Friday Funday

The lighter side of local government

I'm on leave today - so I'll leave you with a couple of other interesting, amusing, irreverant, and definitely un-endorsable, public sector, front-line blogs. Linking to them definitely doesn't mean I'm endorsing their views, necessarily.

Enjoy!

• The Policeman's Blog
• The Man on the Clapham Ambulance
• NHS Blog Doctor
• The Magistrate's Blog
• Walking the streets (a parking attendant's blog)

These people all write better than I do, so please come back.

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P.S. Vicki Goddard very kindly supplied me with a couple of Friday Funday suggestions, but I left them on my work computer. Any time you see something amusing drop me a note.

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crime and punishment: the PBA lecture

Topics: criminal justice, probation

In a previous job, I did some work on probation issues. The Probation Boards Association have kept me on their mailing list, which has come in handy a few times, and is how I came to find out about their annual lecture.

Each year they invite a distinguished person who's not from the criminal justice sector to speak on issues of crime and punishment, redemption and rehabilitation.

This year's speaker was Lord Puttnam - who is an ex-movie mogul. Colleagues around the office know that I almost never go to the cinema or watch films, but I'd actaully seen a few that he'd produced: Chariots of Fire, The Mission, Local Hero and The Killing Fields.

So what does a film producer know about crime? Well, in one sense, not much - but that wasn't the point he was speaking as a well-informed citizen - about the relationship between politics, the press and the people in our thinking on crime. He argued that this dialogue had become both too emotive - based more on panic than evidence, and too distant - with politicians and Whitehall understanding little abot the everyday lives of the people they serve.

He applauded the Probation Boards for their principles of keeping justice in the community, of wanting to keep a local presence through the non-executive boards composed of local people in the face of an increasingly nationalised probation service.

There was also quite a distinguished panel of academics, a journalist, MP and perhaps most interestingly for me Molly Webb of Demos. Molly's work includes building up communities using web technologies- just like we're doing with PM Partner. She talked about the new dialogue between politicians, press and the public through the internet and particularly through blogging. All very exciting stuff.

(And go check out the Demos blog)

-o-

The lecture followed the PBA Annual conference. I had a quick look at the annual report. Usually these are pretty dry documents, but the PBA's annual report is a pretty fiery warning against removing localism from criminal justice. They also set out their 5 key principles, which I've selectively quoted below:

1 Commission close to the business
A successful probation service protects the public and engages with it to reduce re-offending. Operational matters need to be commissioned locally, close to the business where the risk is.
2 Strengthen local governance
The purpose of having local people responsible for probation is to provide the best possible service to communities and courts.
3 Build partnerships with the not-for-profit and the private sector
4 Maintain a professional service
The skills and experience of probation staff must be developed to the highest level to maintain the confidence of and credibility with, the courts, partners and the public.
5 Develop the strategic potential of NOMS
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) should be the over-arching policy body in the Home Office and should avoid duplicating management functions.

The principles were set out on nifty-looking perspex columns.

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partnership improvement

Topics: partnership working, community and voluntary sector

I attended an event today which celebrated the outcomes of the partnership improvement programme (PIP). There was an impressive line up of speakers ranging from my colleague Helen Hughes (who sponsored the programme) to Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector.

In eight council areas, local authority and voluntary sector staff worked together to build capacity to work more effectively in partnership and to model a new way of developing sustainable cross-sector relationships. Satwant Pryce and Enrique Saenz of the London Borough of Waltham Forest and Michael Newstead of Bassetlaw Community and Voluntary Service and Gillian Blenkinsop of Bassetlaw District Council shared some of their local lessons.

There's a very nice summary report - which I'll link to as soon as I can, but I'll summarise a few points here:

Ambition doesn't always match local reality
Pilot participants highlighted numerous practical problems that stand in the way of effective partnership working: insufficient resources; lack of appropriate skills or personnel; unrealistic agendas and tiemscales. In almost all cases, the problem was not essentially about willingness or compliance. Rather it was, in effect, a policy implementation gap; in other words a mismatch between, on the one hand, public policy directives and, on the other, the practical reality on the ground.

Location, location, location (or areas really are different)

When it came to identifying practical, locally appropriate, solutions to identified problems. In almost all cases, these differences could be traced back to key variables

These were:

• the history of cross sector relationships
• attitudes of key staff within councils toward VCOs
• relationships within the voluntary and community sector
• capacity to work together - skills and personnel
  

Governance arrangements:

Pre-partnership agreements were widely proposed as a core element of imporving the governance of cross-sector partnerships; they are a way of addressing purpose and roles, as well as the opportunity to invest in a development phase to enable participants to anticipate and address some of the challenges.

Yes, Minister?

Ed Miliband's speech was also interesting. He's a new minister with a new role in the Cabinet Office, and I guess the title hasn't quite broken in yet. He said he'd rather be called Ed - as being referred to as minister made him think of that television show.

He saw his role as:

1. Making sure Government didn't make things worse. He said he was quite proud that he hasn't introduced a slew of initiatives and he seemed conscious that well-intentioned government intervention can have unintended consequences.
2. Being an effective advocate for cross-sector partnership - and this includes supporting longer term funding for stable budgets - important to everyone, but especially important for small community organisations that need a sense of fiscal continuity
3. Constructive persuasion - getting the principles of the Compact a reality on the ground. Part of this would be through the appointment of a "Compact Commissioner" who can champion the voluntary and community sector
4. Thinking of - and implementing - effective ways to reward innovation and progress.

Incorporating lessons
I picked up a lot of interesting ideas that we'll be trying to carry forward. I'm meeting with Helen tomorrow to look at ways that we can incorporate some of their learning - existing and ongoing - into the PM Partner project.


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Together we can

It's one year since the government launched the Together we Can initiative and DCLG Minister Ruth Kelly has praised the results in annual review.

Ruth Kelly today renewed her department's commitment to ensuring residents are involved in shaping local policies so they make a real difference to people's lives. Last year, Together We Can set out a cross-government action plan to improve the way people engage with local and central government. The 65 point action plan is helping ministers to join up initiatives across government. Progress on these can be found at the Together We Can website .

Twelve Government departments are taking part in the Together We Can plan to make more opportunities for people to influence policies on citizenship, democracy, health, regeneration, safety and justice.

Interestingly, the DCLG has also published the results of the 2005 Citizenship Survey this week, too. And it looks like not enough people feel they can influence decision making locally:

39 per cent of people in England feel they can influence decisions in their local area, 22 per cent feel they can influence decisions at a national level.

But it beats the national rate. I wonder how many people felt "I can't" and how many felt "I can't be bothered" - I'm not really sure which would be worse.

The survey also shows that people are working to change their local area through voluntary service.

20.4 million adults in England (50 per cent) volunteered regularly in the 12 months before interview. This was an increase on the 18.4 million adults who had volunteered in 2001.

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Better information for regeneration

Topics: data and information, regeneration, DCLG

Yesterday, I attended a workshop on Local Regeneration Information Systems. This was part of Department for Communities and Local Government Neighbourhood Renewal Unit sponsored project which focused on finding local information systems, understanding their features and needs and promoting best practice about the systems themselves, but more importantly about how decision-makers can use this information to support regeneration and economic development in their areas. The workshop brought together council officers who manage and support this information.

I came down with a stonking, nasty cold this weekend and really shouldn't have been attending this workshop (I've probably wiped out half the regeneration information resources of England - just call me Typhoid Ingrid). But I really wanted to go, partly because I'm on the steering group and partly because using information across partners to achieve better complex outcomes is something that really fascinates me - and I guess I thought I'd feel better as the day went on. (I didn't). Although I didn't get as much out of it as I might have, there were lots of great tips and I learned a lot.

The project focuses on regeneration issues, but really the information resources that colleagues are developing are supporting a whole range of activities within the council and in the community with partners. The full findings should be published later this summer, but I'll be able to share some good practice tips by the end of this week.

In the meantime, I'd like to share a couple of things I picked up yesterday:

The Office of National Statistics relaunched its Neighbourhood statistics site last week, making it easier to navigate. There's a version for pros and a neighbourhood profile version which- though still focused on professional information users - is meant to be usable by the general public - with profiles generated from entering a postcode. I'm not sure it quite achieves the general usability standard (as opposed to the health profiles I highlighted earlier - which do), but officers could certainly use the info to support ward councillors. I did find out that my ward is chock full of foreigners - according to 2001 census data 30% of residents were born "elsewhere" - including 44 of my fellow Americans.

I also had a chat with Nick Harrison, Senior Analyst for the SELD project- Supporting Evidence for Local Delivery, with his work focused on the South West. Their website has a host of resources for neighbourhoods, including case studies focusing on regeneration and renewal and on use of data - like this one on mapping liveability in Bristol. I hope we'll be able to share more of their work through the PM Partner project.



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Systems and culture working together

My Audit Commission colleague David Pottruff and I get a feature on the Just Go website about the PMMI project.

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Friday funday

The lighter side of local government

Mmmm...good and so good for you

Remember Jamie Oliver's campaign for better, more nutritious school dinners? What a fantastic effort. One elected representative in the US state of Massuchusetts is trying to improve nutritional standards, too by limiting the number of fluffernutter sandwiches schools serve to kids.

But with too many kids eating unhealthy amounts of sugar and fat, his son's report that he could get a fluffernutter for lunch at school each day prompted State Senator Jarrett Barrios (D-Cambridge) to call for a tight limit on how often schools can serve up the local delicacy.

What's a fluffernutter? It's a peanut butter and marshmallow cream sandwich - perhaps not the best lunch for learning. (And before you assume all of us Americans eat such fare - in the region where I grew up we'd find the concept just as appalling and curious as you do.)

Via Governing



Graffitti or community art?

Have you heard of Banksy? Banksy is a guerilla artist. Maybe it's technically graffitti, but it's amazing quality stuff. (Here's a collection of images posted Banksy fans in an online photo-sharing community) Of course, Banksy doesn't seek permission before installing works.

Banksy has struck again - this time opposite Bristol City Council offices. I'm sure Bristol has a graffitti clearing standard, but they're taking a little time over this one.

The council are now considering carrying out an online survey to decide what to do with the stencil. A council spokeswoman said: "We are encouraging debate amongst residents and would like to hear people's views and comments about this latest addition to the Banksy collection.

"We have to decide if it's public art or graffiti." She added that if enough people were in favour of the work it could remain where it is.

It's not like they asked you stop watering the flowers

There's a drought in West Texas. And like those of us in the South East who are experiencing the hosepipe ban, folks in West Texas have had some restrictions imposed by the local authority. But these measures aren't meant to conserve water, but to keep the whole area from burning to a crisp following the devastating wildfires they had over the winter. The rules are pretty sensible, be careful with fire, don't toss cigarette butts out the window, and some safety regulations for welders. Oh yeah, and the sale of fireworks is restricted. But one local fireworks vendor is most upset.

Truckload Fireworks owner Jim Harris told the Reporter-Telegram on Wednesday he plans to file a lawsuit against the county this morning to prevent it from prohibiting the use of all fireworks. "The Texas legislature does not give them the authority to ban all fireworks," Harris said.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Jimmy Smith said the prohibition on combustibles is not limited solely to fireworks, but he feels the fireworks ban is necessary to protect people's lives and property.

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Prime minister sets out new partnership model

Topics: policy, partnership, community and voluntary sector

The Prime Minister Tony Blair has set out a new, customer-focused, model of partnership working at a Future Services Network conference today.

Today the Government set out its vision for a partnership approach between public, private and third sectors to deliver the services that people want in the way that suits them best.

... the Prime Minister described an enhanced role for the third sector in working with the Government to deliver public services that are more focused around the needs of individuals and communities.

Marking an important step forward in the Government's public service reform agenda, today's event saw a range of announcements from different departments designed to ensure the work of the third sector is expanded on and properly supported.

Michael Lyons - heading the Lyons review of local government- concurs:

"Local government and the voluntary sector share a common root stock – a commitment to improving the social fabric; protecting the weak and engaging people in the life and governance of their own communities. "This needs to be strengthened and renewed if we are to rise to the challenges of greater devolution and local choice."

As does Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, Chair of the Local Government Association:

The Local Government Association will heed the Prime Minsters call for greater voluntary and business sector involvement by announcing a major summit to be held in the autumn to join up public, private and third sectors around delivering for local people and customers.Sandy Bruce Lockhart will say that councils should move to put the financing of voluntary groups and community organisations on a longer term basis.

I guess we're all agreed then. But the next question is how? Many "third sector" organisations are savvy about performance management and government reporting, but some smaller organisations aren't. I remember sitting in on a Local Area Agreement meeting for one London council last year - and some of the officers were worried about frightening off some community organisations with the reporting and monitoring requirements. Certainly, those spending public money, no matter who they are, must be accountable - but the system is likely to require more flexibility as we work with a range of partners across sectors. Part of the answer, too, is raising the capacity of both local government and the community sector as they work together.

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Live at Earl's Court

Today I was speaking with my Audit Commission colleague David Pottruff at an LGC conference on transforming performance management in district councils at Earl's Court. It's a big venue and a number of other events were going on or being advertised - they all seemed to include the description "Live" - as if they might have otherwise been pre-recorded or dead? Actually, they all were described as LIVE except for our conference and one other exhibition that actually did feature dead folks (warning - gruesome link), so I guess maybe the distinction was handy.



It was good to do the conference. David and I haven't done a two-hander on the PMMI project for quite a while, and since the project has now officially finished we may not get another chance for a while. I think it went pretty well, no one threw any rotten fruit anyway. But David had to suffer through a few jibes at the Audit Commission. He's used to it. I guess it's understandable, in a way - the Commission has come to personify the burden of regulation - even if that's not entirely accurate or fair. When I worked for the Audit Commission, I got used to the jibes, too. Sometimes I experienced downright hostility at conferences. Since I've been working at the IDeA, though, I usually get a nice, warm welcome and the chance to laugh at David when he just has to take it.

It enjoyed the conference overall. In terms of partnership topics, there was a fantastic presentation from Nigel Riglar, Strategic Director at Stroud District Council. David and I had been speaking about performance management culture - and Nigel did too - about the relationships and the attitudes that can make partnerships really deliver.

Nigel said that he had read some American research about the characteristics of effective partnerships - and that it had mentioned the concept of "good finders". These are people who always work with the system - or despite it. People who are able to make the best of what's available - the performance management systems, the relationships, etc - and make something that's bigger than the sum of its parts. These are the talent finders, the enthusiasts and the doers. I couldn't find the reference in a quick search of the Internet. Perhaps someone else has seen it?

There was also a presentation from Tesco's Katherine Edwards. She spoke about their approach to performance management - which was fascinating. Katherine carries out consultation with local communities as part of Tesco's planning application for new stores. They seem to be listening. Tesco have now added a "community" aspect to their performance management balanced scorecard.

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Recent changes on PM Partner

Peter Johsnon from Basingstoke and Dean has added a link to their LSP website on the PM Partner case studies and examples page. The Basingstoke and Dean site looks pretty comprehensive, it's always good to see what folks are up to (please feel free to add your examples, too). They describe their performance monitoring and outcomes framework - and this seems a good way of making sure that all partners have ready access to such information.

I've also added some links to some cool tools for evaluating the effectiveness of your local area in dealing with health inequalities in the health perspectives area of the PM Partner site.

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A healthy profile

Topics: Public health, data

The NHS and Department of Health have launched Community Health Profiles - for almost every council in England*. If you haven't had a look at these, they're pretty neat. The profiles themselves are brief - and, I think, fairly easy to understand - with summary data at authority level and some at ward level.

I've had a look at my own area - the London Borough of Wandsworth (link to the 4 page pdf profile) - to see how well we're doing compared to the rest of England.

Wandsworth residents are more like to eat healthy (I do try!), but also more likely to suffer ill health from smoking (I'm afraid I contribute to this, too.)

It's also interesting to look at the health inequalities- or the differences between health outcomes (life expectancy, etc) across the borough. There's about a five year difference in expected lifespan from one area of the borough to another - and I don't live in one of the longer-living wards.

The IDeA is working with the Department of Health to support councils in doing what they can to reduce health inequalities and help local people choose healthier options. Find out more about the IDeA's Healthy Communities programme.
______
*missing out only the Isles of Scilly and the City of London on data issues.


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Friday funday

Another Friday and another lighter look at local government around the world.

Local hooliganism

I came up on the train yesterday to speak at a North East Learning event today. Since I'm packing light and not seeing any colleagues or clients, I wore my England shirt up on the train. Big mistake. The only people wearing similar when I got on the train were some extremely dodgy characters around King's Cross and some American tourists. My fellow passengers coudn't quite make out which I was (I'm American and dodgy!), but they were extremely surprised when I started going over my Powerpoint notes about performance management with both the IDeA and Audit Commission logos.

Still, I made it to the hotel in time to watch the game and prepare for today's event. What a result.

Why do I have to be Mr Pink?

The council in Phoenix, Arizona and a local dog-owning Friends of Reservoir Park are in discussions about access to a park the Friends group has renovated as a place for dogs to run and play. It's called Reservoir Dogs! Park.

Sharp dilemma on the English Riviera

via 24 Dash: A seaside resort's signature palm trees have been branded a potential hazard by the local council. But the authority today denied it was "going health and safety mad" and spoke of plans to plant more.

The palm trees appear in a poster promoting the English Riviera resorts of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham. But the exotic species needed to be "carefully and appropriately used", said Torbay Council senior urban design and landscape officer Paul Osborne. "They can cause maintenance problems as they have very sharp leaves."

Campaigning on urban blight

Local elections may be over in England, but in the US they're just heating up with a spate of primary and general elections for state, local and federal offices across the nation. The mayoral elections in Washington, DC is highlighting the issue of abandoned cars in a way that that one candidate may not have had in mind.


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your interests

Topics: interim responses to PM Partner survey

We've had a good response to our online sign up form for the PM Partner: the more effective partnership project. Over 80 people have signed up thus far.

As part of the sign-up, we've asked people to tell us what they think the most important themes or areas of partnerships are now and which aspects or topics of partnership governance they're most interested in.

Community cohesion, economic development, increasing efficiency and healthier communities top the list for themes. Performance management, leadership, performance monitoring and citizen and user engagement are at the head of the topics list. (To see the full list of themes and responses you can see this 1 page pdf file)

These responses will shape the focus of the project, but they're interesting in their own right - even though these are only interim findings. We didn't ask why these topics were the most interesting now, but what's causing community cohesion to be the hot topic right now? Why is interest in risk and financial management so low?

At any rate, you can add your voice by signing up to the PM Partner project using this online sign up form. Don't worry, by signing up you're not necessarily giving away the farm, there's a low commitment option.





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Performance management guides

The Performance Management, Measurement and Information project (PMMI) today publishes our guides to performance management.

A Councillor's Guide to Performance Management was written with Councillor Malcolm Grimston, an IDeA Lead Peer Member and executive member for Wandsworth Borough Council. It provides a comprehensive summary of councillors' roles in performance management and how they can use PM to achieve council and community objectives.

A Manager's Guide to Performance Management is a bit more detailed approach to the major aspects of performance management.

Both guides are supported by the PMMI website - www.idea.gov.uk/performance - which contains links to full guidance, tools and more.

I'm really pleased to be finally finished with this! Producing the guidance and re-doing the website was a monumental effort be me and the other members of the PMMI team, but definitely, I think worth it. The final result is also a testament to the benefits of working in a collaborative way with practitioners on the ground. Without the many officers and councillors who helped us, we wouldn't have been able to achieve what we did.

Now that this one's done, it's on the next one - performance management in partnership!

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Partnership improvement programme seminar

Topics: events, improvement, partnership, community and voluntary sector

Between October 2005 and April 2006 eight areas in England took part in the pilot partnership improvement programme (PIP), a joint initiative between the IDeA and the Aston Centre for Voluntary Action Research (ACVAR).

The PIP pilot was concerned with “partnership working between local authorities and voluntary and community organisations” and each area developed a “Partnership Improvement Plan” to ensure that discussions become actions.

A dissemination event is being held in London on the morning of 28 June, which will present an opportunity for participants to showcase their progress and for the lessons learnt about cross-sector partnership working to be discussed.

We are pleased that Ed Miliband, the new Minister for the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office, will be attending the seminar to both listen to stories from the ground and give an overview of the national context for this project and plans for the future.

A report from the pilots will be available on the day. This event is free of charge.

Download the programme for the day:Partnership improvement programme seminar programme (PDF, 1 page, 70KB)

Bookings: To book a place on this free seminar fill in the the online booking form.


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Friday funday

I've been madly reorganising the PMMI website these past couple of days, so I meant to post this earlier. But in future, I'm going to try share the lighter side of local government from in the UK and around the globe - and I'll try to do it early enough in the day to give your Friday afternoon a little levity.

It's bean great

Film star praises an English city council

If it's too loud, you're too old

Councillor Jan Wilson, Leader of Sheffield Council said: "Def Leppard truly deserve their place as Sheffield Legends and have been great ambassadors for the city wherever they have performed throughout the world and the nominations they received reflected this. In terms of international record sales, they are up there with the top musicians of all time. I am looking forward to meeting them and thanking them personally."

Public amenities

If you thought shutting down the public conveniences can create a uproar among local citizens, you can only imagine what will happen in Malaysia when these open up.

World Cup 2006

And of course with this being the opening day of the World Cup, there's football news as well.

• David Miliband is stumped over the flag question.
• Councils urged to shut down rowdy pubs.
• Trading standards bust rogue traders selling fake England gear.

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The smell of printer's ink

Regular readers will know that my other project is the Performance, Management, Measurement and Information project. We're publishing 2nd editions of our popular guides to performance management for councillors and officers next week. I got the copies back from the printer today. None of the other contributors were around today, so I got to rip open the box and break the first spine.

I have to say that there's almost nothing more exciting than getting publications back from the printer. They even have a not unpleasant fresh-off-the-press smell. Even though I'm also currently re-doing the whole of our performance management resource on IDeA Knowledge www.idea.gov.uk/performance (new content launched next Tuesday) and I know that over the long haul, many more people will look at the website than buy the book, clicking the "publish" button just isn't the same as holding a hard-copy in my grubby little paw.

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The lessons of 7/7

Topics: emergency planning, communications

If you live in the UK, or even if you live elsewhere, I bet you can remember where you were when you heard the news of the atrocious attacks on the London transport system in July of last year.

I was in London that day, but thankfully I was no more affected than the emotional shock and having a really hard time getting home.

The lessons of what went well and what could have been better in the response from public services have been published in a report. Overall, public servants performed as we would have expected, admirably. From the tube drivers and other London Underground staff, the emergency services, the doctors and nurses and other health care professionals - they worked hard and saved lives.

But some things didn't go so well, and a lot of these were less to do with individuals on the day than with the systems that supported them.

The London Resiliance Partnership was set up immediately after the terror attacks in the US on September 11, 2001. Its members are taken from London and central government, the emergency services, the business and voluntary sectors and the military - and its role is to ensure preparedness for major catastrophic events. The Minister for Local Government, Phil Woolas, issued a statement on behalf of the partnership in response to the report:

There were some incredible acts of bravery and everybody on duty from the emergency services, transport staff, health, local authorities, voluntary agency staff and Londoners stepped up and delivered their best on what was far all a day of unspeakable tragedy. There can be no doubt that lives were saved thanks to the efforts of everyone involved in the response.

The sheer scale and unique nature of events on 7 July mean that naturally there will be lessons to learn about our response. Some issues have already been recognised and acted upon, such as communications systems and problems with radios underground. Any useful contribution to ensuring that London is as well prepared as possible to deal with future emergencies is welcome.

Indeed communications between and within individual services (such as Transport for London or the Ambulance Services) were criticised. The Guardian has an article outlining some of the issues.

Not all partnerships are set up to deal with calamitous events, but the partners of any Local Strategic Partnership would have to work together if the worst happened in your area. How would they communicate? How could they communicate?

Even with less tragic events, communications can break down easily. What have your partnerships done to ensure that people who need to talk to each other do?

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Featuring PM Partner

I've written a feature for the IDeA Knowledge website about the PM Partner project and our approach.

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Countdown to launch

Topics: governance and performance management of partnerships

PM Partner: The more effective partnerships project launches this week. Check it out at:

http://pmpartner.editme.com/projectlaunch

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Project update

Well, I've been quite busy the last couple of days pulling together the launch material for our new performance management and governance of partnerships project. It's finally pulled together, and I think it will be quite exciting.

If you're on our email list - you'll be hearing about it shortly. If you're not on the email list - well, drop me a line at: ingrid DOT koehler AT idea DOT gov DOT uk - or just wait til Monday, when I'll post it here.

Why the funny way of spelling out my email address? It's to avoid web crawlers that pick up email addresses and send me spam offers of the most amazing products and services.

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