Memorandum by Sir David Omand, Professor
Ken Starkey and Lord Adebowale
We should like to draw to the attention of the
Committee the importance to good government of having a constructive,
balanced, relationship in policy-making between "the Centre"
and Whitehall Departments. Strategic direction from the centre
on the priorities of the Prime Minister and Cabinet of the day
needs to be complemented by effective departmental capability
to formulate policies that are grounded in front-line evidence
and professional experience. Serious difficulties in securing
the desired outcomes of policy are likely if policy initiative
comes to be seen as a central function separate from subsequent
departmental consideration of "delivery". The Government
has recognized this danger and in its recent reform programme
document, Excellence and Fairness,[23]
has pledged to "reject the temptation to micro-manage from
the centre" and promised that strong strategic leadership
from central government would concentrate on setting a clear vision,
a stable framework, adequate resources, effective incentives,
and accessible and consistent information on performance.
Last month the Cabinet Office published our
independent report Engagement and Aspiration: Reconnecting
Policy Making with Front line Professionals[24]
that it had commissioned from the Sunningdale Institute to feed
into its broader programme of work on public service reform. In
that Report we endorsed a definition of policy making as "the
process by which governments translate their political vision
into programmes and actions to deliver `outcomes'—desired
changes in the real world." Our examination of examples of
successful policy making (vision translated into actual outcomes
on the ground) demonstrated a common understanding that effective
delivery has indeed usually involved better engagement and connection
with front-line workers in policy formulation arising out of a
"one team" approach by the relevant ministers and senior
officials. Many have succeeded precisely because those involved
in policy work saw their role as at the bottom of an inverted
pyramid supporting and facilitating work across the front-line
base of the pyramid and not as the apex directing policies downwards.
Horizontal rather than vertical thinking is needed for effective
collaboration.
In our evidence collection for the Report we
identified a number of aspects of current practice that act as
barriers to sought-for reforms. These difficulties include the
experience of over-hasty policy pronouncements and proliferation
of policies, and front-line professional alienation attributable
to the perception that the policy-making process is perceived
more as top-down command and control than an engaged dialogue
grounded in mutual learning. The appetite of professionals for
improvement in service quality is seen as being undermined by
a stream of top-down, sometimes conflicting, initiatives and changes
(often media-driven) in policy priority. The growth in arms length
delivery bodies controlled by policies sent down a vertical Departmental
delivery chain (with financial flows to match) can make it harder
for services to be coordinated and joined-up at local level to
meet the needs of the citizen. Policy-making that is directed
in this way can lead to outcomes that are impractical for the
front-line to implement and ultimately futile for the service
user.
The quality of policy-making is, of course,
particularly salient in times of economic downturn, when gleaning
optimal value for resources spent is critical. It is our contention
therefore that in this new climate of aspiration, policy-making
itself will have to be re-invented, with a strong impetus to ensure
value for money, efficiency and effectiveness in public service
policy making and delivery. There need to be fewer examples of
unnecessarily rushed policy-making, and care needs to be taken
to check "who is in the room"' representing the front-line
when policies are constructed and with time allocated to stress
test new ideas with those who have to implement them. We recommend
in our report that Civil Service training (including programmes
run by the National School of Government within the Professional
Skills for Government framework) and development, promotion and
recruitment gateways should be used to reinforce this model of
policy-making.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office, Liam Byrne
MP, has already asked the authors of the Report to work with him
on setting in place the recommendations across Whitehall.[25]
A government response is promised for the summer.
24 April 2009
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/publications/world_class_public_services.pdf
23 Excellence and Fairness: Achieving World Class
Public Services, Cabinet Office, July 2008, accessible at Back
24
Engagement and Aspiration: Reconnecting Policy Making with
Front Line Professionals, Cabinet Office, 31 March 2009, accessible
at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/182021/sunningdale.pdf.
The authors were Sir David Omand GCB-Visiting Professor, King's
College London and former Cabinet Of?ce and Home Office Permanent
Secretary; Professor Ken Starkey-Professor of Management and Organisational
Learning, Nottingham University Business School; and Lord Victor
Adebowale CBE-Visiting Professor, Lincoln University. Back
25
Liam Byrne, Speech to Guardian Public Services Summit, 5 February
2009 http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about_the_cabinet_office/speeches/byrne/090205_psr_speech.aspx Back
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