reform, but Jenkin said this would have “no value without the political backing to see it through. If ministers want this change to happen they have a duty to engage with the process…These reforms cannot be delegated to the system.”

Jenkin’s recommendation could apply to the whole better for less agenda. “Ministers must stress that structural reform is their priority,” he said. “Many civil servants may otherwise keep their heads down until the speeches have faded away, and then carry on as before.”

In a context in which budgets are falling fast, however, carrying on as before is not an option. Without a clear focus on reforms, there is a risk that service cuts and the dreaded salami-slicing will become the default way to achieve savings. Ultimately, strong leadership from politicians and new skills from officials will be vital elements in turning the rhetoric of better for less into reality.

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Written by Suzannah Brecknell, CSW