Policy, Performance and Partnership

We're over here now

2007-04-16T16:34:00.000+01:00

Gentle readers,

I've moved the blog here:

www.ideapolicy.wordpress.com

Sorry for any confusion - but there were a couple of technical reasons for doing so.

How may I help you?

2007-02-02T11:39:00.000Z

On Tuesday, I spoke at a conference aimed at call centre managers. I was asked to speak to them about - you guessed it - performance management. Now I do know about performance management in general, but really I have very little experience of performance management within a call centre. Well, except that after university I worked in a couple of call centre jobs and in one I was sorta performance managed right out the door, but that's another story.

I had a couple of interesting examples. One was about good call handling stats but poor resolution at one London council - illustrating the importance of getting the "back office" right. And another example that I picked up from a conference in the Autumn:

David Cook [Chief Executive at Kettering] had the best "back to the floor" type tip. He regularly listens in on randomly selected customer calls to the council on tape on his drive home. This helps him get a finger on the pulse of what the main customer issues are, and also on how customer service is being handled in the council.

Well, as it turns out, I didn't get to use either of my examples. (I only had about 10 minutes to speak and the rest of the slot was "panel discussion" - which was actually an interesting format.) Instead what I concentrated on was the importance of call centres (and other transactional services) in collecting and using the large volume of customer data that's available. This will be of increasing importance as customer and community engagement is emphasised through the policy and performance debate. And managers need to be collecting information about not just their own services (call volumes, response times, resolution rates, etc) but providing information about the performance of other council services (e.g. street cleansing).

As a sector, we have to get smarter about how we use customer data. The LGA have already done some work in this area. Putting the customer first is a study into the use of customer information to manage performance. This looks at prioritising the use of customer data and customer segmentation. Together with case studies, it has lessons which are equally applicable to work with partners. We also need to use this data to triangulate evidence around citizen complaints - for example is a community call for action valid? Call centre data could help validate a councillor's decision to refer a matter to scrutiny (or not).

Another policy matter, which I didn't fully have time to explore, was the Varney Review and shared services - and in particular the impact on customer service and efficiency. Councils who are in the process of reviewing or revamping customer service functions will be wise to take heed of efficiency implications of running a call centre on their own without clubbing in with neighbouring councils or partners.

See also:

A listing of citizen and user engagement resources.
The IDeA's customer service peer review can help you assess whether transactional and call centre data is being used effectively in your partnership.
Julia Bennett has summarised a range of Customer service issues in the Policy and Performance Community of Practice (free registration required).

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Toward an agreed improvement strategy

2007-01-31T08:33:00.000Z

On Monday, I was lucky enough to be able to go to a conference on the central-local Improvement Strategy. I was there merely as a glorified notetaker, but it was still a great event (organised by my colleague Adrian Barker).

There are a lot of big challenges in the local governance and public sector policy environment and some exciting positive shifts in the way we'll be working - closer working between partners, greater engagement with citizens and customers and stronger, enhanced roles for front line councillors. At this conference, chief executives, senior political leaders, representatives from the Department of Communities and Local Government and regulators were all there to get their heads together around how we'll fashion new, more cohesive and effective ways of supporting improvement in local goverment through these challenges.

At the IDeA, we've long seen our role as working with local government, supporting improvement - and sometimes helping to lead improvement, too as we work with councils to innovate and to share those innovations more broadly within the sector.

Part of our approach to support is going to be how the IDeA helps local government help itself. Paul Coen, Chief Executive of the Local Government Association, spoke about the recently launched LGA campaign - raising the game in local government. Part of it is about taking responsibility for sector colleagues who need a helping hand.

Helping the public sector to help itself on regional or sub-regional basis, while capturing and sharing (and sometimes developing) the learning nationally were certainly some of the themes being explored in the groups I was with. It's too early yet to share headline findings, but we hope to be able to explore and share this debate with you over the coming months.

This is cross posted - (with pictures!) at the Policy and Performance Community of Practice (free registration required) at www.communities.idea.gov.uk

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Friday Funday

2007-01-26T14:54:00.000Z

the lighter side of local government

Reduce, reuse, re-mourn?

Reducing waste to landfills is important responsibility for local government. Introducing waste charges might persuade some people to throw away less. But The Guardian has highlighted some interesting work that councils have done in reducing waste without imposing charges. And that includes innovating recylcing of and re-using materials. For example:

Tameside council, east of Manchester, promotes recycling while cutting carbon emissions, by running a recycling plant. The council then uses the plant's products, with plastic recycled for litterbin and park bench manufacture. As the latter are more resistant to arson than wooden ones, the council has re-introduced cemetery memorial benches. It is also considering plastic headstones.

"We can show children that the plastic they collect is used locally," says Robin Monk, head of environmental services.

What price local engagement?

When I worked in local government, we sometimes gave a small "appearance fee" to members of the public who gave up a wet Thursday evening to talk to us about say...highways maintenance.

But what if you're a member of the public who'd like to get involved - but maybe you just don't have the time? Could you hire a proxy to share your views on local services? Well, in Germany you can.

Young, good-looking, and available for around 150 euros (£100), more than 300 would-be protesters are marketing themselves on a German rental website.

OK, so they're mostly just willing to protest - but maybe they'd charge a little less to attend a neighbourhood forum - so long as sandwiches were provided.

Those don't grow on trees, you know

Pranksters were being held responsible today after a tree sprouted a strange fruit of shoes and boots.

Councils have to deal with all sorts -

Brenda Brooker, spokeswoman for Gosport Borough Council, said contractors had been tasked with taking the shoes down.

She said: "I know the winds have been strong of late but unless it blew down the changing rooms of the local football team and whistled up all the boots into the air, I suspect it is someone having a laugh."

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Communities of Practice update

2007-01-26T10:37:00.000Z

As regular readers may be aware, we've started a new Community of Practice for Policy and Performance on the IDeA's Community of Practice platform at www.communities.idea.gov.uk
Each month, I round up contributions to our CoP for an internal newsletter, but there's no reason I can't share it here.

January highlights from the Policy and Performance Community of Practice

An interactive listing of resources on the Strong and Prosperous Communities Local Government White Paper
The Government’s response to ‘The Customer Voice in Transforming Public Services”. Julia Bennett highlights key elements from the Government’s response and likely next steps.
An interactive listing of Policy resources
Julia Bennett pulls together agency thinking on customer service issues in the White Paper.
Ingrid Koehler writes about a policy and performance day long workshop that she presented for officers at North Tyneside MBC and South Tyneside MBC at the request of North East Regional Associate Annette Stansfield.
Laura Julve recently appeared on the Frontline radio programme hosted by the Leadership Programme’s Pascoe Sawyers. She provides a link to her “podcast” on the Community Call for Action.
Julia Bennett writes about her very rewarding experience of participating in a Peer Review.
Effective health and social care partnerships – Ingrid Koehler attended a conference co- chaired by the IDeA's Sue Johnson- joint head of our Healthy Communities programme and picked up some great ideas.

You do need to be registered in the Policy and Performance Community of Practice, but registration is easy and immediate. Join us at www.communities.idea.gov.uk

And - there was a late entry, too which I didn't manage to round up. The IDeA offers training on Communities of Practice facilitation and my colleague Vicki Goddard (who frequently provides me with Friday Funday fodder) has just come back from her training and started blogging immediately. And why did she do it? To impress me...

My colleague Ingrid Koehler swears by all this, especially the ease of it all, so practicing using the Communities of Practice platform will help me impress her(!), means I can upload content because I want to, not because I'm being (well-intentionally!) 'nudged' into it(!!,) and enable us to work more together on these ways of working and enhance the work we do.

I wonder who she's talking about with the good-natured nudging? Can't be me, as I downright harass and harangue!

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Friday Funday

2007-01-19T14:06:00.000Z

The lighter side of local government

So what's the point of all these Friday Funday posts. Why to make you laugh, of course (or perhaps raise a little smirky smile)? And what's the benefit of the giggle? Well, apparently, laughing can help you lose weight. That's according to a new study in the Journal of Obesity.

And what's the link to local government? As it happens, Friday Funday started off because although the IDeA's Policy Unit is known as a heads-down, hardworking, bunch of quiet boffin-types, we did happen to have a bit of a laugh on Fridays - perhaps sharing interesting snippets of news about local government and public services (yes, we're the types that can't really get away from work.) And since we're all about sharing practice - the Friday Funday blog posts were born.

And now that we know how beneficial it is, there's another reason to continue. See here at the IDeA we support councils in their role of promoting healthy communities - including being a healthier employer.

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Who do you run to...

2007-01-17T16:28:00.000Z

...when there's no place to hide?

Lord Bruce Lockhart, Chair of the Local Government Association, is headlining a new ambitious approach to improving performance, outcomes and ways of working.

"The LGA is determined to seek radical solutions, and determined to put in place a robust and challenging action plan to ensure implementation. Many councils are leading through outstanding innovation. But there will be no hiding place for the poor performers"

Council leaders from across the political spectrum will today launch a
campaign to raise the game of authorities across the country.The key themes
include:

Building visionary and ambitious leadership: making best use of both the political and managerial role
Leading trusted and effective partnerships across the whole public sector
Creating radically enhanced scrutiny: holding to account the council, the wider public sector, and service suppliers
Devolving to residents and local organisations: engaging and communicating effectively, and enhancing frontline councillors' roles
Ensuring outstanding improvement and transformation in service performance:innovation, value, efficiency and public access and satisfaction

***********

I think there's a growing awareness that we're all going to have raise our game in terms of performance management. I recently spoke to a group of officers from both North and South Tyneside about the challenges of the new policy environment as well as the lessons of the best in terms of what local government has already done on performance management. They were certainly ready to embrace those challenges and are making links across the water to support each other in that work.

Just like in North and South Tyneside, with this recognition that we're going to have raise our game, I think we're going to have to lean on each other a little bit more, too. And by that I mean sharing ideas and innovations (proactively) and asking for help with ideas and implementation from local authority and partner colleagues.

The IDeA wants to support the development of this approach and is creating spaces for online communties of practice at www.communities.idea.gov.uk. And we're not just creating spaces, we're also helping to facilitate online and face-to-face groups in collaborative working across the public sector, too. I and the team I work with facilitiate the Policy and Performance Community of Practice and a more specific group focused on performance management. And in the latter group, it just so happens you can find the slides (you'll need to be registered to view them) from my day long workshop with North and South Tyneside officers.

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On the chain gang now

2007-01-15T18:08:00.000Z

The Home Office has announced a new scheme of Community Payback.

Home Secretary John Reid today announced that all communities in England and Wales will have the opportunity to get something back from offenders who have committed crimes in their area.

The "Mayors' Community Payback Scheme 2007" would provide a platform for mayors to choose a worthy project in their area that would benefit the community. The project can be nominated by the mayor or be initiated through suggestions from the public, media or local community groups. The successful project would be announced at the mayoral installation in May.

Community Payback-visible unpaid work by offenders-was launched in July 2005 in six pilot areas, and in late November/early December 2005 across the rest of the country. The aim of Community Payback is to give the community an opportunity to see the unpaid work carried out by offenders and to give them a chance to decide what projects they work on.

Growing up in America (and particularly in the American South), I'm quite used to seeing offenders doing useful work - giving back to the community. Oftentime they did work of a similar nature (if not side-by-side) that "non-custodial" volunteers from the community were doing, too. Meaning that the work itself isn't stigmatised (e.g. litter picking, beautification projects).

My British husband was less used to the idea and I remember visiting an outdoor "folk museum" in Mississippi that was being maintained by prisoners. He thought they were just part of a chain gang "living exhibit" - until he saw that there was a real guard with a real gun.

I don't expect that the Home Secretary's version will run quite the same way. I do think it's a stroke of brilliance getting Mayors to select the project. The vast majority of mayors still hold honorific positions, but spend a lot of time and hard work on promoting their area and worthy causes within it. It also creates a sense of accountability and community that the project might not otherwise have.

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Who gives you extra?

2007-01-12T12:13:00.000Z

...East Riding apparently, who scored top marks on Value for Money as assessed by the Audit Commission.

Three-quarters of single tier and county councils exceeded the Commission's minimum requirements for their use of resources overall, and all met the minimum requirements. Fifteen councils achieved the highest possible overall score and one council, East Riding of Yorkshire, achieved top scores in all five themes. There has been a general improvement across the five themes which make up the assessment, including internal control and financial management.

Congratulations to them and to all the other top scorers. East Riding submitted a case study to the Performance, Management, Measurement and Information project. Although it doesn't cover VFM in any detail, it does highlight some of their innovative and effective approaches to performance management.

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Friday Funday - 12 Jan

2007-01-12T11:59:00.000Z

If you're looking for the latest improvement technique, forget business process reengineering or future basing. One local government manager in Thailand seems to have a whole new technique for putting a little extra pep into the workforce. Napping.

A Bangkok municipal office has launched a new program to increase productivity: Lights go out just past noon and civil servants are invited to take an afternoon nap. Seeking to infuse city workers with a bit more pep, the Pathumwan district office in central Bangkok has set up a lunchtime "nap room" with soft music, sweet-smelling flowers and strict rules barring mobile phones and talking, said Surakiet Limcharoen, the district's top official who started the program.

Workers report feeling "fresher and brighter" after the midday snooze.

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Friday Funday

2007-01-05T11:33:00.000Z

Ah, the first Friday Funday of the New Year. So what's new on the lighter side of local government?

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999

This headline caught my eye.

Alcohol blamed for rise in New Year 999 calls.

Really? There's a shocker. But it turns out that people were in partying more than they have been for a while despite (or maybe because of) the bad weather in places.

Ambulance staff dealt with the highest number of emergency 999 calls in the early hours of the New Year since the Millennium, with the majority related to alcohol...

I'm a celebrity, get me out of this council meeting!

Brace yourself! Lindsay Lohan is being encouraged by the New York State Independence Party (NYSIP) to run for local government in 2009.

According to celebrity gossip blog Hollyscoop:

At first I thought this was a joke, but the NYSIP's Frank Morano believes Lohan could bid for New York City Public Advocate - a position next in line to the mayor.
Morano writes, "As Albany is currently a cesspool of corruption, badly in need of reform, you may also want to consider a bid for the state legislature. Many celebrities have made the transition from Hollywood to politics, ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura to Sonny Bono and Ronald Reagan. Few if any though, had the enormous potential that you possess."

Blackberry preserves

As you may be aware, the US held Federal midterm elections in the Autumn - electing our national representatives. But a lot of state and local elections were also held and many governors, state legislators and other locally elected officials take office in the New Year.

If you're a Governor leaving office, you'll probably have this commemorated with a painting of an official portrait so that your lovely visage will be preserved for posterity.

President George Bush's less famous older brother Jeb stepped down from his position as Governor of Florida this week. His official portrait reflects the growing role of portable technology in local governance.

Via the Governing blog:

Jeb's official portrait contains a few noteworthy features in addition to his smiling mug. The painting, unveiled a couple weeks ago, also includes a photo of Bush's family, several books, including the Bible, and Bush's BlackBerry, a nod to his prodigious email use.

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Tip top green councils

2007-01-05T11:22:00.000Z

The Guardian features a story listing the greenest councils of them all.

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Happy New Year

2007-01-03T11:49:00.000Z

I hope you all were able to enjoy a nice break. I certainly did. The New Year is a time for reflection, prediction, wishes and resolutions.

Today's Guardian has a couple of New Year type features.

The first is a public policy wish list with desires ranging from more public loos to flexible working for everyone.

The second is set of public sector predictions for the coming year. I don't think the first prognostication will surprise anybody:

The year to come is likely to bring a squeeze on public-sector budgets - and see the beginning of a sea change in the way services are delivered.

So what about you? What do you predict for the New Year? What would be your greatest wish? Have you made any workplace resolutions - are you planning big changes in the way you'll be doing things?

I've been thinking a lot about the promised reduction of performance indicators and the reduced demand of information from Government and inspectors. I wish their promise comes true in the genuine spirit in which I think it was intended. But I predict some friction and compromise before the year is out.

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A real Christmas cracker

2006-12-20T13:10:00.000Z

The lighter side of local government

Well, I'm off for my holiday break after today - but I wanted to wish all the readers a Happy Holiday and a Prosperous New Year. The IDeA wishes you Seasons Greetings (do follow the link - it's cute!) If you're so minded - I wish you a Merry Christmas, too. In lieu of Friday Funday -we're having a wacky Wednesday full of holiday cheer:

A punishment to fit the crime
I've already blogged about councils putting up seasonal displays. Now one council has already experienced vandalism of their lights and a little restorative justice.

A hooded gang who vandalised a town's Christmas tree were made to redecorate it again just moments later after being caught on CCTV. The yobs had ripped £100-worth of fairy lights from the tree in Bridgwater, Somerset, but were marched back to the scene of the crime to repair their handiwork by police officers.

Sedgemoor District Council has released grainy, CCTV photos of the youngsters re-decorating.

Too right, I say. Though not exactly in the same league, I experienced a little Christmas vandalism last year at the ~~hands~~ paws of a local youth.

I tried my best to make her pay, but I had less luck with the restorative justice than the local Somerset constabulary.

Christmas dinner
Growing up in the Southern US, Brussels sprouts were not a regular part of our holiday fare. But I've grown to like them. But not nearly as much as this guy.

A Devon man who hoped to set a world record by eating the most Brussel sprouts in a minute has failed. Richard Townsend, 24, of Exeter, fell seven short of the target of 43, which was set in December 2003. Mr Townsend, who had eaten a plate of sprouts every day for the last six months, said he just "lost it".

Oh, dear. Mr Townsend prepares his sprouts simply by trimming them to a uniform size and cooked them (I guess quite simply) for four minutes. I definitely couldn't eat 43 in a minute. I can eat more than I might otherwise though if they're prepared in a way taught to me by an old friend - I'm no recipe writer, so do bear with me - but trust me these are delicious!

Prepare sprouts as normal
Load the sprouts up in a steamer (I use a double boiler with steamer section - but you can also steam in a microwave proof boil with a bit of cling film over the top)
Toss in three or four peeled cloves of garlic - cut in half or thirds if you're so minded - otherwise at least score them
Throw in a pinch of oregano or basil - or even herbes de Provence
Dice red sweet pepper or bits of sundried tomato and stir them into the mix (an optional step - but it does make those sprouts look festive)
The essential step: drizzle sprouts with olive oil
Steam until tender, but not too mushy (you'll just have to use your judgement)
Salt to taste (I usually do this at the table afterwards)

Yum. Yum. Happy Christmas everyone.

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Friday funday: spoilt for choice

2006-12-15T11:45:00.000Z

The lighter side of local government

Yes, sometimes it's a struggle to find those clips that can tickle the local government fancy, but this week, I have to say, I've been spoiled for choice. Since, I can never make up my mind, I'll just share them all...

South Beds DC flushed with success

Leighton Buzzard’s multi-storey car park loos have been named the United Kingdom’s best public toilets by the British Toilet Association, beating off entrants from the rest of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

You don't look half cheery

West London local authority trading standards units have cracked down on short measures in the festive season.

The lighter side of public health?
If the trousers fit, please call 0-800-YOU-R-FAT. (I'd think this were funnier if I weren't in line to see this myself.)

We're not squabbling over chicken feed here

London Mayor sued for withdrawing pigeon food subsidies for Trafalgar Square.

I vant to ~~suck your blood~~ buy your castle

Brasov County Council, in the heart of Transylvania, is offered the opportunity to purchase Dracula's castle. (I've been there and it's awesome!)

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Get in on it now!

2006-12-15T11:30:00.000Z

According to IT think-tank and consultancy Gartner, blogging is set to peak in 2007. So that means if you get into the act now, you'll still be ahead of the curve.

I've always thought that blogging - keeping a web log or online diary - is an excellent way of keeping a learning log or a record of lessons as you progress through projects, meet new professionals and are exposed to new ideas. Personally, I find it an invaluable way of maintaining my "written memory".

It does take a little bit of guts to start one up..."what will I say?", "will anyone be interested?", "what if I make a load of mistakes?", "what if I go too far?" But after you get over the inital hesitation, it's actually quite good.

Anyone can start a blog - and it doesn't cost anything either. This blog is hosted for free by Blogger at www.blogger.com But the IDeA also hosts blogs within our communities of practice space. Blogs there are a little more private - you publish your thoughts only to like-minded practitioners. Get signed up at www.communities.idea.gov.uk and take a look around for communities that interest you. For example why not join the communities I help facilitate - Policy & Performance and Performance Management.

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Innovation and stuff

2006-12-08T16:33:00.000Z

Are we a nation of innovators? What is the UK for and how does it win its place in the world? Those were questions addressed in an event I was lucky enough to attend yesterday at Nesta [http://www.nesta.org.uk/] on innovation where Charlie Leadbeater [http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/home.aspx] was giving a ‘provocation’.

Emerging, from torrential rain into this breakfast meeting I found myself dazed and disoriented, blinking into the reality of some 1960’s envisioned future – all columns, lights and mirrors. Obviously a home for innovation.

Charlie Leadbeater was arguing that the UK should position itself “as a society of mass innovation, a place where creativity and innovation are everyday activities, practised in my settings, by many people.” While China is characterised as ‘the world’s fastest growing economy’ and the US is known as ‘the home of high-tech and Hollywood’, the UK doesn’t really have a one-line pitch to the world. Instead, a discussion with students in China revealed an image of this country as about Premiership football, rain, island isolationism and Mr Bean. (This, the country that produced Newton, Shakespeare, Darwin, Dickens, the Beatles and Britart). Leadbeater proposes ‘ten habits of mass innovation’, but at this event he focussed on three.

He suggested we need a debate about what education is for. Up to know the debate has mainly been about process – what type of teaching, systems standards and testing do we want. But what is the education for? “Learning should develop every child’s capacity for independent critical thinking and collaborative problem solving.”

How can we promote citizen innovation? Innovation isn’t something which should be done by elite specialists in a special place (though as one participant pointed out, this discussion was being had by elite specialists in a special place). This will include the challenge, in an ageing society, of how to live healthy and worthwhile lives in our 90s.

Can we donate some of our unused knowledge for the benefit of developing countries? Do we have any discarded intellectual property hanging around which we don’t use any more which we can put in a recycling skip to help towards dealing with aids, clean water etc.?

Other points that came up:

Most of the other countries that are steaming ahead have some sort of ‘burning platform’ that is driving them forward (particularly small states fearing bigger ones) what is ours? My answer (though I didn’t have chance to mention it in this august gathering) was that we have a rotting platform. We have relatively well-off lives and the threat of climate change or the Chinese and Indian impact on the global economy seem very distant. Our productivity and niche economic advantages are gradually disappearing, but the platform doesn’t look too bad. A few bits are crumbling at the edges, but the extent of rot is not enough to galvanise us into action.

What about the public sector? The problems identified were government’s excessive centralism, distrust and departmentalism. Also the performance metric driven approach and entrenched interests, resistant to anything threatening the tick box approach to control.

An IBM survey [http://www-5.ibm.com/e-business/uk/innovation/channel/html/revitalize/BTI.0004.html] had found that unlike the private sector, public sector respondents rarely mentioned employees and customers as having an important role in innovation. Charlie Leadbeater (who wrote the IDeA’s ‘Man in the Caravan’) said that his experience of good public sector innovation involved leadership, outcomes, customer focus and engaging employees. The problems he identified were deploying new ideas up to mass scale (rather than being trapped with little schemes) and how to stop old lines of business – how to exit (interestingly he thought that while government is not very good at picking winners, they are quite good at picking losers, so could help divestment).

Not everyone agreed with the mass innovation thesis. Doesn’t it undermine the important role of experts and lead to philistinism?

Are we stuck with our national culture, and should we even try to change it? Is it already changing out there through popular culture like the X-factor and Dragon’s Den and virtual forums and worlds on the web? Or should we just accept we are a nation of shopkeepers, who are tolerant, support the underdog and don’t like to boast? We’ve got a successful pop industry but we’re not sure how we’ve done it (no pilot schemes, government grants or performance indicators). Perhaps our one line pitch to the world is something about our quirkiness and oddness. Should it just be that we’re cool?

Ipsos Mori End of Year Event

After an early state, a late finish, with the Ipsos-Mori end of year event with speakers Ben Page, Sir Michael Lyons, Trevor Phillips and Nicholas Boles. Lots of interesting points made, many which complemented the morning’s session: here’s just a few.

Polls show that compared to other countries we really are quite a tolerant nation.

The public would like Scandinavian levels of public service with US levels of tax.

The public simultaneously want to be left to make their own decisions but also for the government to sort things out for them.

People want to know who is making the decision
That those people are powerful and able to make a difference
And if decide to challenge, that it will be acted upon.

There is a common view that inequality is getting better, so we just need to give it time. However, at the current rate of change we will:
· have a representative House of Commons in 2080.
· close the gender pay gap by 2085
· close the ethnic employment gap 2105.
· close the disability employment gap probably never
· close the ethnic qualification gap – definitely never.

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Friday funday: innovation

2006-12-08T12:08:00.000Z

The lighter side of local government

It's all about inovation today. Innovations of all sorts. It's quite timely because one of my colleagues, Adrian Barker attended a seminar on innovation this week. Charlie Leadbeater spoke - he's always thought provoking - and you can find his recent presentations - including those on innovation - here.

Drunk or just boring?

'Tis the season of office Christmas parties. And yes, I know it shows a flaw in my character, but unless I'm drunk, I usually find them dull, dull, dull. And ever since that last unfortunate incident, I've really tried to avoid overconsumption of alcohol in front of the people that sign my cheque.

But thankfully for seasonal revellers in the borough of Westminster, the City Council has got you covered either way.

With the Christmas party season underway, a new free texting service has been launched to help revellers get home safely from central London.

The service is part of a Westminster City Council's "Some things you only do when you're drunk" campaign All people have to do is go to http://www.somethings.co.uk/ to get telephone numbers for bus and safe taxi services.

And if making small talk with the boss is just too much, there is even an excuse text to help you get away from the boring office party.

What's that smell?

What's the smell that you usually associate with public transport or bus shelters? No, really - go on - close your eyes and smell that smell.

Now imagine what they could smell like, roses, freshly laundered sheets hanging in the sun, new-mown hay, warm chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven?

Via the Governing blog, I've discoverd that one need no longer imagine. Bus shelters in San Francisco are to smell like chocolate chip cookies - thanks to an advertising campaign by California's milk board. (See, you Brits think of biscuits then tea, but we Americans think of cookies then milk).

Christopher Swope writes of this advertising innovation:

I know how I'm supposed to feel about this. I'm supposed to mourn the passing of yet another of our five human senses into the advertising kingdom. Madison Avenue took sight (TV) and sound (radio) from us long ago. Taste as advertising is give and take -- I'm thinking free samples here. Now they're snatching smell from us, too. Only touch remains an ad-free zone, barring changes in law or social behavior.

But let's be honest: Bus shelters could do worse than smell like chocolate chip cookies. Much worse. As a teenager quoted in the Chronicle points out, "It's going to smell like cookies and bums."

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This blog is-a-changing

2006-12-08T11:49:00.000Z

Gentle reader,

I'm about to upgrade the version of blogging software that I use. This may affect the RSS feed, so if you use a feed reader - you may need to check if you're still getting posts from this PM. It won't affect the address of this blog.

If all of this means nothing to you, then you needn't worry about it.

Your faithful blogger,

Ingrid

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PM Partner update

2006-12-07T19:21:00.000Z

Update from the PM Partner site

I've created a new page called Resources for councillors and non-executives .The 2006 Local Government White Paper outlines a greater role for councillors in executive, ward and scrutiny roles. Councillors and partner body non-executives will need to develop and enhance their partnership working skills. I hope we'll highlight a growing number of resources - but for now in particular this highlights two recent IDeA publications Neighbourhood renewal and social inclusion: a councillor's guide to scrutiny and Inside Top Teams: A practical guide which includes a section on partnership working.

I've also added a link to a new set of IDeA case studies on what local government and the community and voluntary sectors are doing together called Journeys to Improvement on our Community and Voluntary Sector Page

I've also tabulated the results of the PM Partner participant survey which you can find here. As a project team and with colleagues, we still have to think about what to do with what you said - but there was a lot of food for thought. Even from early results, we could see that we needed to improve the navigation of the site - and I hope that we've done that.

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Friday funday: video gaga

2006-12-01T11:00:00.000Z

The lighter side of local government

Many years ago - the London Borough of Brent was one of the first councils in the country (the world?) to use a webcam as part of its regular service. The webcam was used in the wedding room - and it was a way for families - often located around the world to share in the newlyweds' joy. The camera is still there.

I remember it because I worked at Brent at the time. Although we looked at the wedding webcam out of a sense of novelty - we really didn't need it. Our offices overlooked the arriving brides and grooms - which was always a treat. We saw big fluffy white wedding gowns, beautiful red Indian saris, and some wedding outfits that defy categorisation (e.g. the woman who wore a gold bikini and then strategically draped herself with golden gauze).

Cradle to grave
At least one South London nursery operates a webcam for nervous parents. And now there's a webcam for end-of-life, too. Peterborough City Council has started a webcam service at its crematorium.

Families will pay £45 to allow friends and relatives to view services at the council run crematorium in Peterborough, Cambs. Crematorium bosses are offering a DVD or video for an extra £25

Although it sounds a trifle ghoulish, I can well imagine that it's a service that could bring a lot of comfort to some. In the weeks following her father's funeral (my granddad) my aunt listened to a recording of the service over and over when she was on the road.

Canned cam
Anderson County, Tennessee installed a webcam in its jails. I'm sorry I missed that - because now the service has been canned. (Plus - as it's where my dad grew up - I might have seen someone I knew!)

Some viewers have been using the cameras to harass female jailers by calling them on the telephone and taunting them as they work, according to Anderson County sheriff's officials. In other cases, viewers are tracking inmate movements and using the information to coordinate deliveries of contraband to prisoners on work details outside the jail.

Yikes!! According to webcam's site -

The department has been pleased with the popularity of the cam over the past few years, but Sheriff White noted that safety and security must take a priority

...and on the right side of the law
According to The Guardian, the Police are using the free online video service YouTube to nab recruits rather than criminals.

Videos of police officers in action are being broadcast on an internet site more used to Beadle's About style footage, in a bid to improve the force's image and attract new recruits. Videos of West Yorkshire officers patrolling the streets and talking about their work nestle alongside clips titled "policeman shoots himself in foot" and "**** the police" on the YouTube site which has tapped into the legal side of the "happy slapping", video phone carrying youth culture.

But the force's web communications manager, Patrick Brooke, says the police no longer feels threatened by such juxtaposition. "There was a time when we would have insisted our videos were safely tucked away on our own site, but not now," he said.

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LSP futures

2006-11-30T14:39:00.000Z

Topics: LSPs, communties of practice, LSP Futures

I attended an event on Wednesday for LSP Futures. LSP Futures is a non-profit network of partnership practitioners - such as LSP managers - and membership is by subscription. They meet regularly and focus on both policy and the practical issues of managing partnerships.

I was invited along to talk about PM Partner - a collaborative website focused on partnership issues - and about whether LSP Futures might want to use it to share their knowledge over the web. I also talked about the IDeA's new Community of Practice platform at www.communities.idea.gov.uk which is another web-based way of supporting face to face networks.

The event itself was largely focused on the White Paper and Paul Philpott and Cath Docherty from the DCLG helped to clarify some of the issues around LSPs and LAAs in the White Paper as well as improvement support for councils as well as partnerships.

Clearly there is still some room to play for - and interestingly Paul Philpott spoke about local authorities getting more involved in not just advising on guidance as it's developed but also writing guidance. This could be a more open way of going forward - a more mature relationship between central and local government. But - of course - we need to make sure that all local authority views are represented (and increasingly, too, the views of our partners in other sectors.)

We'll be discussing some of these issues in our forums at the Policy and Performance community of practice (registration required - but easy and free).

****

I thought it was interesting that one of the things the network wanted to explore Results Based Accountabilty - which we have blogged about here before.

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New communities

2006-11-27T16:36:00.000Z

Working on PM Partner has been a really interesting experience of collaborative knowledge-building. The site is still active and focused on performance management in partnerships, but we've opened a couple of new communities of practice as well.

These are hosted on the IDeA's community of practice platform - this is a semi-private online space. That is, you have to register to view any of the content - but anyone can join the two communities we've started

Policy and performance: this community is aimed at people who work in the area of developing or implementing improvement policy.

Performance management: this community is for people who want to share the latest developments on performance management - particularly around more detailed or technical aspects.

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Best Value - best value?

2006-11-27T15:36:00.000Z

It worked, it really worked....
Long-term Evaluation of Best Value: Final report was published last week.

Was it good for you?

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Friday funday: all a-twinkle

2006-11-24T00:00:00.000Z

The lighter side of local government - Christmas light switch-on special

It's not just the season of Advent, it's the advent of the Christmas shopping season. And everyone knows that means Christmas lights turn-on.

Seasonal cheer:

Santa and a councillor will switch on the lights in Bromsgrove.
Spongebob Squarepants flicked the magic switch in Falkirk.
Brave young cancer patient switches on the lights at Barrow in Furness.
Local schoolchildren switch on the lights they designed themselves in Bognor Regis.
Malvern uses "green" lights with low CO2 emissions.

Bah-humbug:

Parish wins a set of Christmas lights - but has no electricity to turn them on.
WORST CHRISTMAS LIGHTS IN BRITAIN?
Council bosses are reported to have only put up one set of christmas lights in Collumpton, Devon, sparking outrage from shoppers. Traders were asked to donate towards the display but refused. A town clerk explained that the council couldn't force people to get involved. (sorry no link)

Personally, I have every sympathy with the council on this one. Why shouldn't seasonal displays be a partnership between the council and local businesses?

One council is still considering the Health and Safety issues of a big switch-on.
Christmas is costly and dangerous in one London borough. Staff have been advised not to put up any Christmas decorations.

One worker said: "We only wanted to get into the spirit and brighten the place up. It feels more like the Eastern Bloc than the East End round here now - except slightly less cheery."

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Restless for improvement

2006-11-23T15:43:00.000Z

Topics: performance management, improvement, City of Westminster Council

On a fairly regular basis, the IDeA brings in external speakers. Invariably these events are always really good, with a fresh take on some aspect of local government or area governance.

Today Peter Rogers, Chief Executive of Westminster, was our speaker and he described his organisation as "restless for improvement". He has a low key, but really engaging speaking style. He covered a lot of really interesting topics, but a couple really stood out for me.

Westminster had a peer review - an "international peer review" involving the then Mayor of Baltimore and now Governor-elect of Maryland.* Peter Rogers has been a peer reviewer himself, but he also said that peer reviews are a great way to reinforce self-awareness.
Westminster undertook several studies -a local area study looking at some of their most deprived areas and a customer needs analysis. They also looked at how much money they had been spending in these areas (apparently it was a lot). They took this information to their partners who worked in the area. Funding was occurring in parallel - so much more effort was placed on defining and sharing outcomes and harnessing funding in train to achieve those outcomes. Local Area Renewal Partnerships have been developed to really help area partners focus on the achievement that needs to be made in 1 year, 3 years and 5 years down the line.
As part of their improvement planning, Westminster mapped all of their services against a matrix of cost versus quality and with their 50 top managers planned how they would achieve improvement in quality and a reduction in cost through increasing efficiency.
Peter Rogers challenged the notion of improving performance indicators across the board in a bid to improve satisfaction. Council-level performance indicators "average the misery" and don't tell you what residents in different areas prioritise. Tackling the things that really matter to different neighbourhoods means that you can see an increase in overall satisfaction, while the council level PI remains the same, and cost possibly goes down.

_____________

*Martin O'Malley had been invited to take part in the peer review particularly for they way Baltimore has been working on policing and quality of life issues through their CitiStat performance management approach. I have blogged about that here.

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Frontline radio

2006-11-21T17:19:00.000Z

Topics: councillors, communication, personal development

Do you know about podcasting? Here's how wikipedia defines it:

A podcast is a multimedia file distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term, as originallycoined by Ben Hammersley in an article in The Guardian February 12, 2004 [1], was meant as a portmanteau of "broadcasting" and "iPod".[2] Like 'radio', it can mean both the content and the method of delivery; the latter may also be termed podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.

Blah, blah, blah. What podcasting really is is an opportunity for people to tell their stories the old fashioned way - orally. But with the added advantage of allowing people to listen to it later, downloading it from the comfort of their own home or office.

Now you can hear "podcasts" by councillors. It's not really, technically a podcast but a "listen later" of the IDeA's new 1 hour radio programme about councillors called Frontline, hosted by the dulcet-toned Pascoe Sawyers. This week's episode includes:

Councillor Sue Adeney from Malvern Hills, who will reveal why she is giving it all up and is about to leave the council
Paul Wheeler, who will argue that more people should stand for election as councillors
Emma Waddingham from the Local Government News, who will discuss the hot topics of the day.

Initially set for a 12 week run, I think this is a fantastic initiative. This is all about helping frontline councillors tell their stories in their own way - sharing ideas and practice.

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Users and community networks

2006-11-17T12:49:00.000Z

Topics: users, community, network, social capital, co-production

There are two really fascinating briefings from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on user partcipation and networks. One focuses on local governance and the other is based around using the knowledge of users (e.g. in health or social services)

The user briefing raised an issue in my mind I hadn't thought about in a while. For some years, there has been a lot of talk about trust and government or trust and professionals. How much do the general public or individuals trust their doctor, their local politician, their social worker, etc. JRF found that:

Service users feel that their knowledge is generally not valued or taken
seriously by professionals, policy-makers and services. The closed culture of
health and social care services and their own inadequate resources restrict
service users' capacity to develop and share their knowledge

But this is really about trust in another direction. How much do professionals trust us to choose the right treatment or package of services? How much are we trusted as a neighbourhood or community to know how we want to run our park or choose the right transport plan. Trust is a two-way street.

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Friday funday

2006-11-17T12:24:00.000Z

The lighter side of local government

Environmental health don't take half measures
Or the wrong content in measures either at Westminster. Westminster City Council's Food Team busted a pub landlady for replacing branded spirits with the cheap stuff.

Councillor Audrey Lewis, Westminster City Council's Cabinet Member for Licensing and Community Protection, said: "When customers order drinks in any licensed premises we expect them to be given what they asked for and not some cheap alternative.

Darn right! I do have to admit to having done this once myself. I filled a Jack Daniels bottle with cheap supermarket bourbon to bolster the liquor table at a party. None of my guests drank it. But a friend of mine (and co-conspirator in the spirit switch) and I did end up drinking the cheap stuff by accident some time later. The next day we both ended up with the hangover of our lives.

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Friday funday

2006-11-10T15:49:00.000Z

Something smells a little fishy

And it's a chippie!

A chip shop owner is being investigated - because of a complaint that his shop
smells of fish and chips, a council said today.

Of course, councils have to investigate such complaints as a spokeswoman for Wakefield Council pointed out. And they had to check that the proper extraction systems were installed and working properly.

She said: "The law states we have to investigate the complaint. "It is certainly not a case that fish and chip shops should not be allowed to smell of fish and chips."

The owner of the chippie was not quite so understanding of the council's requirements to check out the salty, vinegary odour.

Chip shop boss Steve Morton told The Sun newspaper he was shocked to receive a letter from environmental health staff which told him: "We are investigating a smell of fish and chips."

Mr Morton, 42, said the chip shop had been operating for 40 years without a problem. He said: "You'd think they'd twig that a fish and chip shop smells of fish and chips. It's absolutely crazy."

When we first came across this story in the office a colleague asked "What else would a fish and chip shop smell like?"

"I dunno," I said "Saveloy?"

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PM Partner update

2006-11-09T15:11:00.000Z

I think I've edited almost every page on the PM Partner site. This is in response to feedback about the site - basically we want to make it easier to navigate. There are now a lot more links between pages with related content.

What do you think of the White Paper? I've added a new topic to the policy discussion page. I've also added a link a new Audit Commission paper on partnerships, schools and better outcomes for children on the Children and Young People page.

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Abuzz about the White Paper

2006-11-07T18:01:00.000Z

Topics: round up of responses to and opinions on the Local Government White Paper Strong and Prosperous Communities.

Here's a link towhat the LGA and IDeA have said. The LGA response (link to a pdf file) is also a really good summary of what's in the White Paper.

The links below certainly do NOT necessarily reflect the views of the IDeA (my employer)- or even me personally! I just rounded up published responses as I found them.

Council associations:

London Councils - they broadly welcome, but wish there'd been a bit more talk about finance.
Association of North East Councils - welcomed the White Paper, and quite glad it was launched in the North East

Local government in the North East is at the heart of place-shaping, which is about taking responsibility for the economic, social and environmental well-being of citizens and communities. These are the key themes we have committed to in our recently launched 2006/07 Manifesto, which have real resonance with Government thinking, as set out in the White Paper.

Westminster says White Paper recommendations should go further and faster for excellent councils like us.

‘Whilst we warmly welcome these new proposals as the first step, we want the government to go further and faster to give local councils the powers to make a real difference to people's lives. Further powers should also be granted to those excellent Local Authorities, such as Westminster Council, who are efficiently managing their resources and delivering best value public services.

Opposition parties

The Conservative Party: Caroline Spelman, Shadow Local Government Secretary started out with some praise:

"Let me begin on a note of consensus. I entirely agree with the Rt Hon Lady when she said this morning 'local government is in much better shape since 1997'.

...but then...

The reason, of course, is that the Conservative Party is now the largest party of local government, and the Labour councillor is now an endangered species.

She also questioned the timing (why now ahead of Lyons and Barker reviews) and where the real devolution from central to local was to be found.

The Liberal Democrats

Ming Campbell thinks it's a mess:

Until we know what the proposals are going to be for the financing of local government, it seems to be pretty remarkable to discuss the powers of local government because the two - powers and finance - are inextricably linked.

"It's a mess, frankly, and Ruth Kelly, I think, has rushed ahead with this document. She should have waited until we get the Lyons report in January, then we could have had a comprehensive discussion about local government, not least because of the fact that so many people in this country feel entirely disconnected from local government.

And Andrew Stunnell, LibDem shadow Local Goverment minister doesn't think much of it either

"...it was a wasted opportunity and it does not address key issues of
local democracy and accountability."

Think tanks

Involve - a think tank supporting citizen engagement says

At long last Ruth Kelly has launched the much-anticipated Local Government
White Paper: 'Strong and prosperous communities'. After months of speculation as
to exactly what it would contain the final version does not feel like it lives
up to the hype surrounding it.

The Local Government Information Unit was broadly supportive but summed it up as:

“This is a small step towards stronger local democracy that has been presented as a giant leap."

There is point by point commentary here. This being probably the most biting criticism:

“The White Paper fails to provide a constitutional position for local government, as called for by the Lyons Inquiry, and to really commit government to subsidiarity and their obligations under the European Charter of Local Self Government. The words double devolution have gone because there is such limited devolution from Whitehall to Town Hall.”

The Adam Smith Institue appears to have published their response on the basis of the press release and not the official document. On ASI blog, the denounce centralism and say that real localism is about local financial control. They are not optimistic about the details of the white paper:

it is unlikely that Ruth Kelly will endorse any such vision. Centralism will prevail, and along with it, apathy and poor service in local government.

Unions and trade bodies

Unison likes the stronger role for local communities - but is concerned about an environment of cutbacks and pension reductions - and:

no matter how much the Government wills it, you won’t get successful changeunless you bring the workforce with you

The Confederation of British Industry says:

"We welcome the focus on efficiency, user engagement and greater use of
competition in delivering improved services."

But they were less keen on potentially expensive neighbourhood governing bodies.

What the bloggers say:

Rob Hopcott says: Democratic Flaws in New vision for UK Local Government unveiled in White Paper

Ordinary people who have tried to debate local issues sensibly with local councillors and have been confronted by a wall of uncommunicative silence and obfuscation may well question whether genuine benefits will be achieved. They may even hold their heads in their hands and wonder which planet the authors of the White Paper are on.

From the blog Stumbling and Mumbling:

There's much to be said for Ruth Kelly's proposals to reform local government; more decentralization and greater accountability. However, in emphasizing the need for "strong leadership" Ruth is merely betraying New Labour's faith that leadership is always the solution.

And it goes on to compare localism with managing a football team. Me, I love a good sports analogy. Political punditry is a game of more than two halves.

Free Think - a Liberal Democrat blog - didn't think much of the White Paper.

Considering the many ideas that have been floated around for so long (see our Local Heroes debate) people should be more angry by the half-baked proposals here. Local Government needs a radical make-over. With its further proposals for stronger (and longer lasting) council leaders - what is presented here is more a completion of the reforms Labour proposed in 2000.

And also wondered why the White Paper was low on finance details (i.e. why not wait until Lyons findings?)

Looking for a Voice thought it was a "sham".

Real Local Government and real local decisions will only be made with the
benefit of local taxation, if central government is still the tax collector and
not devolving the setting and collecting to local government, this is still more
government, not less.

About Whose News has an interesting post which compares British and French local government systems.

In contrast to France’s structured system, the British one is a shambolic muddle. A typical fudge some would say.

The blogger appears to lament that most services are centralised enough - and local things (like traffic calming and flower displays) aren't local enough in the UK.

Another LibDem blogger is critical (LibDem Voice)

The Government’s new proposals for local government sound like decentralisation. Councils will get the power to create their own by-laws, and public services will get more scrutiny from the public.

But on closer inspection, it’s the sort of decentralisation one would expect from Labour. Without a reform of local government finance, Westminster still plays the tune as it pays the piper. The by-laws are spun as a new way to fine people for anti-social behaviour, as if Labour haven’t realised that enacting more and more laws is not as effective a way to curb crime as better policing of the laws we have.

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Partnership quick hits

2006-11-07T17:42:00.000Z

Topics: partnerships, crime, business, private sector, parish councils

Links to partnership news and examples

Innovation through partnership
Read about the liveability fund pilots and the successful work with neighbourhoods and communities on IDeA Knowledge

Together we can fight crime

Rising re-offending rates can only be brought under control with the support of local councils and their partners warned the Coalition on Social and Criminal Justice today. The coalition’s report, "Neighbourhood by neighbourhood: local action to reduce re-offending", says local organisations with local knowledge are best placed to work with the prison and probation services to help ex-offenders stay on the straight and narrow.

News from the Local Government Association

Parish pride in partnerships
Award-winning Staffordshire Connects partnership is honouring the role that parishes play in partnership, too.

Private and public sector crime fighting in partnership
An innovative partnership for sharing data and information between public agencies and business.

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Friday funday

2006-11-03T13:50:00.000Z

The lighter side of local public services

Put it right out
I've fairly recently quit smoking (just over a month ago) and I debated blogging about it here. Would making a public announcement make it easier to quit - or would I be a hostage to fortune? Well one councillor has made his decision pretty clear. As Nottinghamshire County Council declared a county wide smoking ban (including outdoors in country parks!), Councillor Chris Baron has press released his own smoking cessation. And he's going to blog about it on the council's intranet, too. Good for you Chris - and best of luck!

I can't imagine any better publicity
Ambulance trust warning over new horror movie

If you ever, ever doubted the importance of the trading standards team
Dodgy goods uncovered in London

This race is a dead heat
If you haven't heard - the Midterm elections are on in the US and will take place Tuesday November 7th. In these elections, Americans vote for Congressmen (members of the House of Representatives) who are elected whole-body every two years and in some states for Senator - they are elected by thirds every two years to six year terms. And to avoid wasting a ballot or opening a polling station on more than one day, many Americans are also voting in local elections, too -either in the general election next Tuesday or in the primaries which are held between March and October depending on the state.

Despite some high-profile races in the past, most US elections are straightforward, first past the post type deals. But one school board member (a county-wide rather than school-based post) won her race in a highly unusual way.

Katherine Dunton, who died of cancer on October 3, the day of the local election, was re-elected to the Aleutian Region School District board after her opponent, Dona Highstone, called "heads" on a coin toss that landed "tails," state and local officials said.

Lest you think this is the usual way....

"This is the first that I have ever heard about, not only in our state but in any other," said Whitney Brewster, director of the Alaska Division of Elections.

Democracy finds a way
Hawaiian Islanders whose trips to the poll were threatened by bad roads and an earthquake damaged road will have their ballots delivered to them by helicopter.

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The time for outcomes?

2006-11-02T11:14:00.000Z

It's all about outcomes - identifying, prioritising and monitoring them. We have been talking about 'how to' for some time. In local government, the debate has been given extra impetus by last week's White Paper proposal that the plethora of centrally set local government targets will be reduced to 200, from which each area will prioritise 30 or so. But we all know how difficult it is to translate the 'outcomes' policy debate into something that works on the ground.

Yesterday I went to the Making The Difference Locally symposium run by IDeA, DfES and CfBT (what is the collective noun for acronyms - a 'jargon'?). In essence, the session was a chance for the audience to hear Mark Friedman talk about his approach to results based accountability. Friedman's is a step-by-step approach to getting from talk to action:

Establish the result we want - e.g. children enter school healthy and ready to learn
Identify the key indicators that will tell us how we are doing
Establish the baselines for these indicators - baselines covering historical performance, where we are now and alternative future trends
Tell the story behind the baselines - the causes and forces at work
Identify/work with the partners who have a role to play
Work with partners to identify what works in getting us to where we want to go - to 'turn the curve'
Plan for action and budget

'So far, so what?' you might ask. Don't we know this already? And there is a lot in Friedman's theory that could be seen as emperor's new clothes. But to see this method as just another approach to performance management is limiting.

Where results based accountability works for me, where it has the potential to make a real difference, is that it could provide a simple - but not simplistic - approach to driving change across a local area. It has to engage all relevant partners/citizens/service users in priortising what we want for our community and it does force an appraisal of where we are and how we got here. It is genuinely collaborative and could, I imagine, bring to the surface some of the hidden issues we often don't discuss because they are just too difficult. Liz Railton, Director of Learning Services at Essex County Council, talked yesterday about "getting the data out there" to confront local stakeholders with the reality of current performance - to force difficult discussion. I'm not so convinced by Friedman's claims about what can be achieved in an hour-long session, but my scepticism about this doesn't detract from the potential benefit of the approach overall.

For me, the heart of public services policy debate at the moment is implementation and translation into practice rather than policy ideas themselves and Friedman provides us with a potentially powerful tool for clearing some of the blockages to LAA discussions, neighbourhood working, co-production/service design and other local strategic challenges. It might only be one tool in the toolbox but it's worth exploring how far we could go with this method for connecting people who are up against similar challenges.

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I am not your maid

2006-11-01T15:06:00.000Z

Topics: co-production, communications, littering, user and citizen responsibility, environment

Some years back, I was enjoying lunch with some colleagues outside. We were sitting on the grass on what must have been the first warm, dry day in a while. The wind kicked up and my sandwich wrapper blew away. It tumbled over the grass.

I spent a little while chasing that wrapper. You know, cartoon-style, almost reaching it and then it blowing a little further on - and me chasing it again. Eventually it blew into the road - and while I hate litter, I do have a healthy fear of traffic. I gave up - vowing internally to pick up another piece of rubbish in recompense.

A casual passer-by had watched the whole episode and said to me "I don't know why you bothered, you'd just be doing a council worker out of a job."

Those of us who work in the public sector know it doesn't quite work like that. There are lots of other things that council workers could be doing with their time other than picking up after me or anyone else. But it is astounding how many people casually litter.

Perhaps when you were a kid your parents may have said "I'm not your servant," or "I'm going to stop picking up your mess and soon enough you'll see what a sty we'd be living in." Well, mine did anyway. Some councils are saying the same thing now. "We're going to stop picking up after you for a while - and let's see how the filth mounts up."

It's a publicity stunt, but a worthy one. It shows local residents how much the council does normally, but also shows how we all have a responsibility to help keep our environment clean and tidy. The Local Government Association is encouraging councils to consider stopping street cleansing for a day or so.

Commenting on the idea, Cllr Paul Bettison, Chairman of the LGA Environment Board, said:“Using ‘shock tactics’ like stopping street cleaning services for 24 hours is an effective way of making people face up to how much litter is dropped on our streets every day.“Any council choosing to introduce a suspension in street cleaning services would hope to make people think twice about dropping their litter in the future. “The action would also demonstrate to people that their rubbish doesn’t magically disappear but that a hard working council street cleaner removes and disposes of their litter. Councils strive to keep where you live clean and tidy but if every single person did their bit to keep the local area litter free then tax payers would get an even better deal.”

Of course, it's not as easy all that. You have to tell people what you're doing and why you're doing it. You need to back it up with an effective message encouraging people to look after their own environment by not littering. From my youth in America, I will never forget anti-littering messages that played on both pride in the American landscape:

and negative regional stereotypes:

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PM Partner update

2006-10-31T17:21:00.000Z

Update from the PM Partner project

The big news, of course, in the last week is the publication of the Local Government White Paper. I've provided links here though I'm sure you've already downloaded a copy. Also on the News page - I've provided some links to LAA and LSP publications that were released the same day.

New comments have been added on the Adding Value page - outlining some of the danger zones in working together. New links and new information have also been added on the Acronyms and Abbreviations page and the Data page.

We really need more feedback to the online survey (Click here to take survey ) So far it's largely been positive - but there were some negative ratings on being able to find things on the website. And we're going to try to do something about it. So please, please do take the time to fill out the survey - it doesn't take long! Promise. And it can really help shape this and other future projects.

Adrian Barker and I also had a chat with someone today who is potentially interested in using the PM Partner site for some very exciting partnership developments. If this pans out - I'll update more later.

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Transforming public services

2006-10-27T16:56:00.000+01:00

Topics: improvement, collaborating, web 2.0, blogs, wikis

Will new technology support transformational change in the public sector? I don't know, but I do think that it will change the way that we work - and that some of that will definitely be for the better.

My personal experience of using the collaborative website PM Partner - a wiki - and this blog has been really positive. It has really helped me to organise my thoughts, my notes and the things I read in a more constructive way.

Demos is looking at whether new technology - sometimes described as the Web 2.0 approach - will be supporting transformational change in the public sector. And they're doing it in a Web 2.0 kinda way. Simon Parker writes:

Ever wanted to help write a Demos report? Me and Niamh are editing a collection called The Collaborative State, which is full of references to how blogs and wikis are going to transform the way the public sector works. So we thought we'd see if they can also transform the way we work. Click here to be transported to our new project wiki, where we'll publish some of the essays and case studies over the next few months.

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Friday funday: twinned

2006-10-27T15:37:00.000+01:00

The lighter side of local government

Destination Timbuktu

What do you know about Timbuktu? Thirty-four per cent of people think it's a mythical place. And several towns in Wales want to twin with it.

Cardiff, Aberystwyth and Hay-on-Wye have all been nominated as potential partners for the city in the West African country of Mali.

Photographer Stuart Redler started the search for a new UK twin with Timbuktu after visiting the city. He said:

"I thought it would be fun to have a sign on the outside of your town saying 'Twinned with Timbuktu' and if it prompts people to go there that would be great. Everything you hear about Africa is so negative but Timbuktu is such a great place. It would be nice for people to be able to go there rather than Germany or France or somewhere like that."

But your name's on all our road signs

Does Manteo sound like a real place? Well, it is - but unfortunately it's the twin that Bideford forgot according to the Mail on Sunday.

Residents of Manteo, in the state of North Carolina, insisted they have been twinned with the North Devon town for two decades.
But a search of Bideford town hall archives has not revealed a single record of the arrangement. Manteo resident David Riley, who presented Devon officials with a commemorative clock from his town has now returned home to investigate the mix-up.
Bideford town clerk George McLauchlan said yesterday: "He seemed like a nice guy and gave me a clock. It was a very nice clock. He said he was very proud to be twinned with us and offered a sincere thanks on behalf of the town's population for representing them in the UK."
"I said thank you but had to let him down gently. It seemed even more cruel not to."
He added: "He seemed a little puzzled and said our name was on all their road signs."

Photo by Luis Lebron.

Manteo is on historic Roanoke Island on North Carolina's Outer Banks. I used to holiday in that area as a child. It's truly beautiful, lovely beaches and welcoming hospitality. You could do worse for a twin.

Twin registry

Curious about who your town is twinned with? Look no further than the Local Government International Bureau (LGIB) registry of twinning. Or find out more about the benefits of twindom.

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And in other partnership news

2006-10-27T10:43:00.000+01:00

Yes the local government white paper came out yesterday - and there's loads of stuff on partnership and partnership performance. But there were a couple of other partnership related items that also came out yesterday. In particular:

Local Strategic Partnerships: Shaping their future - an analysis of responses
This report outlines the findings of the questionnaire included in the Local Strategic Partnerships: Shaping their future consultation document. The analysis was conducted by Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute for Communities and Local Government.

Local Area Agreements Research: Round 2 negotiations and early progress in Round 1 (link to a pdf file)
This report explores the negotiation of second round local area agreements and early progress in implementing first round agreements. Research was carried out in 12 of the 21 pilots, six of the 66 round two areas, each of the nine regional government offices and across central government departments

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Local Government White Paper

2006-10-26T18:08:00.000+01:00

It's out and on the Department for Communities and Local Government website. More later. (posted at noon 26 October)

UPDATE: The Local Government Association has issued its response (link to a pdf file). It's useful not only to get the official LGA line on the White Paper, but also because it's a pretty handy summary of the 236 pages of government policy. See also the LGA's White Paper website.

Further update (30 October 2006): See what the IDeA is doing around White Paper themes.

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PM Partner update

2006-10-24T17:00:00.000+01:00

The PM Partner update - a collaborative website about better performing partnerships

More comments on the help please page - and it's probably worth taking another look at the Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue upload on that page. They would like comments on their partnership working framework by the end of this month.

Also further additions to the acronyms and abbreviations page. Also I've added links to the Assessing your partnership resource, the CDRP and case studies pages.

In the News section- Chris Calvert from The Wildlife Trusts provides a fun link to a game they developed to help people think about sustainable development and urban green spaces.

If you haven't received an email about taking a survey about this website - please tell us what you think about PM Partner Click here to take survey

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New on Knowledge: transformational partnerships

2006-10-24T16:56:00.000+01:00

New on IDeA Knowledge

Transforming the delivery of services through partnerships: learning activities

The 'Transforming the delivery of services through partnerships' theme highlights how the beacons have developed partnerships to deliver more effective services. Each of the seven services is different, as is each of the partnerships but the net effect is a better and more cost effective service.

Each beacon council will be hosting open days. These will give you an insight into why they got beacon status and how you can learn from them. Open days and events scheduled so far are:

Anglia Revenues Partnerships open day (1 Nov)
London Borough of Sutton open day ( 9 Nov)
Bristol City Council open day (14 Nov)
Pendle Borough Council open day (22 Nov)
London Borough of Southwark open day (28 Feb 2007)

Book your place online

*******
A "reprint" of a Times article by our very own Andrew Cozens on how PCT and local government are working together to improve public health.

Local Government is rediscovering its responsibilities for public health

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Partnership news - quick hits

2006-10-24T11:49:00.000+01:00

Topics: partnerships, parish councils, shared services partnerships, customer service, children, adoption

Parish councils and partnerships
Lewes District Council and the Sussex Association of Local Councils met to support partnership working on their shared objectives.

Councillor Elizabeth Lee, Lewes District Council Lead Member for the Community, said: “The Conference was fundamental in providing a sound basis for future co-operation. Its success is a tribute to the delegates’ commitment to working closely and to making partnerships have an impact on the wellbeing of our local communities."

Staffordshire connects
The Staffordshire Connects partnership held its Beacon Open Day this month and brought together practitioners from around the country. A highlight of the event was a film designed to:

...showcase how it had made capital savings of £1.8m by investing in systems together and was saving more than £400,000 a year by maintaining and developing those systems jointly. The DVD also revealed that annual efficiency savings of more than £750,000 were expected to arise across the partnership, once its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system had been fully implemented – enabling 80 per cent of customer enquiries to be dealt with at first time of asking

The partnership is made up with the 10 councils in Staffordshire and has its own website. The site includes partnership papers (e.g. business case, communication protocols) for anyone interested in how they've done it.

You can also find out more about the IDeA Beacon scheme here.

Adopting best practice

Three neighbouring Councils have worked together to launch a new website to attract more people willing to adopt children. Partners in Adoption, the adoption consortium for the London Borough of Havering, Thurrock and Southend Councils, have launched a new website at www.partners-in-adoption.co.uk

The site looks pretty good - and has absolutely loads of information about the adoption process in easy to understand language.

In support to the site, Partners in Adoption will be hosting an Adoption Open Evening to be held at the Orsett Hall Hotel from 6.30pm on Wednesday 25 October. Anyone interested in adoption is invited to attend.

The website isn't fully populated yet, but has a place for adoption stories. That could be a really powerful way of showing prospective parents what adoption is about. Here's a US site that features adoption stories - as well as profiles of children wanting to be adopted (something I'm not sure would happen in the UK).

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e-democracy goes international

2006-10-20T12:00:00.000+01:00

Mary Reid, the Mayor of Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames - has posted about a new centre of excellence for local e-democracy in her blog.

ICELE launched at last!

The International Centre of Excellence for Local e-Democracy (ICELE) was officially launched this week.

One of the great things about internet technology is that we really can pick up on best practice at the furthest distance without additional cost or delay.

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Friday funday

2006-10-20T11:41:00.000+01:00

The lighter side of local government

Boo!
The first place I ever lived in England was Sheffield. I arrived there almost exactly ten years ago (I don't remember the exact date but it was October). Back then there was very little in the way of Halloween celebrations, which was kinda sad for me because it's probably my favourite holiday. I didn't know about the local customs of Bonfire Night and "penny for the guy" - and I thought that all the children, lying on bundles of rags on the pavement, begging for pennies were actually beggars. There seemed to be a kid on every street corner - or more - competing for begging space, and I was pretty shocked about the level of child poverty in Sheffield. When I expressed my concerns, my then fiance (now husband) - a Brit - near about laughed his head off at my expense.

How times have changed. Sheffield City Council is embracing the Halloween fun with a pumpkin patch and a Fright Night in front of Town Hall and in the nearby Winter Gardens. The money raised from the pumpkin patch will go to the Lord Mayor's charities - some pretty worthy causes. This is the fourth year of Halloween fun and is apparently Britain's biggest Halloween fun.

Last year this monster event celebrating things that go bump in the night attracted more than 28,000 revellers, many kitted out in spooky fancy dress. This year’s event promises to be bigger then ever before with even more chills and thrills, plus a number of spooky surprises to watch out for! The fiendish fun will take place at locations across the City Centre with loads of ghostly goings on including: a fiendish funfair, macabre street theatre, fancy dress catwalk, fire-spinning, and market stalls

And I don't care what anyone says about Americanisation - Halloween is a fun holiday and anyone who turns their nose up at good fun is a glummery old fuss-budget who will be turned into a pumpkin at midnight.

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Partnership and performance policy

2006-10-19T16:12:00.000+01:00

Topics: partnerships, performance management, targets, PSAs, LAAs, policy

Phil Woolas gave an interesting speech about local government and partnership policy the other day. Not a departure, or even a shifting of emphasis - but it does underscore the Government's committment to partnership working and the idea of double devolution

...we put in place a pretty heavy-handed top-down performance regime. Local government responded and began to improve its performance in many ways - not least in delivering better quality services and in managing its performance.
...
now we need to move on, to a new devolutionary era. In this era, the focus is on place - not on individual players and providers. It is on the positive difference you are making for your area - not on the detail of how you and your partners might be doing it.
Local government must be the place shaper and place maker. That means working across the whole landscape, not just being confined to silos of service delivery or particular spheres of influence.

He then goes on to describe some interesting practice in Local Area Agreements (LAAs) and other ways of pooling budgets and working together.

------

Over at the Treasury, Ed Balls has made some pronouncements about a leaner, meaner system of targets. In its own way, it's quite an interesting speech.

In 1998 we set over 600 performance targets for departments - our first attempt systematically to articulate the Government’s goals. And, not surprisingly for a first attempt, we did not get it all right

What he says they didn't get right was not enough consultation with front line staff and too much emphasis on inputs and processes. Result: micro-management from the centre. But they've learned from all that.

We also learnt the importance of a relentless focus on delivery. Setting a target is not an end in itself.

They're also promising more emphasis on outcomes, greater attempts at joint-working and boundary crossing, a process of target setting that will involve those who actually manage and do the delivery, and a much, much greater emphasis on customer and citizen satisfaction.

But these are PSAs (public service agreements) that affect all of Whitehall - how will this trickle down to local government?

Ruth Kelly will soon publish the Local Government White Paper, which touches on many of these important issues in relation to local services. So we have been working very closely with colleagues in DCLG and across government to ensure our approach fits with and complements the proposals she will outline on local performance management.

--------

As I said, I don't think any of this is a big surprise. The Government has been signalling this way for a while. But I still think it will be a really big challenge (or maybe opportunity) when local government and its partners really are held jointly accountable for area outcomes - and there are no process rules to either bind or blame.

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The user experience

2006-10-18T18:02:00.000+01:00

Topics: mental health, social services, substance abuse, customer experience, users

I noticed a couple of interesting articles in the Society Guardian today on the user voice. In fact today's edition is all about the users of mental health services some of whom formed Society Guardian's editorial board this week.

One interesting article was about the user experience in the blogosphere. That is blogs from the perspectives of users. I blogged a little while ago about the power of stories - well, "user blogs" might be about the power of a chronicle and a place where others to go to know that they are not alone in their experiences.

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Where you can get to if you really listen to customers

2006-10-18T13:40:00.000+01:00

Listening to 'customers' isn't new but it's nice to see good examples of it working well, and I liked this article in today's Guardian by Simon Fanshawe. The whole thing was good, but it was the final bit that made me laugh out loud - for joy as much as comedy. This is a hospital which has been built round the needs of, and by listening to, the children who will use it. I would just love to have seen the contracting process.

Everything has been focused on the children. And for all the clinical success, perhaps one of the best moments you'll ever see there is the window cleaning. With the atrium, they have a lot of glass, so McGuire has put into the contract that the window cleaners have to dress as superheroes. "If anyone tells me that I am silly for wanting Superman to clean the windows, I really don't care. You should see the kids' faces."

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Friday funday

2006-10-13T12:11:00.000+01:00

The lighter side of local government

Public Private Partnership?

In Alamosa, Colorado the town council raised funds by auctioning off the rights to paint the fire hydrants. Flickr user Zelda Go Wild has documented some of them in a Flickr photo set.

I've been to Alamosa - and it's not a place I particularly wanted to visit. My car broke down when visiting the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve (breathtaking, by the way) and we had to get it fixed in Alamosa. Folks there were pretty friendly though and the town's views are spectacular across a wild and windswept landscape. (Via SLV Dweller)

Reputation management or do they wear shoes?

Yesterday I attended a talk on the Local Government Association's Reputation Project. It's all good, sensible stuff - and another way that local government is supporting itself in improvement (though perhaps they could take a bit more advantage of Web 2.0 concepts though there was an acknowledgement of the power of good story-telling).

It struck me as funny that the same week I heard that talk - I read this story about reputation management in Louisville, Kentucky. They're not just trying to change the image of the city government, but of the whole city.

People familiar with the metro area see it as a large, fast-paced city that has become a hot spot for business and recreation, said Matt Schulte, president of the brand research and strategy group Horizon InSight, a division of Louisville’s Horizon Research International.

The problem is that 89 percent of outsiders say they don’t really know enough about Louisville to form a realistic view, he said, so they automatically envision pictures of the “Old South” and ask questions such as, “Do they wear shoes?”

...snip...
To replace stereotypes, the region must put forward a more positive, urban view, but it “needs to be grounded in reality,” Schulte said. “We’re not going to be the next New York or Las Vegas.”

Hmm. Now, I come from the South - so I understand this - but I have to wonder how succesful they're going to be when Southerners do love to cling to some of their more iconoclastic traditions. For example, electing a dog named Goofy as mayor in the picturesque town of Rabbit Hash - not too many miles up the road from bustling, metropolitan Louisville. And I also wonder when I see the city government's list of 16 reasons to love Louisville that includes both some really cool attractions (the waterfront development, Mohammed Ali Center, the Kentucky Derby) as well as some things that might only be of interest to the local government anoraks - such as the combined city and county governance structure.

(Both stories via Governing's blog)

Now that's long service

Jack Chase may be the UK's longest serving and oldest parish councillor. He's just turned 100 and he's served almost 80 years on the parish council.

Mr Chase says his biggest achievement was overseeing the start of work on the
village's sea wall in the 1930s

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PM Partner update

2006-10-13T11:03:00.000+01:00

PM Partner update

I'm still going to do some round-ups from the PM Partner site, even though we've finished the programme of topics. So long as people are still using the site, it's worth rounding up contributions.

Check out new request on the "Help Please" page. Breaking up is hard to do, but what's the best way to end a partnership sensitively and tactfully. I'm not aware off the top of my head of any specific guidance (other than having a clearly stated purpose at the beginning which can help make it more clear when the partnership is over).

New links have been added on the LSP page, providing pointers to other useful resources. And Adrian continues to add to the list of acronyms and abbreviations.

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Hello lurkers

2006-10-12T11:00:00.000+01:00

Topics: online communities, blogging, engagement, PM Partner

David Wilcox posts on participation rates in online communities -

There have been a number of articles referencing Jakob Nielson's recent
Alertbox on Participation Inequality: Lurkers vs. Contributors in Internet Communities. (TalkDigger digs up 50-odd references.) He sites a familiar ratio of readers to contributors to participants:

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

At the beginning of the PM Partner project, I think I boasted optimistically that we would beat that ratio. I don't think we have. I'm currently developing an online survey for our community participants to assess what kind of participation ratio we had on PM Partner over the last couple of months.

In one sense, the participation rate over a couple month period is probably not that important. If we've built up a good resource that people can use and add to as needed - then we've achieved a lot. If we've made the beginnings of facilitating a community who can support each other as they face challenges in partnerships and performance.

David argues that this "participation inequality" is neither good nor bad. It just is. Some people are natually a little more comfortable with the format and the communication itself.

Neilsen thinks there are some disadvantages (listed in this post) and he also includes some ways to overcome "participation inequality".

I think one disadvantage to particpation inequality - particularly for people such as myself who work on the public pound - is that it can be quite difficult to convince that others that our work has value when only a few people are "participating". (And this is also part of the reason that I'll be conducting a survey - to really test the value of what we've done so far and the approach).

The IDeA is starting to go down the road of more collaborative approaches and online communities of practice - and the concept of participation inequality is one that we're aware of and live with. How we deal with exactly is an approach we'll probably develop over time.

You can check out the new IDeA Communities of Practice platform here at

www.communities.idea.gov.uk

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Partnership quick hits

2006-10-11T13:39:00.000+01:00

Topics: education, partnerships, procurement, shared services, community engagement

A round-up of noteworthy links on partnerships

Southwark Schools Learning Partnership gets Ministerial praise from Alan Johnson
Cornwall sponsors an Oscar-style ceremony of prime partnership progress

Cornwall’s outstanding success in bringing people and groups together to improve the quality of life in the county will be celebrated at this year’s Cornwall Partnership Awards ceremony at the Atlantic Hotel in Newquay on Wednesday, October 11th.
The county’s Partnership “Oscars” ceremony, ... highlights partnerships which have brought Cornwall’s people together, provided leadership, helped others or enabled people to help themselves.

Adur and Worthing councils take steps to have one workforce to promote better, more efficient services to their residents.
Portsmouth gets ministerial praise for its community involvement. Much of this through partnership.
Shared services partnership between Northumberland and Durham could save both a packet.

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novel collaboration

2006-10-10T17:56:00.000+01:00

In my prevous post, I mentioned the IDeA publication The Man in the Caravan. Charles Leadbeater wrote it.

He's working on something else really cool, now. A book on collaboration, and he's taking a collaborative approach.

As I was researching and writing We-think over the past eighteen months and more, it became increasingly evident that I could not write a book about collaborative creativity in a traditional way. My argument is that creativity is invariably collaborative and that opportunities for largely self-organising creative collaboration are going up the whole time. Seems odd then not to apply that thinking to the book itself.

You can check out We-think here. This is a great idea, but it is a halfway between a traditional non-fiction book and a real collaborative project. And the comments I read so far were kinda negative because of that. But that's part of what you have to go through in the process of collaboration! (sometimes).

Via David Wilcox's Designing for a Civil Society.

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The power of stories

2006-10-10T17:41:00.000+01:00

Topics: best practice, policy, evidence-based policy, CVS

Last week I blogged about a workshop/seminar I attended at the NCVO on social networking. It was a great event - but Steve Bridger who was also there just posted about it and covered an aspect I hadn't mentioned. And that's the web as increasing accountability, but also as a way to get your point across.

We can all agree, I think, that the web has empowered individuals and invited more scrutiny into the work of organisations.
Charities are not immune from this evolution but they do have a secret weapon: compelling stories.

Some fifteen years ago, I frequently travelled around the UK for Oxfam talking to often quite large groups of the charity’s dedicated supporters about ‘third world debt’ and ’structural adjustment’. Inevitably, I weaved in human stories from the ‘field’ to help illustrate the impact of these reforms on those living in poverty, the intended beneficiaries of Oxfam’s projects.

Intrinsic to good storytelling is the conversation that it generates. Dialogue always (or nearly always!) followed my ‘debt’ workshops.

Blogs and social media provide the best tool set yet to continue the conversation.

I don't think that it's just charities or community organisations that can use compelling stories. No, I think local government can and must do so, too. At the IDeA, one of our most powerful publications has been The Man in the Caravan, which isn't a bunch of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo but instead is real stories about real people and how changing what we do in local government has made a real and positive difference in their lives.

This change story advocacy is important for a variety of reasons.

It shares good practice among practioners in a human and understandable way
It demonstrates to Government the importance of empowered local government
It shows users and citizens what is possible in their locality - they can use this as a way to access or request services or as a way to hold their local council accountable if services are delivered in the same old, untailored, inefficient way.

In my work, I'd love to have more of these stories, but they are notoriously difficult to gather and sometimes to articulate. And I agree with Steve Bridger on this 100% (so I'll quote him again).

Blogs and social media provide the best tool set yet to continue the conversation.

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PM Partner update

2006-10-06T17:08:00.000+01:00

Update from the PM Partner project

6 October
Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue have added their draft partnership framework here and looking for comments before the end of October. This would be a great place to share your views and comments on drafts. I hope you'll help them out.

I've added a new resource to the Voluntary and Community Sector page on navigating public sector procurement requirements. There are new comments on the adding value page - are you really adding value if you get a warm glow from doing things together that you would have done separately?

5 October
New resources have been added to the Project and Programme management page - in particular - a cut down version of Prince 2 which can be used for partnership projects. There's also more on the future of PM Partner page.

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Networking and volunteering

2006-10-06T14:10:00.000+01:00

Topics: CVS, third sector, blogging, social networking

I attended a roundtable yesterday at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations on the Community and Voluntary Sectors and ICT supported social networking. Whew...that's a bit of a mouthful. Basically, it's about how IT can help charities get more from their existing relationships between supporters, staff and recipients or create new relationships.

It was great to meet other people - like David Wilcox, whose blog I was familiar with already. And I met other bloggers too, like Nick Booth and Steve Bridger and Molly Webb from Demos. We were all there because we're committed to using new communications tools - like blogs and wikis to support greater interaction, communication and collaboration. Very few of us are really all that technical (I'm certainly not), but we all see these tools as a big opportunity to work in a more open, social and accountable way. And there were a lot of other people there all doing some really interesting work. David Wilcox has started a community site for us to share some of our thoughts in this area at www.mediablends.net

It's part of a project called ICT Foresight and there's alreading some interesting findings - including a publication called campaign and consultation: in the age of participatory media. Although about the voluntary sector, there are some interesting statistics about how much new media tools are used already. There are some case studies which highlight how organisations can engage with users - not just for consultation but for education campaigns and maybe even decision-making. We're not there yet, but these are the signs of participative democracy and co-production online.

online volunteering
As part of the day we also attend and Economic and Social Research Council sponsored seminar on 'ICT, Social Capital and Voluntary Action'. Jayne Craven gave a really interesting presentation on online volunteering (and has some great resources online, too). It really opened my eyes to the way that we need to promote online social networking between public sector professionals. We need to treat online collaboration the same way that we treat participation in benchmarking, speaking at conferences, etc - the things we're aready doing to share information with either altruistic goals in mind or as some kind of way of improving our own professional karma.

In essence, that's what community of practices (like that for Partnerships and Performance Management - PM Partner) are supposed to do. They're a way to share learning with a wider community. But they don't yet have the cache of speaking at a conference. I'm sure that my online activities have helped to share more information about performance management than my conference speaking has - but I'm not sure how much recognition there is for that.

_____

BTW- here's David Wilcox's take on yesterday's events on his mediablends blog and Molly Webb's, too.

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Let me entertain you

2006-10-04T17:33:00.000+01:00

I spent the whole of yesterday speaking - it seemed like. First I spent a while speaking to a contingent of Japanese district council employees from the precinct of Fukuoka. They wanted to know all about Best Value. I don't speak to foreign delegations that often, but perhaps 3 or 4 times a year. They're never quite the same and it's usually what they want to know is different than what they've implied in their email request. Most people say they want to know about Best Value - but then it turns out they really want to know about CPA or Local Area Agreements - or maybe something else entirely. So what I do is take along a slide pack with around 30 or 40 slides covering a whole range of improvement initiatives. I then spend part of the time asking what people would really like to hear about.

But the good people from Fukuoka really did want to know about Best Value - and I did my best to answer their 20 questions (quite literally - they were on a piece of paper - in Japanese). For example "which services have improved the most through Best Value?" Answers on a postcard please.

---

After that I spent the evening at the London Borough of __________, talking with councillors (scrutiny councillors in particular) about their role in performance management. Like a number of London boroughs, _______ has quite a few new councillors after the May elections- and they were eager to see how performance management might help them in their roles. One councillor, though, was less than keen - and a less than generous commentator might say that she even heckled me.

This councillor was down on performance management and didn't believe that it was worth the the time and effort and was quite vocal about it. But the funny thing was, she actually had a pretty good grasp of performance management - what individual indicators can be used for and what their limitations are. I said so, and while I'm not sure it made much of an impression on her - I think her fellow councillors took notice. It's important to realise that performance indicators can't tell you everything - they're only an indication, after all. Councillors must challenge and ask for more information. Councillors also have a responsibility - as anyone on a corporate board would - that officers have the right tools to support improvement and accountbality. Robust performance management won't do that on its own, but it can be an effective tool.

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PM Partner update

2006-10-04T17:27:00.000+01:00

Update from the PM Partner project

Adrian has been compiling a glossary of acronyms. Very helpful in the jargon-rich environment of partnerships. Adrian's also added a new link to the CDRP page, a new study has come out around reducing crime in pathfinder neighbourhoods. (And if you don't know what a CDRP is - then you know exactly where you can look.)

I've been updating the partnership killers page - this was one of the first things we looked at in the PM Partner project and now I've linked to some of the resources we've developed on this site.

There's been a comment added about the future of PM Partner - please share your thoughts as well. Has it been useful? What could be done to make it better? On a personal note, I find it really useful as a place to store snippets of information about partnerships that I might otherwise not ever find again.... Adrian's taken this a step further and created his own index - what a smashing idea.

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Friday Funday

2006-09-29T12:55:00.000+01:00

The lighter side of local government

London pigeon wars
Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, is known for being outspoken. Never less than when speaking about pigeons. "Rats with wings," he calls them. Writing in a personal capacity only, I am inclined to agree.

But in an effort to rid Trafalgar Square of the winged-rats, Ken has tried to find a natural compromise. He has brought in a pair of Harris hawks to menace the pigeon population and get them to move along to greener squares.

...a pair of Harris hawks who alternately hover above the square, exuding menace and bad intent. New figures released to London's Liberal Democrats reveal that the mayor's mercenary hawks have killed 121 pigeons since 2003, far exceeding their remit which is merely to scare pigeons away.

The Lib Dems are questioning whether the hawks are really value for money, since they've only killed 121 birds and scared away more than a 1000, but have left a hard core of about 1000 really tough pigeons.

But value for money isn't the only flack Mayor Livingstone is taking in the pigeon debate. No - he's got a whole slew of opposition from an umbrella group call the Pigeon Alliance.

Julia Fletcher, of the Pigeon Action Group, called the loss of pigeons "the greatest wildlife cruelty catastrophe that London has ever known". She added: "The mayor is using these hawks as a kind of bloodsport. The birds will not go away. They are committed to being in the square.

The pigeons are committed to staying in the square? Really? I know no one's asked them, but I guess they've voted with their wings.

See a picture of the pigeons in Trafalgar Square in the "good old days".

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You're a winner, no, a loser - either way

2006-09-29T12:05:00.000+01:00

Topics: performance, inspection, regulation, funding

Two Oxford University social scientists have conducted reseach and come up with the notion that the current regime of managing the performance in public services is contradictory: Via e-gov monitor:

“If you improve your school results, your CPA score goes up, but your funding from central government goes down. Conversely, if school results worsen, funding from central government goes up, but your CPA score goes down. Either way, you gain a (partly) financial bonus and suffer a (partly) financial penalty.”

The two Oxford researchers suggest public services reform.

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Show me the money

2006-09-27T14:23:00.000+01:00

You gotta love the LGA's response to Gordon Brown's conference speech:

Responding to Chancellor Gordon Brown’s party conference speech in Manchester in which he said:- "It is right that local councils, not Whitehall, should have more power over the things that matter to their community and from economic regeneration to public transport, the empowerment and strengthening of local councils and local communities is what we must now do."

The Chairman of the Local Government Association, Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, said:-“Now is the chance for Gordon Brown and the government to prove that this is more than just words by putting the changes he has put forward into the local government White Paper due in a month’s time.”

ENDS

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PM Partner update

2006-09-26T17:15:00.000+01:00

Well, this is the last week that I'll be introducing a new topic for PM Partner (at least not part of the scheduled set). But it's probably the most important topic of all - adding value. This is why we got involved in partnerships at all - to get more than the sum of the parts.

But how can you know if your partnership is adding value? How can you increased added value? See this week's topics on PM Partner.

________

What next?

Since this is the last week that I'll be introducing a new topic for PM Partner (though there will be weekly updates for a couple more weeks) - it's time to start thinking about what we should do with the resource. Should we continue to leave it open? Should we preserve it in aspic? What would make the site more useful? Share your thoughts on the PM Partner site here.

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What's new on Knowledge

2006-09-26T16:50:00.000+01:00

This week on IDeA Knowledge there's an article on wikis. And it doesn't mention ours... Even so, it's a good overview on the resource - and I think for me highlights one of the most important usages:

For local authorities and government agencies, wiki technology is not so much about providing a journal of record. It is a way to gather technical and managerial information electronically, in a flexible and inexpensive way.

Yep, it's flexible. For me, it's a great way of recording the good practice that I come across - or hopefully it will just appear in PM Partner as our many collaborators share their experience, too. The article also points out the drawbacks...

There are, though, risks involved. A number of public wiki sites have encountered problems with individuals or small groups. There may be attempts to hijack the sites to put across a particular point of view, promote commercial interests, or in some cases, simply to cause disruption.

Actually, there's been an hilarious example of a wiki being hijacked by a notable Internet personality - Guido Fawkes and his band of merry digital trouble makers. I shouldn't really poke fun - because I sure wouldn't be laughing if it happened to me. You can read all about it here on David Wilcox's blog Designing for a Civil Society

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Friday funday

2006-09-22T23:12:00.000+01:00

The lighter side of local government

Some councils will bend over backward to get a film crew in - having a movie shot in your area can put your town or city in a good light and stimulate the local economy through temporary jobs and increased tourism. Why not accomodate the film crew when they want to shoot footage in the town hall or they mayor's office for those crucial local government official meets super hero scenes? That's what Gallatin, Tennessee Mayor Don Wright thought anyway when he agreed to filming in the Mayor's office and town hall. Wright says he supports filmmaking for economic development in town.

But I think it kinda depends on just what sort of film it is. Mayor Wright agreed to the use of his office for Thong Girl 3. Even if you haven't seen Thong Girl 1 or 2 (apparently filmed in nearby Nashville), I think you can imagine what kind of film this is.

The town council is pretty upset. Mayor Wright assures constituents that he didn't know what kind of film it was. The plot features an Assistant District Attorney (equivalent to a lawyer for the local Crown Prosecution Service) who discovers her super hero powers after trying on a magical red thong. These powers allow her to fly and to fire lasers from her...well, from a place where the sun doesn't normally shine but which may well be revealed if wearing said thong.

The filmmaker, Glenn Weiss, stressed that his movie is "family friendly." He says "There's no nudity, no cussing and no sex. The family can go to this." My great-grandparents used to live in Gallatin (a satellite town of the state capital, Nashville), but I couldn't imagine sitting down to watch this with my family and a sense of local pride.

Weiss added "We go to comic book conventions. Kids come up to her. She has a cape on. She's very modest."

Well, I guess that's alright, so long as she's wearing a cape...

Story from The Nashville Tennessean. I would have provided a link to the Thong Girl site, but I'm not sure it's exactly work-safe.

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Benchmarking town halls

2006-09-22T11:19:00.000+01:00

For me, it's not a holiday unless I've been in some sort of government building. On family vacations when I was a kid, my mom used to drag us into state capitol buildings, the parliament of Quebec, etc. which might sound like it's not that much fun, but usually there's some pretty impressive architecture and maybe a museum featuring state history. (Maybe I was just a weird kid, my brother hated it.) As an adult, I've continued the tradition. I think what government buildings are like tells you something about the way people view themselves, government and the concept of citizenship.

On holiday in France, we saw a few town halls, hotel de ville. The ones I saw were all lovely examples of municipal architecture and best of all, they had fantastic floral displays. These weren't annuals planted up in little soldier rows, but often glorious examples of exotic cottage garden style - like Gertrude Jekyll on speed. I may be wrong, but I've visited a heck of a lot of town halls in Britain and quite a few state and municipal buildings in the US, but I've never seen such amazing civic gardens in front of the town hall. (There are sometimes lovely municipal gardens elsewhere). I know it has a cost, but I wonder if welcoming gardens might help citizens engage more with the business of city and state?

Bayeux

Calais

I also went inside this one

Dinan

Although I'm not sure that this is the town hall, it's definitely a municipal building

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Naked market making

2006-09-21T17:05:00.001+01:00

Topics: market making, partnership, procurement, children, health, education

Every once in a while a colleague mentions the topic of market making, supporting and developing markets. It's about understanding the demand in your community for a service, assessing whether demand is being met and then helping ensure there is adequate provision - if necessary by creating a market.

Now, I do have an MA in Economics, but I never really got my head around this. What exactly would this look like? The other night, watching tv on my sofa at home, I saw a brilliant example - only it's taken me until now to figure it out what I'd been watching.

I'm sure you remember the Naked Chef's aka Jamie Oliver's Feed Me Better Campaign. The guy set out to change a school, make a tv programme and has ended up changing national schools' policy. Fantastic. His programme is back on air (here's more on Channel 4) for some new policy-changing initiatives now and I watched it Monday night. Jamie didn't just make school dinners on the show; he made a market.

How did it work? Well, in Lincolnshire a lot of schools, particularly primary schools no longer (or never did) have on site kitchens. So there's no practicable way that someone could make hot meals on campus.

1. There was demand for hot school dinners, better meals
2. Demand wasn't being met
3. It's time to make a market.

Pubs are just about everywhere, and these days many do food. So there's a kitchen close to a school. Is it possible to cook the school dinners? Yes. Was the pub willing to try? Maybe. A bit of work had to be done to persuade the pub meet demand and arrangements had to be made between the school and the pub. There were hiccups. (Jamie had to give the pub a little lesson in wholesale procurement of fresh veg and initially the pub wasn't making quite enough money). Jamie didn't just work with one pub, he held an invent that put food producers, wholesale suppliers and hopsitality businesses in touch with schools. He made a market.

Of course, in public policy, this isn't just about the "output" of hot, nutritious school meals. This is about ensuring that children are adequately nourished to do well in school. They pay better attention, they learn more, there are fewer behavioural problems when kids are well fed and aren't on a diet of junk. The real outcomes are better educational attainment, better life chances for these kids, and eventually this contributes to a more skilled work force and a more vibrant economy. All by making a market. As Jamie would say - Happy Day.

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Naked market making

2006-09-21T17:05:00.000+01:00

Peformance management quick hits

2006-09-21T15:53:00.000+01:00

Since I've been away, I guess I thought (or hoped) that the world of performance management might grind to a halt without me. But no, time and performance management stop for no man.

New performance management standards for schools pushed back to '07
Schools Minister Jim Knight has announced an updated timeline for the introduction of performance management requirements for schools and local authorities.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back...
IDeA Knowledge has renewed and relaunched the Best Value online resource.

Adversaries to allies
A Society Guardian article on the power of professionals to transform services. Written by Duncan O'Leary, a Demos researcher, it's based on the work of IDeA and the Demos think tank.

Public health partnerships
The Department for Communities and Local Government has published new guidance on better partnership working Supporting People for Better Health: A guide to partnership working (link to a PDF file). This will also be added to the list of resources on PM Partner.

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PM in district councils

2006-09-19T17:19:00.000+01:00

I spoke at an LGA conference on performance management in district councils today. It's always hard to judge how well you've done at these things, but certainly no rotten fruit was thrown. I was speaking in the post-lunch spot, which has two distinct disadvantages:

People were likely sleepy after the excellent catering
I was a little too busy thinking about what I was going to say later to pay 100% attention to what the morning speakers were saying.

Cate McDonald from the Audit Commission outlined the new "lighter touch" CPA for district councils. Mark Poppy, the Deputy Chief Exec of Welwyn Hatfield council spoke about their experience as a recent DCPA pilot - and about their passion for performance and the role of good managers in getting the best performance. Rupert Dewhirst of the Institute of Public Finance outlined the requirements of the Use of Resources assessment. Rupert always does well at handling what can be seen to be an incredibly dry topic - and a really important topic. I think as a sector, we need to get much better at assessing value for money, but this means combining financial and performance management - often handled by different teams and different people. It was also good to see him again, as I'd done some work with him on the Improvement Network website. Kate Picknett rounded off the morning with an interesting perspective on their involvement with the Area Profiles project. She's from Penwith Council - the most southwesterly district in England - and they have some interesting - if not quite unique - problems with housing affordability and pockets of deprivation among great prosperity. Some of the work they'd done in focusing down to small areas had impact on their Local Area Agreement (LAA) negotiations - Cornwall does really well in certain areas (e.g. educational attainment) but within these areas of deprivation - improving attainment is definitely stretching performance - and they felt is should be included in their LAA.

I spoke about some of the key lessons from PMMI, but also how we're looking to carry that learning forward and build on it - part of this will be to develop learning from the PM Partner project - about how we can get performance management stories from a community of practitioners. Nigel Riglar, of Stroud DC, followed with (as ever) a very entertaining discussion of their improvements to their planning service - but with fantastic metaphors around the Titanic. Who's driving your ship? Are you avoiding icebergs and getting folks into lifeboats - or are you actually gonna make it to New York? Nick Easton spoke about the IDeA/LGA new performance framework. I'd seen him speak before on this to a similar audience a few months ago - and no reflection on Nick, but the audience was much more engaged this time. I think people are now really hungry to take on the challenge and see this as a good time to be ambitious about a sector-led approach to regulation. We're all going to need to be engaged with this approach and support each other.

The conference finished off with a two-hander from David Cook, Chief Executive of Kettering Borough Council and Deborah Snow who talked about the "Top 20 performance indicators". Now even I, a performance management junkie, thought that sounded a little dry. But they gave a great presentation - largely on getting the basics right. David Cook had the best "back to the floor" type tip. He regularly listens in on randomly selected customer calls to the council on tape on his drive home. This helps him get a finger on the pulse of what the main customer issues are, and also on how customer service is being handled in the council.

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I'm back

2006-09-18T11:07:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm back from holiday, reasonably well-tanned, well-rested and well-fed. I went to Normandy and Brittany and had a great time drinking cider, visiting sites and just chilling. I also snapped a few pictures of the rather picturesque French town halls - hotel de ville. Here's the one in Calais (not a great pic), showing the town hall and the famous Rodin sculpture The Burghers of Calais (another casting of this statue can also be seen near the Palace of Westminster). If you're not up on your medieval history, King Edward III besieged the French port of Calais - and the town leaders - the Burghers of Calais - came out and offered themselves and the key to the city to save the remaining citizens. That's some example of public service.

You can actually go into the town hall and we did. It was just as splendid inside - including the council chamber which had another image of the surrender of Calais -

And the stained glass window in the great stairway pictured the English leaving Calais with writing in French saying something like "the English leave, hoping to return"

(Click thru to see notes on the photo)

And, of course, the English did return, but in peace these days...in search of bargain wine.

And being such a history buff, I didn't just see the burghers of Calais...I ate the burgers of Calais.

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Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

2006-09-17T16:48:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm afraid I missed another Friday Funday - didn't stop all day - but if there are any regular readers left, you'll be pleased to know that Ingrid is due back tomorrow.

A couple of PM in partnership-y things to draw your attention to though:

The action plan on social exclusion was published on 11th September. One of five principles in it is promoting multi-agency working, which it aims to do by strenghening local area agreements, increasing the transparency of downstream costs associated with social exclusion so it's easier to see who's paying and who's benefiting and make deals to promote over social benefit, and extending data sharing in relation to excluded or at risk groups.

I also came across this 'Turning the Curve Toolkit' from Portsmouth City Council, which is essentially a form of performance management for the partnership of children's services. Only just started reading it, but it looks good so far.

So, it's good night from me ... I will try and add to the blog from time to time, but for now, normal service is resumed.

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Defra Wiki

2006-09-13T17:08:00.000+01:00

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has set up a wiki to enable stakeholders to help draft an environmental contract for the UK.

This is, of course, exactly the same principle as our own PM Partner site, where practitioners and stakeholders can edit a website in a collaborative project. It's good to know the idea is catching on, and we wish them every luck with the project.

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Health finance and incentives

2006-09-13T16:51:00.001+01:00

The PM Partner website this week is looking at financial management (amongst other things) and there are reports in the press this week about the Secretary of State, Patricia Hewitt cracking down "on what she regards as sloppy investment decisions by trusts which acquire assets without a businesslike analysis of whether the new facilities can generate an adequate stream of income from treating patients."

What struck me, though was how this might impact on incentives for trusts and their partners. This particular article says:

"Services will remain free to patients and hospitals will be paid for each procedure they complete. Under the new system of "payment by results", departments failing to attract enough patients may be forced to close."

It adds that new investment is not going to be allowed unless trusts can show they will be able to afford the repayments (makes sense) and can attract enough patients to meet the running costs.

I don't know enough about it, so perhaps shouldn't comment, but I can at least ask a question: is there a risk that targetting trusts to attract more patients may hinder the attempts of both health and other partners to reduce the number of people needing treatment? Aren't lots of LSPs and other partnerships trying to do more to 'increase wellness' as much as 'reduce illness'? Might it be something of a perverse incentive?

Comments welcome

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Praise Be!

2006-09-11T16:31:00.000+01:00

A bit hectic here co-ordinating our input into Comprehensive Spending Review and particularly work on improvement support. What sort of help does local government need from 2008 onwards in terms of Capacity Building and support provided by bodies like the IDeA through the Revenue Support Grant, and how can it be rationalised, streamlined and made a bit more transparent for everyone? Of course the real prize, but difficult to deliver, would be to streamline improvement support to all local partners and not just the council.

Amidst the rushing around, and the reason for the heading of this entry is a good piece of customer service. I left my writing pad at a conference on Friday held in Birmingham City Council's office. I rang this morning and enquired, and got a very helpful call back this afternoon - they hadn't found it, but would keep an eye out and let me know. Doesn't sound much, but those little interactions mean so much to the people involved and make a big impact on reputations. Just thought I'd publicise my praise for them a little wider.

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Friday Funday!

2006-09-10T10:08:00.000+01:00

Well, it's no longer Friday, and I'm not sure how much fun I can muster, but I'll do my best to keep up Ingrid's tradition. For the more interesting links, thanks to my colleague, Vicki Goddard.

I spent Friday presenting and later chairing a conference on performance management organised by LARCI - the Local Authority Research Council Initiative - and jointly promoted with the Policy Network. Both organisations involve partnerships in different ways - the Policy Network a partnership of peers working in policy, LARCI a partnership between local authorities and academics. Amongst many fascinating presentations from practitioners and others were some from academic research. One on choice looked at how satisfaction can influence individual and collective 'voice'. Another compared the more 'collaborative' regimes of Scotland and Wales to the more 'competitive' and target driven regime of England to see which had most impact on health inequalities (no clear result, but the English approach seems to be working at the moment). Another looked at how far we can trust research and how we can make sure we're using it most effectively.

Which leads nicely onto other research this week, and the stunning revelation that mice don't after all like cheese! I don't know, shattering all our beloved myths. They'll be telling us next that Tom and Jerry had a really rather effective partnership.

One of the comments at Friday's conference (from a local government officer) was that you can trust academics more than consultants (though not all the academics agreed: argumentative lot aren't they). I'll let you make your own minds up about the use of consultants hired to advise on the name for a new Birmingham City Region - only it isn't to be called that - reported in the Birmingham Post:

"Birmingham will feature in the title of a West Midlands city region after all - but Coventry and the Black Country are to be given equal billing.

After more than six months of heated argument, politicians and business leaders have compromised in the struggle to name the proposed powerful new strategic policy-making body by agreeing a working title of The Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country City Region.

The eight member local authorities of the shadow city region ignored the recommendations of their own consultant's report, which cost £10,000 and placed greater Birmingham at the top of a shortlist of possible names."

The serious point is the sensitivity of partnership working which makes even choosing a name a difficult process.

Hope you have / had a good weekend, and see you next week.

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UK's first blogging MP resigns

2006-09-07T20:55:00.000+01:00

Sorry, couldn't resist it. This is the equivalent of the local newspaper headline 'Titanic sinks: local man dies".

While the story of the resignation of Tom Watson from Her Majesty's Government may be of relevance to bloggers and blogging, I suspect that it's significance really lies closer to the heart of government ...

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Big National Questions

2006-09-07T18:30:00.000+01:00

Lots of meetings with partners nationally and locally the past few days raising various questions, like:

- if a partner won't produce a PI (eg because they haven't got the resources) that you think is imprtant, what can you do about it?

- would a duty to co-operate help? How could it be phrased? What should it apply to (plan preparation, delivery, what else?)? How could it be enforced - is not providing a PI 'non-cooperation'?

- could there be rationalisation of improvement support for all local partners (eg programmes on leadership, performance management, change management for councils, health, police etc.)

- how can localities persuade Whitehall that their joint performance management is good enough for them to be left alone to get on with it? Is it good enough? Is this reasonable for, eg health, which is ultimately managed centrally?

Your comments welcome!

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Have your say

2006-09-06T21:33:00.001+01:00

It seems to be a round of meetings at the moment, a lot of them about future policy changes, whether through the White Paper CSR07 or general policy reviews. No formal consultations, but why not engage in the debate (e.g. on the PM Partner PolicyDiscussion) and we can feed views through. What's working well in partnerships and LAAs, and what could be improved?

Look forward to hearing from you!

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2006-09-05T21:15:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I attended a meeting to input into a national programme for improvement performance in partnerships. This is one of the Capacity Building Fund (CBF) national programmes, and the meeting was hosted by DCLG. Design of the programme was funded by CBF and is being delivered by PriceWaterhouse Coopers and Solace Enterprises. The pilots on performance management in individual authorities seem to have gone well, and pilots are just starting on a version for partnerships.

The programme works through three residential events spread over six months. A team of five key people from the authority or partnership work together at the events and in between times, putting the learning into practice and reporting back. One of the issues for the programme aimed at partnerships is how to represent the whole partnership in a team of just 5 people. The answer is that the team will focus on a particular problem for their partnership so the team just needs to be able to address that, albeit that this should have implications for the partnership as a whole, so some representation at fairly senior level is important.

I think this is well worth a look at, as a good approach to individual and organisational learning (I would say that, since the methodology is similar to one we’ve used in the past on ‘Improvement Challenge’ events and action research in PMMI). It’s not cheap (£15k for the main programme and £10k for tailored consultancy support) but if you invest the time in it you should end up with a group of well informed and committed champions, and a major contribution to dealing with a significant issue for the authority or partnership.

And no, I’m not on commission – although they have said very nice things about our PMMI project and PM Partner.

Enough of the sales pitch. Here’s just a few of the points that were made during the session:

The importance, and difficulty, of getting agreement of shared objectives across the partnership with everyone from top to bottom telling the same story
Why is it so hard to get evidence and data for plans and achievements?
LSPs have tended to see the NRF model as prescriptive, when it was just supposed to be an available model, and it’s up to the partnership what they do.
How easy is it to change the direction of the partnership, e.g. after elections or to follow a new national initiative. Each partner body has to revise its policies and plans and then renegotiate them with the partnership. Not a recipe for rapid response and flexibility.
There’s a need for strong people and relationship skills, particularly working in political environments and between the big ‘P’ political and non-political
There isn’t widespread understanding of what’s involved in collaborative leadership
Redesigning services is hard enough within individual organisations, but is even harder taking a whole systems approach across partnerships
Floor target action plans in NRF areas were felt to be a very useful model

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Public Sector Heroes

2006-09-04T10:01:00.000+01:00

For regular readers, I'm afraid Ingrid is away for a couple of weeks, so I am going to try and hold the fort - not sure I can manage her usual breadth of interesting and entertaining blogging, but I'll do my best!

One thing that caught my eye over the weekend was: "Public sector workers must be seen for the heroes they are, and put at the heart of expanding public services for all." This was not the political parties setting out a new policy direction, but a report from Oxfam, 'In the Public Interest' on what governments, rich and poor need to do to reach the Millenium development goals for poor countries. I think the idea is to try to reassert the role of the public sector in the light of the emphasis by bodies like the World Bank and IMF on the private sector. The report is saying that you need the involvment of public sector, NGOs and private sector for a successful outcome. In local partnerships, the public sector, and particularly the local authority, perhaps tend to be more dominant than the other players and maybe the challenge is to think about how all can play their most valuable roles.

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Friday funday

2006-09-01T10:55:00.000+01:00

The lighter side of local government

Biscuits for birds
Any species can become a pest. But some species are more pesty than others. Sea gulls, for instance. It can be expensive and tricky to deal with such a problem, but councillors in Bristol are willing to make sacrifices. How? They're giving up the annual biscuit budget of 25K to go most of the way towards the 30K it will take to reduce the sea gull population humanely.

Effective community consultation?
I've blogged before about graffiti and community engagement. And I've just seen a Chinese example that's a corker. Chinese local government bodies paint slogans on the side of buildings to discourage "anti-social" behaviour among residents. Messages like "Stay away from drugs and AIDs" might not be winning any creativity awards, but it's hard to argue with them. Others are a bit more dubious - such as "If kids set a fire, their father will go to jail" (no doubt part of a better parenting campaign) or downright scary like "Destroy a line of trees and your mother will die first." See these and more at the China Digital Times.

Campaign convenience
Via Governing's 13th Floor, the US State and Local government blog, I read that Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley's campaign headquarters have been broken into. Mayor O'Malley has visited London before to work with Westminster City Council and he's been a pioneer in using CitiStat performance management approaches for local government. So did someone break in to steal campaign information - or maybe a PM report? Nah -

The guy was apparently intoxicated and looking for a bathroom," a police spokesman told the Baltimore Sun. "That's all there is to it. There's nothing sinister, as far as we can tell. He apparently had no idea what office he was in."

Governing's take on it:

Let's put the blame back where it belongs: on O'Malley. Let's have some public
toilets, Mr. Mayor!

Busman's hols?
I'm off on holiday for two weeks from today. Where am I off to? Well, here's an image of a town hall in the region.

Photo credit Enro

You won't be getting the daily doses of my doubtful wit and wisdom, but you never know, I might do a little mobile blogging on holiday.

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case studies on fire

2006-09-01T10:25:00.000+01:00

Topics: case studies, fire and rescue

The DCLG has published a new set of case studies of "notable practice" for fire and rescue - some featuring performance management.

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Partnerships: one smells sweet...the other doesn't

2006-08-31T16:43:00.000+01:00

Topics: partnership stories, CVS, waste

Two interesting items caught my eye today. One is an initiative in Cornwall, the other an inspection in Oxfordshire.

The secret language of posies

In Cornwall, they've recently held an event to celebrate and strengthen the realtionship between the public and voluntary sectors. This year's theme was the "language of flowers".

A dictionary of flower meanings was displayed on posters around the room, and guests were invited to bunch locally grown flowers using the Victorian 'Language of Flowers' to create coded messages, all reflecting thoughts on what constitutes or would help promote a positive working relationship. For example, one guest chose Forsythia, Garlic and Oak-leaved Geranium to create a message which meant 'anticipation and courage...leading to...true friendship'.... Yet another selected Stephanotis, Daffodil, Bluebell and Alstroemeria which when decoded means 'happiness in marriage, respect, constancy and friendship'.

Daffs and bluebells symbolise respect and constancy in partnership

It's not rubbish, it's fair.

Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, the Audit Commission has deemed the Oxfordshire waste partnership a "Fair Service, with uncertain prospects for improvement"

It's not normally my wont to trash partnerships in this blog, and that's not what I'm attempting to do. I think the summary findings are interesting:

Oxfordshire Waste Partnership has not delivered on key aims such as integrating waste collection and disposal or improving value for money, although the county compares well on recycling, composting and waste levels. Its progress to address Oxfordshire's waste issues has noticeably improved. But the councils still need to make difficult decisions before an effective new strategy is in place.

The Commission acknowledges that improvements have been made - and from a quick glance the service doesn't seem that bad. Some of the main criticisms from the summary of the inspection report seem to be that the partneship may not be really working as a partnership and that improvements seem to be down to the contributions of individual partners. I haven't looked at this in depth, but this does seem to illustrate some of the difficulties of partnerships - that maybe this partnership isn't as strong as the constituent councils.

Synergy
I thought these two stories were an interesting contrast - one smelling sweet, the other not, but both illustrating the importance of working together to come up with something that's greater than the sum of its parts. In the PM Partner project we'll be looking at adding value by working together in a few weeks, and these examples will provide some interesting food for thought.

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PM Partner update 31 August

2006-08-31T16:35:00.000+01:00

PM Partner update

New guidance for partnership agreements. Laura Julve, one of my colleagues, has pulled together the elements found in Local Strategic Partnership agreements. It's a fairly comprehensive list with explanations of elements and it's backed up by examples. But I'm sure it's by no means exhaustive. Go and have a look - share your own examples.

I've added a few bits and pieces to the community and voluntary sector page, but the page still seems a little paltry. Please share your experience of public/voluntary sector partnerships.

PM Partner update 30 August

2006-08-30T18:10:00.000+01:00

PM Partner update

We have new topics on partnership structures and partnerships agreements. There's also more information about the work the LGA is doing on customer intelligence on the users and citizens page. Chris Calvert has made a really interesting contribution about partnership structures, relationships and accountability on the accountability page.

I've also started trying to make sure there's something on all the pages for the full programme, because I'm going on holiday Monday. Adrian will be sending out the weekly update emails while I'm away.

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Volunteer this

2006-08-30T17:38:00.000+01:00

Topics: neighbourhoods, users and citizens, engagement

David Wilcox's blog Designing for Civil Society is really good. In fact, I think I'm going to add it to my regular reads*. I don't know why I haven't already.

He had a great post last week called "How to Kill Volunteer Enthusiasm, Officially"

The UK government has never been more committed to citizen engagement at local level, through policy directives on participation and its plans for neighbourhood governance. But, just as I think participation isn't working and we need a new approach, my friend Kevin Harris offers a reality check in Neighbourhood governance: a top-down burden?.... or "I'm a volunteer, and I'm on overload."

His main point is that engagement is about relationships. Overburdened relationships aren't likely to be the most productive.

__________
*I use an RSS feed reader - an excellent way to keep up with blogs and all kinds of news. Rather than having to go to someone's website to check their blog - the content comes directly to you. Find out more about RSS and feed readers at IDeA Knowledge.

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public blogging big time

2006-08-30T11:05:00.000+01:00

Topic: Public Sector blogging

Tom Reynolds, intrepid ambulance-man and blogger, has published a book Blood, Sweat and Tea based on his blog. He blogs about the every day experience of a first responder in London, and it's really good - certainly on my list of regular reads.

The Guardian published an article today about him today, which looks not just at his blog and book, but at the role of public sector bloggers.

Over the course of three years his weblog, Random Acts of Reality, has rapidly become a must-read chronicle of life as an ambulance worker for both other bloggers and the wider public
>snip<
The blog and the book are dripping with irreverence and wit and, for anyone who has not worked directly for the NHS, offer an eye-opening insight into life on the healthcare front line. Reynolds describes the blog as "kind of the truth behind dramas like Casualty".
>snip<
...Reynolds says, his blog, and possibly other public sector blogs, can and do get to the "truth of what's happening" on the ground. They cut through the "nonsense" of TV dramas and "official" accounts of the NHS that politicians or NHS press officers present. "With more NHS staff blogging, more people will know what it is really like ... and more people will get angry about the things that people should get angry about."
>snip<
...he adds: "It may be a hugely simplistic way of looking at things, blogs as a lobbying tool, but maybe MPs will start reading them. Maybe it happens already."

Perhaps MPs do read blogs. Certainly, at least one minister has one.

Unfortunately, the article, while mentioning that other public sector blogs exist, doesn't mention them, even in the online version. Mr Reynolds - like most other bloggers - is a little more generous and his blog roll (list of links to other bloggers) contains a number of other public sector blogs.

This blog doesn't fit into the genre of his blog, the anonymous or semi-anonymous day-to-day work life of front line public servants, such as an ambulance dispatcher, teachers, parking attendants, GPs, police and magistrate.

Perhaps this blog would be more interesting if it did. Or perhaps you might just snooze away at such entries as:

After over two hours of defending the honour - or at least the administrative time - of local government in a meeting featuring possibly the dryest biscuits in Whitehall, I still had to get out of the building. I narrowly managed to avoid bisection by the swinging glass security panels at the departmental headquarters and made my way to the exit. Alas, my escape was to be thwarted as I found my shoe caught in the revolving door. I nearly pitched headlong into the glass ahead of me as a searing pain crossed the top of my foot. Worse still awaited me, as a Government Office employee turned to catch me jerking my leg to free my foot and my shoe from the revolving trap. I could feel my credibility slip as I limped off to Victoria station.

The IDeA will soon be unveiling its new Communities of Practice platform and it includes blogging software (where you can choose to have some posts quite public and others less so). I hope that more people in local government will take up blogging as a way to share practice and experience.

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PM Partner update

2006-08-25T17:14:00.000+01:00

PM partner update

I've been a regular slacker in the update process this week. But here's what's been going on:

There's a new member page: Ed Stevens has written a nice description of the ongoing development of the Wiltshire Improvement Partnership -which includes some of their forthcoming challenges. If you have any advice or examples to share, please do. I've also added some more information about Health Outcomes after my meeting with Ashley Gould from the Welsh LGA. I've linked to some links to their great resources from the Health page and the outcome indicators page.

I've also been getting ready for next week's new topics partnership agreements and structures. And I've been blogging on partnership news which includes some nice examples of practice here.

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Friday funday

2006-08-25T11:06:00.000+01:00

The lighter side of local government.

For the birds
Councils are certainly into the business of love (as I posted last week) - what else is a Registry office for? But now they're doing it for the birds.

Gloucester City Council has been matchmaking for a lonely turkey.

Staff at the council-run Robinswood Hill Country Park and Rare Breeds Centre in Gloucester made an appeal after the female turkey became depressed because she had no companion. The search for a pal for Roger even made national newspapers and has led to another farm in the county coming forward with a young stag – the name for a male turkey. Now workers at the park are looking to arrange a date for the meeting and hope the two will hit it off.

I think I know a cure for Roger's empty feeling inside - it's called stuffing.

________

Legislative time

You know they say that tasks expand to fill the allotted time. Well, I guess that's true for parliamentary tasks, too. I can't resist a story that makes the link between UK administration and my home state of Tennessee. And this one's a corker.

There's been a national legislative conference in Nashville over the past week and a representative from Scotland attended. He was struck more by the similarities than the differences.

But the one thing that did strike Kellet as weird is that a state like Tennessee, with a population a few hundred thousand people larger than Scotland, could get by with a part-time legislature. He couldn't imagine Scotland doing the same.

...er, wait a minute. Scotland didn't even have a "state level" legislature until 1999 - before that it made do without one for almost 300 years. But maybe they're making up for lost time - after all Tennesseans have been passing laws since 1796.

(Via the US Governing Blog)

_______

Have a great bank holiday weekend!

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Quick hits: health

2006-08-24T15:05:00.000+01:00

Topics: quick hits news stories on public health

Delaying parenthood
Fewer teenage pregnancies in Cambridgeshire and in Gateshead

You might remember the Gateshead programme from the furore over the famous contraceptive jab in McDonald's. But look at them now...

The trust and local council run the Gateshead Teenage Pregnancy and Parenting Partnership, which has now been invited to share its "best-practice" with the rest of the country.

A healthy start
A new health and welfare food scheme boosts nutritious options available for low-income mums. Initially trialled in Devon and Cornwall, it seems to be pleasing recipients, health care providers and retailers alike.

And that's important - as new research shows that childhood obesity is being fueled by "toxic diets".

Healthy bodies, healthy minds

The Department of Health has issued new guidance about improving the physical health of those with mental health care needs. The link between physical and mental health is well established, but there's also been concern from mental health charities that the mentally ill's physical ailments are often overlooked and associated as symptomatic of their mental illness.

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Healthy Wales

2006-08-24T11:38:00.000+01:00

Topics: public health, Wales, outcome indicators, performance management, partnership, shared outcomes

Yesterday, my IDeA colleague Sue Crutchley, a member of the Healthy Communities team, and I met with Ashley Gould of the Welsh Local Government Association. They have been doing some really interesting work around performance management in health.

Ashley's view is that promoting health is part of the core business of local authorities. Why grit the roads except to reduce accidents? (health) Why inspect restaurants? (health) Why promote better educational attainment? (yep, health - those with greater educational attainment are much more likely to be healthy and live longer) Bringing in new employers for economic development, but there's a problem with high rates of long term disability? (health - and the population will get healthier, too as the employment rates goes up). Promoting health isn't just about beer and fags, he said. (Grave disappointment to me - as these are my most cherished recreation).

The Welsh LGA worked with all 22 Welsh authorities in a whole programme around health - all of it really interesting. But particularly of interest to me is the work they've been doing on developing a set of shared outcome indicators. A set should be available fairly soon and will provide comparable information for all the authorities and PCTs in Wales.

They also have a range of publications and some quality links for healthy communities, too.

****

It looks like the Healthy Welsh may be joining us in our forthcoming Community of Practice for health. That will be great because they'll bring a different perspective and their own strands of learning. Stay tuned for more info.

****

I learned a new word from Ashley Gould yesterday.

dragonise (drăg’٨nīz) transitive verb
1 To make [par. English] policy and practice more appropriate to the context of Wales
1a To Welsh-up

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When a PFI is a PFI

2006-08-22T11:44:00.000+01:00

Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) have certainly come in for a lot of flack over the years - recently I saw a highly critical programme on PFI through Channel 4's Dispatches. Or see this article in The Telegraph by the documentary film maker.

I'm certainly not ideologically opposed to the private sector making money (that's what they do). But I have to admit that I don't always think the public sector has been able to use PFI in a way that maximises the use of public resources. And my ideology certainly insists that public money be spent transparently.

But the LGA has highlighted two examples of where a Private Finance Initiative has become a Public Finance Initiative.

Projects nearing completion include:
• This month Huntingdonshire District Council will officially open a £6.5million new state of the art health centre which the PCT will rent back from the Council
• Wychavon District Council is building a £6.7million hospital and health centre - the 26 bed hospital and GP surgery with 13 doctors will be completed late September.

I think one of the problems of PFI may have been a cultural divide. The private sector is amazed that the public sector is annoyed when they make big profits and the public sector cannot understand why the private sector gets so sniffy about clawbacks. I suppose it's early days, but this might work out really well - there won't be the big cultural divide and presumably both partners can be minded to be more flexible and more open.

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Friday Funday: Still the one

2006-08-18T16:32:00.000+01:00

Friday Funday: the lighter side of local government

Shania Twain's You're still the one may not have been a hit for a while, but it still tops the polls of most popular songs played at Cumbrian registry office weddings. See the full top ten - and some of the stranger choices of brides and grooms. Who walks down the aisle to the theme to Jaws?

In other terms of endearment, Newcastle officers have been warned against it.

Colloquialisms such as "pet" and "hinny" have fallen foul of Newcastle city council's policy on equality and diversity.

And onto the business of love... if you think you have the odd dispute over planning. One Chinese local government is facing quite a quandry over the restoration of an...ahem...historic building.

Ancient, decrepit brothel arouses debate in China.

A local government in Jinggang, a town in central Hunan province, must decide whether to restore crumbling Hongtaifang, a brothel established in 1733, and face the ire of residents who see it as debauched, Xinhua news agency said.

One the one hand:

"The brothel was a place where women were humiliated in the old society," Xinhua quoted Xiao Yisheng, a retired university professor, as saying.

But on the other hand:

Tan Feng, a student from Xiao's former alma mater, begged to differ, saying the site was bound to prompt different reactions in different people. "When I entered the brothel, it reminded me that it was a place where the ancients indulged in sensual pleasures," Tan said.

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17 Aug PM Partner update: Risky business

2006-08-17T17:47:00.000+01:00

PM Partner update

There have been a couple of new requests for help on the Help Please page. One is about skills for partnerships. We'll be looking at capacity within partnerships as part of this programme and the other is about risk management. When we conducted a survey about the issues folks were most interested in - risk came just about at the bottom of the pile. But risk is an important issue - and there's the risk to delivery as well as risks inherent in partnerships themselves. But it seems to me that it's often adressed in dry language. Why is taking risks often so exciting, but managing risks seen as dreadfully dull?

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collaborative learning and improvement

2006-08-17T17:29:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I was in Leeds with a group of other IDeA staff looking at our approaches for supporting collaborative learning. As an agency, we've lead on a number of programmes that use a collaborative learning approach, such as our Accelerated Improvement Consortia, the work of the Planning Advisory Service and the Action Research programme we ran through the Performance Management, Measurement and Information project. The PM Partner project and the IDeA's Community of Practice approach is another way of supporting collaborative learning.

You can find out a little bit more about the Accelerated Improvement Consortia work in Yorkshire and Humberside in relation to street cleansing and neighbourhood governance.

I'm committed to the approach, but we want to make sure that we're doing it the right way. Yesterday's meeting was largely about our own collaborative learning, making sure that we're able to support local government in leading improvement from within.

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being neighbourly

2006-08-17T16:51:00.000+01:00

Topics: Housing, Community engagement, co-production

Maybe it's because I've suffered from noisy neighbours (e.g. very loud Polish pop on one side and evangelical karaoke on the other). Or maybe it's because I've been one (rather loud party once a year - country and western). But I found this interesting:

Respect and Housing Management - Using Good Neighbour Agreements

It's a DCLG paper reviewing the effectiveness of good neighbour agreements. Turns out they can be effective and there are some tips about making them work.

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15 August PM Partner update

2006-08-15T17:01:00.000+01:00

PM Partner update

Folks continue to add their personal pages to the site. Personal is a bit of a misnomer, since some of the pages are personal (i.e. about someone's skills and roles in partnerships) and some are about organisations, partnerships or practice.

I was able to link across from performance monitoring page (a current weekly focus on the project) to the recently added South Wiltshire Strategic Alliance page for a nice example of performance reporting against community plans at an all area level and smaller community. By sharing interesting local practice, we're all able to learn.

There have also been new comments on the communications page. Should partnerships have a public "persona" - so far the answer is...sorta.

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Partnership news - quick hits

2006-08-15T15:06:00.000+01:00

Topics: quick links to partnership news on environment, community safety, and performance management from Hampshire, Fareham BC, Sheffield, Hounslow and Oxfordshire

Join the CREW
Hampshire Constabulary, Fareham Borough Council, partners and the local community are kicking off another CREW - Crime Reduction Environment Week. It's an initiative aimed at reducing crime and creating cleaner, safer neighbourhoods.

Members of the multi-agency CREW team will be offering information and advice to the local community on wide-ranging issues such as home safety checks, youth initiatives and crime prevention.

Throughout the week agency partners will be conducting reassurance patrols and enforcing the laws over such matters as litter dropping and failing to clear up dog foul.

...snip...

Sergeant Roy Jennings said: “I would like to encourage all residents living in this area to go along to the Working Men’s Club, where we are going to be based, to get involved. All activities are free of charge and can benefit individuals and the wider community.

You mean they're not going to charge you to pick up trash by the side of the road? Seriously, it sounds like a great initiative. Blitzing an area to improve the environment and raising awareness among those who live and work there.

Fun ways to prevent fire
Sheffield has come up with a cool way to get across the message about safety and fire prevention focused particularly at ethnic minority communities. Go through the kids. This can be particularly important where children may be the only members of the hosuehold with a good command of English. And what do kids like? Kids like crafts. (Well, I did.)

The Council's Sheffield Council’s City Centre Community Participation Project has teamed up with the Pakistan and Muslim Centre to provide innovative ways of getting across important issues.

Councillor Denise Fox, Cabinet Advisor for Community Safety said: “The aim of the project was to highlight issues around fire safety within the home with children and young people. The young people who took part used the digital art programme created by Shahid Latif as an effective medium to reinforce the message and raise awareness of the importance of fire safety within the community.”

Children who took part in the workshop were educated on the risks of fire in the home and developed their own fire safety messages via a digital art programme. Their designs were further developed into T Shirts that the children took home.

And what did the kids say?

Aqsa Ashraf (age10) said: “It was fun, I really enjoyed it, I have learnt so much, I would like to do it again”
Isaac Ali (age 9) said: “I really enjoyed doing graphic art it was amazing”

Lend an ear, or at least a phone
Hounslow Community Safety Partnership has developed an interesting initiative where old mobile phones can help the victims of domestic violence. Essentially they're turned into mobile alarms that can ring 999 at the press of any button.

Partnering for better PM
I meant to blog about this last week, but anyway better late than never.

Oxfordshire County Council is leading a partnership of 12 Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire authorities that are in line to receive £1m of extra funding from central government in return for working together to improve performance.

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Policy, Performance and Partnership

We're over here now

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Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

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