R&D for Bright Ideas
While central government still operates in its silos, local government is further advanced in its thinking on joint working, finds Helen Olsen, as chief executives round the t-Gov table call for the creation of a cross-cutting R&D innovation fund.
(Click here to download a pdf of this Special Feature in the March/April 2007 issue of Local Government IT in Use magazine.)
The biggest frustration that we have in achieving anything is national government ministries, says Colin Moore, chief executive at Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council.
“If we are to transform local government by breaking down the boundaries - so that public services are seen in the sense of place and how they shape a place - then what happens now can not continue. At the moment, for example, we agree a partnership approach based on local needs with the primary care trust, and then the Department of Health tells the PCT ‘that is not your objective, these are your objectives laid down by the minister in London'. And our joint, integrated plan gets ripped up. It is enormously frustrating - it is getting better but there is still a long way to go,”
Moore maintains that it is “enormously difficult to get different ministries to link up when they have different capital funds, different purposes, different performance regimes, different timescales, different criteria. It is absolutely hopeless.”
“Why can't we have a cross cutting secretary of state?” he asks.
“Local government has already transformed itself into strategic directorships based, for example, on children's services or environmental services. Why can't government do the same?”
There is consensus round the t-Gov table that government lacks the ability to cut through its own silos and truly reform service delivery.
“There's an argument for a group of people, a unit or programme to actually sit down and say, ‘hold on let's do some thinking about the bigger picture here, how can we really make it all work?'” suggests Stephen Baker, chief executive at Suffolk Coastal District Council.
“It needs somebody who can take a cohesive view, a joined up view across everything ‘government' - the classic helicopter view.”
Innovative R&D pot
It is at this point in discussions that Peter Rogers, chief executive at Westminster, floats the concept of an R&D innovation fund for citizen services: “There ought to be a sort of ‘good ideas pot' in Cabinet where somebody says ‘that is a really good idea, we will go with that', and the other departments are expected to buy into it, not bitch about it.
“If you could reassemble government to focus on the citizen and the outcomes that it is trying to achieve for the citizen, then R&D at a government level makes sense. I would buy into ideas put forward through this from the Home Office or from Department of Health if it had real benefits for my citizens or customers.”
“Gus O'Donnell should have his mind focused by the sort of peer review process going through government departments – it suggests a need for significant reform in the way they work. In my view it is the same reform that local authorities have gone through - essentially asking what outcomes are we trying to achieve, who participates? And then enabling corporate working to achieve this - with clear lead responsibility and top level performance management through to completion.”
All agree that to not only create such a fund, but cut across the departmental silos, action and sponsorship would have to come from very the top. And that calls to date have fallen on deaf ears.
“Ultimately,” says Moore, “it would have to be the decision of the prime minister – whoever that will be.”
According to Rogers, an R&D fund should “definitely not be managed by CLG because that would miss the real outcome - which is government improvement. If we have silo investment it will be for silo return, relating only to that ministerial department.
“Such projects should relate to total government satisfaction. And to do this an R&D pot would need to be run by either the prime minister's delivery unit or the treasury. It would be cross departmental R&D funding.
David Parr, chief executive at Halton Borough Council, rightly points out that the idea behind the digital challenge was to trial cross-cutting and innovative service Colin Moore Peter Rogers deliveries. “I am not quite sure when it got derailed, but it didn't deliver, maybe because it was about one main winner,” he says.
“An R&D fund would need to have flexibility - which is why crossing over departments and sitting it either with the cabinet office or with the Treasury would give it more power to be able to go beyond the status quo.”
Adds Rogers, “The thing that local authority and government doesn't do is invest in R&D consistently. What it does is spread pilots across a number of organisations where they are all trying to do the same.
“There is a case for government to actually create an R&D budget that local authorities could bid for. And say ‘why don't we try this in this local authority and see the impact over three, five, ten years?'
“This would support innovative, cross cutting projects that may not be quite consistent with all policies, but have a real opportunity for outcomes across the sector.
David Parr believes that national targets need looking at in this context: “What I would ask for is long term targets rather than short term ones. And targets that are flexible enough to take local needs into account.
“Take crime, for example. If we achieve our domestic abuse targets in Halton this will impact on our ability to achieve our targets on reducing overall crime by 17.5 percent - because the success of the former will increase the latter. It would be more sensible for us to take our domestic abuse statistics out of that 17.5 percent but government have refused to allow us to do this.”
Halton has therefore taken an admirable local decision that sees the council prepared to risk not meeting its overall crime target ensure it delivers on reducing domestic abuse, “Because that would actually add more value to the local community”.
Cont'd in Pushing the Boundaries.