Advice to senior leaders on how implement cost savings in the public services

The public services are facing an unprecedented challenge to reduce costs by 25 - 40%. There are some who would say this is impossible. This article says the opposite and offers you 10 progressive ideas to assist you in making these cuts without doing any long term damage to the fabric of this country.  

1) In all of your communications about your strategy to implement these cuts make sure that you only discuss the costs of services, never the benefits. For example when you come to publish expenditure on the web, as progressive councils are already doing, do not outline what the money was spent on. People simply do not want to know.

2) Beyond telling the public and staff what you are doing (to avoid FoI requests), do not involve them in ‘thinking’ about how the resource challenge might be met. They will only bleat on about ‘saving jobs or services’. They are not paid enough to think or be creative. You, however, are paid enough to have all the ideas and be a decisive leader.

3) Make sure you hire a team of expensive consultants to do the unpopular leg work for you. Many of them are very bright economics graduates who will have spent all of 8 months learning about their consultancy craft and the ‘real world’. They will get to understand your organisation inside out in a matter of hours. The partners who sold you the consultancy assignment may seem to have disappeared but they are ‘supervising’ the young team somehow, somewhere.

4) Absolutely do not let smooth talking ‘process consultants’ lure you into thinking that the public services can be ‘redesigned’ or indeed ‘re’ anything. They may even suggest that partnership working will mean that ‘things can be done differently and more cheaply’. This is a distraction from your core task of reducing your budget. You did not get to where you are without being fiercely parochial! Be on guard against any talk of ‘whole systems’, ‘total place’, or ‘empowerment’.

5) Sometimes central Government Departments may advocate ‘collaboration’. This is a clever ruse to persuade you to give up some power. This is to be resisted. After all, Whitehall Departments never ‘collaborate’! So their attempts to get you to do so, is clearly designed to weaken you and strengthen them.

6) Although you may be aware that some functions provide more vital services to the public than others, a uniform ‘salami slice’ taken off everyone is the only fair and responsible approach. There are several accountants who will support this strategy.

7) There are a few functions that will have asked you for snippets of your wisdom and never challenged any of your decisions. These ‘VFM’ functions should, of course, be allowed to cut their services slightly less. People do not need to know about this.

8) Whilst you will talk about accountability and empowerment (always great words to use during downsizing) and that you will ‘leave it up to the budget holders to make their own decisions’ about how to implement their contribution (another great word) towards the cost reductions, do make sure that you put in place a few ‘no go’ areas. It may well be cheaper to empty bins once a fortnight, but you will know that this is not popular with parts of the media. Make sure these ‘no go’ areas are clear to all concerned. Some managers may moan about having ‘no room for manoeuvre’ but dismiss these people as ‘troublemakers’ who do not really understand what empowerment is.

9) One function that must not be cut more than the very minimum is ‘public relations’. You will rely upon them to get your message across to a sceptical public and staff. Glossy publications explaining how frontline services are not (really) being cut and only the ‘chaps and chapesses in the jolly old backroom are having their belts tightened’ is money well spent.

10) Above all, whatever you do, do not let anyone including even your most trusted lieutenants suggest that your assumptions should be examined. You are a senior leader and therefore all that you believe and say must be enlightened. 500 years ago Machiavelli may indeed have suggested that true leaders need people to tell them the truth. But he was clearly wrong as evidenced by the fact that he died a long time ago. Be certain and be confident: your strategy is unavoidable. (You may wish to write this last statement out and place it on your bathroom mirror.)

Some readers will decide that there is no alternative to the ‘progressive’ leadership described above. Others will know that austere times require even more radical approaches. What do you think?