Dr. Elke LöfflerChief ExecutiveGovernance International

www.govint.org

Innovations in Europe in human resourceand public service management

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Some introductory remarks Some introductory remarks ……

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What are innovations?

The introduction of new services, forms oforganisation, management methods andtools which never existed in a specificorganisation before

This does not mean something completelynew ... but also not pure imitation

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Where do innovations come from?

Rarely from brilliant ideas of senior managers whothink about new ways of doing things

Rarely from benchmarking with similar organisations(conventional benchmarking)

Innovations always come with learning processes

Mainly from personal contacts

Sometimes innovations come about by coincidence

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How can innovations be promoted?

Through staff participation

Through citizen participation

Through the comparision of similarprocesses (functional benchmarking)

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International trends in human resourceInternational trends in human resourceand public service managementand public service management

Some new impulses for SpainSome new impulses for Spain

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Topics

Leadership from top and thoughout the organisation

Quality management

Diversity management

Partnership working

Co-production with service users and citizens

E-government

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Leadership in the UK civil service

In the UK Civil Service Reform Programme (1999 – 2006) top

priority in the change programmes of all Ministries and Agencies

has been given to the development of leadership – including: inspirational leadership from the top

reshaping the Management Board of the Ministry or Agency, asan important focus for accountability and leadership (withindependent external members)

Encouraging leadership lower down in organisation, includingteam leadership and project leadership – although this is still difficultto promote in organisations which still think of themselves as veryhierarchical

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Leadership training throughout UKMinistries and Agencies

In the British Court Service a ‘Leadership Profile’has been developed to give staff a clear idea of thecharacteristics of leadership behaviour. Indeed,leadership training was being taken down to localand junior levels - one participant said to us: “thebest piece of training and development which I haveever had”.

The National Assembly of Wales has also placedmajor emphasis on ‘leadership for all’ through aleadership training programme and staffcompetencies for leadership.

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Examples of leadership throughout UKMinistries and Agencies

In spite of these training programmes, there was still onlypartial evidence of good leadership. However, we did findsome very good examples:

Luton Crown Court – middle managers had reorganisedtrial schedules to greatly improve the performance of thecourt in line with corporate targets and to cut down on timewasted by police and witnesses.

The Farmers Grants section of the National Assemblyfor Wales was led by a very enthusiastic and thoughtfulsenior manager so that the time taken to process grantapplications was reduced to only a few weeks and thebacklog of applications was cleared up.

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Quality management as driver of newrelationships between staff and their

organisations

Quality management continues to be a keyway of changing staff perceptions of theirrole in the public sector

However, there is still a long way to go beforeall staff realise that the modern public sectorofficial can no longer simply be a bureaucratwho faces inwards to the organisation butmust be a partner with other agencies and aco-producer with clients and theircommunities.

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Using quality management tools

In the UK, there is a range of qualitymanagement tools which have been found tobe be helpful – including EFQM, ISOstandards, Chartermark and Investors inPeople.

Many UK Ministries and Agencies use theEFQM Excellence Model to provide abenchmark over time of the progress whichthey have been making through their changeprogrammes – and to what remains to bedone.

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Benchmarking through EFQMin UK Court Service

Excellence model scoresExcellence model scores

Lea

dersh

ip

Polic

y &

Str

ateg

y

People

Partn

ersh

ips &

Res

ourc

es

Proce

sses

Cust

omer

Res

ults

People

Res

ults

Socie

ty R

esult

s

Key

Per

form

ance

Res

ults

1998

2000

Note: The excellence model was updated between the two exercises

Overall Score

1998 - 2000

Up by 57%

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Environ-ment

TransportHousing

NGOs

Public

officials

Media

Citizens

CommunitySafety

Economicsituation

IntegrationEducation and

Training

Culture&Leisure

Business

EfficencyResourcesProductsCouncil

Quality is a task for all stakeholders insociety

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Diversity management

In most UK agencies, ‘diversity’ is now conceived ofas a wider concept than before. Diversity awarenesstraining is compulsory and staff believe it is wellcarried out. Diversity issues also feature incompulsory competencies in the performancemanagement system.

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Examples of diversity management

In the Department for International Development, a seniormanager said that some time ago diversity training wouldhave been laughed at, as absurdly politically correct,whereas it is now seen as essential. Recruitment, promotionand appraisals are looked at in terms of diversity.

The Court Service set up PROUD (‘People from DiverseRacial Origins Uniting the Department’) and deliberatelysought to develop networks and full-time staff to supportdiversity issues, including a corporate unit for co-ordinatingorganisation-wide diversity plans.

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Diversity management: still more to do …

Overall, there was general consensus that diversitymanagement has been gathering momentum but isstill patchy - ‘No-one at the centre seems to becollecting all this together and saying, yes, folks, thisis the direction we’re going’ (HSE Officer)

One senior HSE official was concerned that the10% of staff who are new each year (400 people)were beginning to ask much tougher questionsabout what does HSE mean by diversity, where arethe targets (or is it just aspirational), and how willthe organisation know when it has succeeded?

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Public officials as partners

Almost all public services involve multiplestakeholders – the only question is whether you wantto work with them or against them?

So public officials now have to demonstrate that theynot only can manage their own staff but they can alsoinfluence the senior managers (and the frontlinestaff) of their partner agencies as well.

Collaborative advantage can be much strongerthan competitive advantage.

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Partnership arrangements inservice delivery

... are becoming more and more common -Example: Integrated waste management in theProvince of Siena – can be like herding cats!

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Dangers of partnership working

• Partnerships waste a lot of time

• Often share just talk, not action

• Won‘t share budgets, try to dump costs on each other

• Often designed top-down, don‘t work bottom-up

• Quickly see themselves as permanent structures rather than as transitional solution mechanisms

Implication: a very different kind of public servant isneeded to lead and to work in partnerships

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Making use of co-productionopportunities

• Clients and communities often help professionals and managers to co-plan, co-design, co-fund, co-manage, co- deliver, co-monitor and co-evaluate services.

• This has major advantages for the public services:•Clients who get involved make themselves better•Crime, environment, education, health, employment can only be tackled if ‘people serve themselves’•Inventing enabling, not disabling environments•Self-organising communities

• However, not all managers and professionals are comfortable with encouraging clients and their communities to become so powerful

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Staff roles in increasing citizen interaction

Example: street partiesExample: street partiesin the City of in the City of Issy-les-Issy-les-MoulineauxMoulineaux,,FranceFrance

Social events at street or districtlevel are encouraged byneighbourhood committees andthe town hall

The town hall provides logisticalsupport

The Mayor recognises the networkingrole of the concièrges by holding anannual reception for them in the townhall

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Co-production: helping citizens tomake a difference in Carrick UK

Local staff helped residents to bid fornational government money tosubsidise the installation of a modernheating system in their houses – andthis led to better health, lessunemployment and better children‘sexam results

This encouraged local people to getinvolved in cleaning up the estate,reducing traffic problems and havingmore social activities

Eventually they even tackled the anti-social behaviour of some of theirneighbours

Staff became expert at enablingcitizens to help themselves

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Co-production of housing forthe elderly in rural areas

The Villa Family in villages in the East of Franceallows two host families to look after 3 elderlypeople each, as part of family life but with someprivacy and independence.

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Why does co-production go wrong?

•Most social care is unpaid but most paid social care goesto the ‘most interesting cases’ rather than supporting theothers – so the co-producers end up being exploited by thepublic services because their needs are ignored

• Many pilot projects use co-production – but they rarelyforce their way into mainstream budgets

• Co-production can‘t always overcome conflicts of interest,free riders, burn-out, lack of skills, blurringof accountability and underminingof lobbying capacity

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•The most popular section•20 e-mails with Qs per day

•Counselling about road and safety•Advice about driving licenses

•Information about drugs/new substances•Regional coordination centres about drug & alcohol abuse

•Counselling about jobs by trade unions•Particularly about “unusual jobs”

•Cooperation with Informagiovani ensures theaccuracy and updating of infomation on studyopportunities, leisure activities, rights and duties,travel

www.stradanove.net

E-government solutions… help to communicate effectively with young people and to providenew services – E.g. Youth website in Modena

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How to sustain innovations?How to sustain innovations?

Some issues to discussSome issues to discuss

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Can we learn much from places thatare so different?

“Things are very different there – they don’t have our financialproblems … staff problems … social problems …legal context… difficult members of the public … difficult chief officers …difficult politicians …”

“We tried something like that years ago – it didn’t work”“We’d need to form a working group to consider it”“That’s interesting but … we don’t have the time … the staff

…the space …”“We could never market that to our politicians”“That’s against our policies”“That’s too difficult”

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Exploiting sources of innovationand learning I

P1. ¿Hasta qué punto han aprovechado ustedes buenos ejemplos de gestión actualmente disponible s en SU ORGANIZACIÓN?

Completamente

En gran parte

Parcialmente

En absoluto

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Exploiting sources of innovationand learning II

P2. ¿Hasta qué punto han aprovechado ustedes mejores prácticas de OTROS LUGARES (EN TERRITORIO REGIONAL, NACIONAL, E INTERNACIONAL)?

Completamente

En gran parte

Parcialmente

En absoluto

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Transferring internationalpractice at home

... Do not accept the argument that „innovationcosts a lot of money". Traditional ways of providingservices may be even more expensive, particularlywhen they are ineffective.

... Do not accept the argument that you can onlylearn from "similar organisations". Lookfor transferable difference not pure comparability.

And last but not least: never say never!

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Contact

Elke.Loeffler@govint.org