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Vanguard News - June 2008
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In this issue:
Choice-based letting 'under-funded'
DfT shared services initiative 'costs rather than saves'
Shared services: more on the wrong way
Failure demand and benefits processing
Social networking - the new 'big idea'
CSCI inspectors caught cheating
Washing our hands, not our old people
Policy runs ahead of evidence
Sorry - that's confidential
NHS to sack 'failing managers'
A lament from the NHS
A lament from the probation service
Cops 'rebel' on target culture
Private-sector call centre fraud
Systems Thinking in Telcomms
CapChart - a new product from Vanguard
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Choice-based letting 'under-funded'
The Housing Quality Network has published a report saying ministers have seriously
underestimated the cost of choice-based letting. The DCLG's choice-based lettings
scheme requires housing organisations to buy computers for databases and electronic
administration. I explain in the new book how this is, in fact, the scheme's
Achilles heal; the databases create waste and using them as central to the design
of the service does not lead to the best service and/or choice for customers. So
news that there is a lack of funds can only be good news! Less spend will mean
less waste.
But it does make you wonder… If DCLG thought their 'solution' was the right one,
why did they not work out the costs of implementation before they coerced people
to comply? Had they thought about it they might have come to realise that their
'solution' requires spend that does not release efficiencies; it doesn't pay for
itself (in fact it increases costs), so why are we doing it? Answer: because the
scheme includes the word 'choice', a central idea in the regime's dogma, and at
the time Number 10 was looking for examples of 'choice' in order for ministers
to be able to talk about them. You couldn't make it up.
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DfT shared services initiative 'costs rather than saves'
The National Audit Office reports that a shared service initiative in the
Department for Transport could end up costing £81m rather than saving £57m as
promised. The NAO reports that the project is dogged by changes to cost estimates,
inadequate contract management and poor initial implementation.
The 'problems' indicate a bigger problem - the whole way they went about sharing
services was IT-led, hence the problems with contract management and changes to
estimates are bound to follow. Will another shared services failure make
ministers stop and think? Doubtful, as 'shared services' like 'choice' is central
to the ideological dogma.
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Shared services: more on the wrong way
CIPFA (the association for finance people in local authorities) has just
published a report entitled: 'Shared Services: where now? A guide to Public
Sector Implementation'. The report was written by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).
In the introduction, Alan Edwards, Chair of CIPFA's IT Panel writes: '...we feel
there is a strong business case for sharing services for both back and front
office'
Mr Edwards does not say what the business case is. I imagine it amounts to no
more than the assumptions that such designs will lead to 'economies of scale'
and, as part of that, lower transaction costs. These are plausible but unsound
ideas.
Sharing services is something that is not easily undone; mistakes create costs
over the long term. We already have more examples of folly than improvement;
hence I felt obliged to pen a riposte to the self-serving PWC report.
To download the (free) paper go to: http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/9-shared.asp
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Failure demand and benefits processing
I told the minister for e-government transformation that the current services for
benefits processing (designed and promulgated by the DWP) are creating massive
failure demand not only into benefits but into police (domestic disputes because
there is no money), housing services (problems with paying rent), voluntary
agencies (who try to sort out the mess created by the DWP), legal services (because
landlords take these poor people to court, and rarely do the courts find against
them) and I pointed out that one of the largest courts in Europe has about 25% of
its capacity consumed by problems that started up-stream in benefits.
While he talks enthusiastically about needing to focus more on 'avoidable contact'
(the regime's inappropriate label for failure demand) he is blithely unaware of
just how big a problem it is and how it is created by their current flagship
'factory' designs.
What did he do? Nothing. The facts don't fit with the ideology.
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Social networking - the new 'big idea'
Instead, the minister is keenly following the latest idea from the Westminster
hot-house for service design: social networking sites as a model for the provision
of public services. Who thinks up this nonsense? We know that social networking
sites are used to organise parties, but what else are they good for? The minister
cites Rightsnet and Mumsnet as sites they can learn from. Rightsnet is a site for
the poor souls who have to administer benefits, they use the site to track constant
changes to the rules and share ideas about interpretation; and the site is used
for moaning about the stupidity of the rules and their political masters. Mumsnet
is a site for mums who want to share information and experiences associated with
being a mum.
What can these sites teach us about providing public services? If anyone can help
me I'd be pleased to learn.
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CSCI inspectors caught cheating
The Today programme ran a report about Commission for Social Care Inspection
inspectors being ordered by bosses to up-grade their evaluations. Up-grading
inspection evaluations makes it look as though the inspection regime is doing
its job - things are getting better.
But the truth is compliance with CSCI's requirements has driven massive waste
into the adult care system. I have explained the same to Ivan Lewis, the minister,
and David Behan, the man responsible for adult care at the Department of Health,
and erstwhile originator of CSCI. What did they do? I think you can guess.
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Washing our hands, not our old people
Instead of understanding how the regime has introduced massive waste Lewis and
Behan press on with the latest idea: 'direct payments'. It is a 'review' that
has all the hallmarks of trying to find evidence in support of policy (policy-based
evidence rather than evidence-based policy). The policy is for people who need
support to receive 'direct payments' (people being given money to sort themselves
out - get help with washing and so on). There is no questioning as to whether
'direct payments' is the right idea.
It means we wash our hands of the problems; it's up to the people who need care
to sort themselves out. Ministers assume the wads of cash in peoples' hands will
create 'markets' - providers will come along with services and take the money. We
shall see - or maybe we won't, for adherence to policy might mean we lose the
opportunity to learn anything.
Vanguard will be making a contribution to the 'review'. As we have already provided
plenty of evidence of the waste created by the regulatory regime (see above) it is
reasonable to assume our evidence won't get listened to. But that won't stop us.
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Policy runs ahead of evidence
Despite the claim to be reviewing evidence and learning from 'pilots' the regime
is already talking about plans to take the £7bn adult care budget away from local
authorities and give it to the Department of Work and Pensions to administer.
The plan is that a new DWP agency would distribute the money while local
authorities would provide only an information service - where people might go
to spend their money. Any bets on what a debacle this will become?
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Sorry - that's confidential
If you ring your social services and say 'my mum needs help' they won't talk to
you. They will insist on talking to your mum. Apparently the new regulations on
confidentiality are to blame for this absurd behaviour. In the same vein, a
reader writes:
'There has just been a cracker on 'You and Yours'. A deaf man has a brother who
would rescue him when necessary; apparently the deaf brother would take off on
his bicycle for weeks or months, doing odd jobs around the country. The brothers
lost touch; the able brother spent 10 years looking for his deaf brother. By
chance, a contact in Social Services asked him how his brother was. He said he
didn't know and the Social Services contact then told him his brother had
Huntington's disease 'but we can't tell you where he is'.
Later he got a call to say his brother was near death and he was told where he
was. He found his brother in a home, took him away, and he is now apparently
recovering to a degree. It turned out that the deaf man had been writing his
brother's name and the town where he lived but no-one in the home paid any
attention to it. A spokesperson from Social Services justified all of this
as fitting with the rules on confidentiality. I'd like to ask that pompous
(expletive deleted) Lewis how he sleeps at night.'
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NHS to sack 'failing managers'
For some time it has been difficult to fill top jobs in the NHS. The top six
targets were considered 'P45' issues (the form you get when you are sacked). Who
wants a job where you might fail? The repetition of this bullying tactic is to
assume, of course that the managers make a difference when the truth is the
performance of the NHS is a consequence of the way it is designed and managed
and that has become the province of the Department of Health.
Bright kids (they call them SPADS - special advisers) who know nothing take the
ministers' ideas - untested un-researched notions with assumed political
appeal - and rain them down upon NHS managers with the threat of sanctions for
failure to comply.
Who should we hold accountable?
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A lament from the NHS
A reader writes:
'As an NHS employee of 22 years standing it is a source of bitter frustration
that we seem to have bred a generation of senior managers fed on a diet of
'deliverology' and incapable of taking the courageous step of challenging the
sheer, patent wrong-headedness of so much of the guidance which is delivered
from The Centre. 'World Class Commissioning' is the latest NHS big idea which
has not the slightest connection with improving quality, value or the citizen's
experience of healthcare. However, reputations will be made and careers will
flourish on the back of it I have no doubt. Meanwhile, vast amounts of money
will sink into the sand.
I am someone who, in spite of everything, is still passionate about the NHS, but
have reached the end of my tether with the waste, mismanagement and cowardice
which characterises much of the management I see around me.'
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A lament from the probation service
A reader writes:
'I am a frontline Probation Officer. One of the most depressing aspects of
organisational change in Probation has been the slavish incorporation of the
numbing language of business management and performance management plus
target-mania. Procedures are arising with frightening regularity as people
skills give way to endless IT/admin tasks (the IT preparation-assessment tool
takes hours and is given totemic status!). Meanwhile experienced Probation
Officers are culled. While managers say give the clients 10 minutes, to complete
your IT-forms takes hours.'
Just like adult care and policing, the design takes people away from their
proper work and into activities that feed the regime, not the purpose of the
service.
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Cops 'rebel' on target culture
The media are representing cops as rebelling against the target culture. In
response to the Flanagan report four forces are allowing their officers to use
their discretion. This means - we hope - less criminalising of people. The Home
Office is putting it about that this is all their idea and these four 'pilots'
will be studied. What is actually happening on the ground is that cops who decide
not to prosecute kids having a playground fight will instead follow a new
procedure, documenting how they used their discretion.
What this fails to do is address the question: what measures would be useful in
understanding and improving policing? This new 'initiative' with pilots that are
'destined to succeed' will teach us nothing of value. It amounts to doing less
of the wrong thing. It is not even close to doing the right thing.
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Private-sector call centre fraud
BT has made a £1.75million payout to the Ministry of Defence for fraud in its
call centre. BT was cheating over six years, during which time its staff were
making more than a million false calls to the company's contact centre to ensure
it met its targets. The employees called themselves so that more calls were
recorded as being answered on time.
Such problems start with the way contracts are written. The focus on 'picking
up calls' and 'handling calls in x minutes' drives managements' ingenuity to
optimise their position. These are the very same features being specified by the
regime in their many out-sourced public-sector deals.
To take just one example: voluntary agencies now have to contract to deliver
against these kinds of targets. The consequences are always a decline in service
quality (because the contract creates a de-facto purpose - meet the targets) and
a failure to improve. In fact it is in the provider's interest not to improve.
The shocking distortions found in the worst of the private sector now occur with
regularity in the public sector.
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Systems Thinking in Telcomms
Barry Wrighton - a Vanguard expert - has penned an article ('Designing a Customer
Driven System') for the Journal of Telecommunications Management (July 2008). In
this paper Barry takes a 'Systems Thinkers' perspective on the problems facing
the Telecoms industry and describes how Telco management has been let down by
plausible but flawed methods that lead them to consistently do 'the wrong thing
righter'.
It is a subscription journal to be found at: http://www.henrystewart.com/jtm/
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CapChart - a new product from Vanguard
CapChart is a tool for making capability charts - time-series data of value in
understanding and improving work. As we want to encourage people to make charts
you can do so free for 30 days. For more go to: http://www.vanguardcapchart.com/
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Thanks for reading!
John Seddon
john@vanguardconsult.co.uk
Author: 'Systems Thinking in the Public Sector', available from Triarchy Press:
www.triarchypress.com and 'Freedom from command and control: a better way to make
the work work' available from Vanguard (www.systemsthinking.co.uk).. 'Freedom
from command and control' is also available in the US from:
http://www.productivitypress.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=3276
Vanguard Consulting: Developers of the Vanguard Method, helping organisations
change from a command and control to a systems design. Beware of imitators, as
Vanguard has developed solutions for sectors others claim to be able to provide
the same service. If providers are not accredited to the Vanguard Method you
should not expect a Vanguard service.
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