this brief has been commissioned by the efficiency unit to ... · this brief has been commissioned...

This Brief has been commissioned by the Efficiency Unit to report on recentdevelopments in public sector reform around the world. It is based on secondaryrather than original research and the objective has been to focus on internationalexamples, so that Hong Kong examples have been deliberately excluded.

The purpose of this publication is to present "at a glance" the key developmentsaround the world on the public sector reform front. It is meant to inform and inspireour public managers who are required to innovate in their service delivery.

Each country or organisation devises its own public sector reform agenda to suit itssocial, resources and political circumstances. The wholesale transplant of onereform initiative from one country to another seldom works. Nonetheless, knowingwhat other public managers in jurisdications elsewhere are thinking, and how theytackle their policy and implementation challenges should present food for thoughtfor us in Hong Kong.

Head, Efficiency UnitJuly 2007

Introduction

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Public Sector Reform: An International Overview

the world, focusing on those that havebeen widely adopted, those that seem tohave delivered significant improvement,and those that promise interesting newdirections in the reform agenda.

It is a sampler, a catalogue of short casestudies that readers can investigate moreclosely on their own. This is the first in aseries of papers, and it is meant to serveas a general introduction to some of theoutstanding themes that will beaddressed in greater detail in futurepapers.

Public EngagementThe challenge of public engagement is tofind new ways of encouraging citizens tobe meaningfully involved in public policy-making, and in playing a role in theinstitutions through which they aregoverned in their local communities.

Right around the world, governments arestruggling with this challenge. Informationtechnology can assist with the provision ofinformation to citizens and it can makeconsultation easier. But engagementrequires much more than formalinteraction, and governments are alsoexperimenting with more personalconsultation, creating innovative newforums for deliberation.

Customer-centric governmentCustomer-focused public services con-sider the public’s experiences as serviceusers. They seek to engage through shortfeedback loops – from the service userdirect to the service provider – rather thanlong loops – which flow from user toprovider via policymakers.

ublic sector reform is not new. But overthe past decade or two, there has

been an increase of reform activity, rightaround the world. While priorities haveshifted over time, and there have beendifferent emphases from country tocountry, there have also been severalpersistent themes: renewed attempts toengage citizens in the process ofgovernance; a move to place customersand end-users at the heart of publicservices; a focus on delivery and imple-mentation as opposed to policyformulation; managing for outcomes; anincreased reliance on market instrumentsto improve value-for-money; and effortsto coordinate the complex variety ofdifferent programmes acrossgovernment.

It is difficult to find a precedent for suchwidespread and sustained interest inpublic sector reform, even if we go back tothe progressive reformers of NorthAmerica around the turn of the 19th

century, a movement that was alsomanagerialist in tone.

There are different views as to whatunderlies this transformation agenda, butthroughout the literature, one finds adeep-seated belief that the business ofgovernment is fundamentally changing.Globalisation, technological innovationand rising public expectations – and thespeed with which these changes aretaking place – mean that the role of thepublic services in society and the mannerin which they are delivered mustfundamentally change.

This brief discusses some of the cutting-edge reforms to public services around

PublicengagementThe challenge of publicengagement is to findnew ways of encour-aging citizens to bemeaningfully involvedin public policy-making,and in playing a role inthe institutionsthrough which theyare governed in theirlocal communities.

Customer-centricgovernmentCustomer-focusedpublic servicesconsider the public’sexperiences as serviceusers. They seek toengage through shortfeedback loops – fromthe service user directto the service provider– rather than longloops – which flowfrom user to providervia policymakers.


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Executive Summary

mance-related pay, performance con-tracting and performance budgeting.Some governments are now experi-menting with purchasing outcomes andnot just outputs.

Market InstrumentsIn the regulation of private activity, in theprocurement of goods and in the deliveryof public services under contract, govern-ments are using market instruments todeliver better outcomes.

A variety of different market instrumentsare now being employed bygovernments to assist them in meetingpublic purposes, including onlineauctions, trading of environmentalpermits, competition and contracting,and the creation of new markets forpublic services.

Joined up governmentGovernments are searching for newways of overcoming the fragmentationand duplication in the public sector.

The lack of coordination in publicservices remains a serious challenge inthe struggle to improve the quality of thecustomer’s experience of government.Many of the traditional solutions, such asmerging departments and agencies andthe use of case managers have limitedvalue. Web-based technologies areopening up new possibilities fordelivering joined up government, butthey are also raising entirely newquestions, such as the desirability ofjoining up related public and privateservices.

In a number of governments, the pro-ducer-led model of public services isgradually giving way to a consumer-driven model. The range of options ex-tends from improving responsiveness toend-users, through to the personalisationof public services, and policies directed togiving the consumers of public servicessome choice of provider.

Policy to deliveryThe traditional emphasis on policy devel-opment in the senior ranks of governmentis being replaced with a focus on manage-ment and service delivery.

Many good ideas fail, not because theidea was wrong, but because theexecution was flawed. Governments arepaying much greater attention tostrengthening the public sector’scompetence in delivery. Initiatives haveincluded increased flexibility in therecruitment of senior executives, greateropenness in attracting expertise from theprivate sector, and particularly commercialexpertise, the establishment of deliveryunits with cross-cutting responsibilities,and the deregulation of the public services,by giving greater autonomy to servicemanagers.

Managing for resultsPerformance management is concernedwith the delivery of results rather than justcompliance with rules.

There have been a wide variety of perfor-mance-based initiatives, from perfor-mance measurement and reporting,performance accountability (based on acycle of management reforms), perfor-


Managing forresultsPerformance manage-ment is concerned withthe delivery of resultsrather than justcompliance with rules.

MarketinstrumentsIn the regulation ofprivate activity, in theprocurement of goodsand in the delivery ofpublic services undercontract, governmentsare using marketinstruments to deliverbetter outcomes.

Joined upgovernmentGovernments aresearching for new waysof overcoming thefragmentation andduplication in the publicsector.

Executive Summary

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Policy to deliveryThe traditional empha-sis on policy develop-ment in the senior ranksof government is beingreplaced with a focus onmanagement andservice delivery.

1. Public Engagement

National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration in the USA (www.nhtsa.gov/ncsl/) tracks legislation on a range ofroad safety issues across all jurisdictions.

But intermediating governmentinformation is no longer the exclusivedomain of government. Concerned citizensare using the internet to provide fellow-citizens with a window into government. Inthe US, legislation trackers are beingoffered by individuals - see, for example,GovTrack (www.govtrack.us). In the UK,TheyWorkForYou(www.theyworkforyou.com) enables citizens to track their localmember's speeches and voting patterns,and to check details from their register ofinterests and members' expenses.

Rules and regulations are more intrusivethan legislation, requiring closeconsultation with those affected. But rule-making has also become more complexdue to requirements in some jurisdictionsfor regulatory impact statements and cost-benefit analysis. This makes it more difficultfor governments to attract meaningfulcomment prior to the promulgation of newrules. The US federal government nowoffers a web portal - Regulations.Gov(www.regulations.gov) - dedicated toconsultation on rule-making so that it iseasier for the public to track changes andfile comments.

Governments are also able to provide theircitizens with detailed information aboutparticular aspects of public administration.Best practice is to be found in the USfederal government website, FedSpending(www.fedspending.org), which enablescitizens to obtain detailed (and user-

Engaging the citizenry is a challenge forgovernments right around the world. Itcontinues to be a dilemma for a variety ofreasons: the ongoing 'nationalisation' ofgovernment, with decision-makingauthority moving from the local to thenational level; the growing significance ofsupra-national institutions, such as theEuropean Union and the World Bank; thetechnical complexity of moderngovernment; and the lack of interest on thepart of citizens, evidenced through lowvoter-turnouts and declining partymemberships.

Information

At the most basic level, citizens need tounderstand what government is doing andhow it impacts on them. Traditionally, thishas been difficult because of citizens'diverse interests, and the different ways inwhich they interact with public services.

However, information technology ismaking it easier to track the progress oflegislation. Online bill tracking services areprovided by most state legislatures in theUSA - see, for example, that of theMichigan Legislature (www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(cwey1v555f1edr45fdw0nzfu))/mileg.aspx?page=home). And some offerpersonalised bill tracking so that afteridentifying legislation that is of particularinterest, subscribers can be updatedregularly by email - Nevada (www.leg.state.nv.us/74th/subscriber) is one statethat offers this service.

Individual departments, interest groupsand commercial organisations also offerservices that focus on specific issues. The


PublicengagementThe challenge of publicengagement is to findnew ways of encour-aging citizens to bemeaningfully involvedin public policy-making,and in playing a role inthe institutionsthrough which theyare governed in theirlocal communities.

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and online discussion forums, as well asmore traditional consultationmechanisms. Some governments aretailoring discussion forums to particularsub-groups in the community.HeadsUp (www.headsup.org.uk) is onesuch service directed to young people.

Web 2.0 - the latest generation ininternet-based services - greatlyexpands the kind of contributions thatcan be made by citizens. These highly-democratic systems have sometimesbeen described as 'peer-production'. Aleading-edge example of how this newtechnology might be used in improvingthe quality of public engagement isPoliticopia, a wiki established by a statepolitician from Utah (USA). In this case,citizens are provided with neutralstatements of major policy initiatives,with supportive and criticalargumentation. The public are then ableto make their own contributions online,and the politician operating the site hasbeen able to take meaningful reforms tothe legislature based on thesecomments.

ComNET (www.fcny.org/cmgp/comnet.htm) represents a more active form ofpublic engagement. It was developedby the Center on Municipal Governmentin New York, and uses hand-heldcomputers (similar to PDAs), to enablecommunity organisations to captureinformation about local potholes orstreetlight maintenance (along withphotographs), and upload the data togovernment. The system is now beingused in a number of North Americanmunicipalities.

friendly) information on federalgovernment grants and contracts, bystate, congressional district, contractor,service type or level of competition.

Some governments provide highly-accessible ways of tracking newinfrastructure projects in the state or city.See, for example, the New York CityEconomic Development Corporation(www.nycedc.com/Web). On a smallerscale, the city of Seattle providesresidents with detailed maps showingroad construction works (www.seattle.gov/transportation/map/default.htm).

Consultation

Citizens also want to be engaged ingovernment decision-making, beingconsulted about forthcoming reforms andenabled to feed back their views onpublic services. Some governmentagencies and local authorities seek publicinput on the quality of public services andspending priorities, using surveys mailedout to local residents.

Some conduct annual surveys of asample of randomly selected citizens.The City of San Francisco, for example,publishes an annual 'City Survey'summarising the government'sperformance across a range of measures,comparing results over time (http://www.sfgov.org/site/controller_csa_index.asp?id=59064).

In 2006, the Singapore Governmentrestructured its feedback unit into a newservice entitled REACH (http://app.reach.gov.sg/reach/default.aspx) with e-polls



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One of the most closely-watchedconsultation initiatives has been'Participatory Budgeting' (http://www.participatorybudgeting.org/Whatis.htm), introduced by the city of PortoAlegre in Brazil in 1990, and thereafteradopted in some 250 municipalitiesacross South America and around theworld. Participatory Budgeting works atthe local level, where there are definedgeographic boundaries. It is based onstructured dialogue and debate aboutspending priorities over the course of theyear, among local people elected bytheir fellow citizens.

Deliberation

Deliberation implies that citizens havebeen given the opportunity to make athoughtful contribution to an issue afterconsideration of the evidence. Itsuggests that a representative cross-section of the public has been providedwith the information and allowed thetime and the forum within which toreach a considered judgement.

In British Columbia, Canada, thegovernment established a Citizen'sAssembly (www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public) in 2004, to review theprovince's electoral system. 160representatives drawn from all electoraldistricts considered alternative reforms ata series of forums over a period ofeleven months. Submissions werereceived by the Assembly from thegeneral public. The recommendationswere put to the public in a popularreferendum.

Deliberative forums are large groupdiscussions involving a representativesample of citizens who have beenprovided in advance with briefingmaterials, and are given access tosubject-matter experts beforeparticipating in a deliberative process.

Case Study 1: DeliberativePolling in Wenling City

In 2005, Zeguo township in WenlingCity, China, used 'Deliberative Polling'(http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/china) toengage with around 250 randomly-selected citizens to consult on prioritiesfor local infrastructure projects. Ascientific approach to the selection ofparticipants was combined withtraditional methods of deliberation usedin the local community. Among otherbenefits, deliberation encouragedparticipants to take into account thefinancial consequences of their choices.

Citizens' Juries typically involve smallergroups - 12 to 15 non-experts - to hearevidence from witnesses, deliberate andform a judgement on contentious policyissues. They have been actively used bygovernments and third partyorganisations in the UK in recent years.

Citizen-led reform

Some governments allow their citizensto initiate reforms, if they are able toattract a sufficient level of communitysupport. In the UK, experiments areunderway with a citizen-led initiative



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known as 'community call to action'.Under the Police and Justice Act 2006,citizens can raise community safetyconcerns with local councillors, who areunder a statutory obligation to addressthese matters and respond. Frontlinecouncillors in turn are able to insist onresponsiveness from delivery agencies.

Citizen initiatives - which allow citizensto vote on a proposed statutory orconstitutional amendment - have beenused in Switzerland for well over acentury. They have been actively usedin some of the western states of NorthAmerica in recent decades. (www.iandrinstitute.org). Votes or referendaare triggered by public petition,although issues are usually required tohave a high level of support before theycan be submitted for consideration.

GovernanceThe most advanced form ofengagement enables the public to beinvolved in the actual governance oforganisations with responsibility for thedelivery of community services. Themost successful of these have been atthe sub-local level, where local citizenshave a greater capacity to make acontribution to the management ofneighbourhood services.

One of the most successful initiatives ofthis sort have been BusinessImprovement Districts (BIDs), pioneeredin Canada in the late 1960s, andadopted widely in the United States inthe 1990s. BIDs are created on theinitiative of local merchants andproperty owners, and financed by an

additional assessment on propertytaxes. The funds are allocated to theBID, which provides supplementaryservices in retail and commercialprecincts. In New York City, BIDsfinanced additional security personneland street cleaners, and worked withlocal shopkeepers to improve the visualappearance of the neighbourhood. BIDshave also been established morerecently in some UK municipalities.

Another area where citizens have beenable to become involved in communitygovernance is in the management ofnatural resources. Local fishingcommunities are sometimesadministered in this way. In Australia,there are around 4,000 volunteercommunity landcare groups,coordinated by government, that playan important role (for example) inhelping to combat soil erosion (www.landcareonline.com).

The UK government is also looking tothe directly-elected 'neighbourhoodcouncillors' who will have delegatedrights over spending on services withinthe local neighbourhood. Localcouncillors would have the option ofraising additional funds by levying anextra charge on the local tax for specificneighbourhood services.



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'Putting customers first' through voiceand choice was a central element of AlGore's 'National Performance Review' inthe US federal government in the mid-1990s, and subsequently by the Bushadministration. More recently, the UKgovernment has actively sought to focuspublic service providers on the needs ofend-users. In Singapore, ministers haveexhorted public servants to 'Start withthe User in Mind', and other govern-ments around the world have adopteda similar approach, particularly inrelation to online services.

Service quality

The quality movement has served as acompanion to customer-centricgovernment. 'Citizen's Charters' intro-duced by the UK government in the late1980s pioneered this approach, estab-lishing explicit performance standardsfor customer service. This was followedby Quality Charters in Portugal, ClientCharters in Malaysia, Service Users'Charters in Australia and CustomerService Standards in the US federalgovernment.

Responsiveness

The Organisation for Economic Coop-eration and Development (OECD)reports widespread interest in improvingthe responsiveness of government,although different governments pursuethe concept in different ways. At asimple level, this involves surveyingcustomer satisfaction, with a view to

better understanding what matters toservice users. At a more sophisticatedlevel, it involves rethinking public servicesin terms of the customer experience -seeking to understand governmentprogrammes as a narrative told from theuser's perspective.

The soft issues - whether consumersare treated with respect - matter asmuch to consumers as the hard issues -the effectiveness of the service theyfinally receive. It is now commonplacefor government agencies to use 'mys-tery shoppers', a technique often usedby private sector managers to test thequality of front-line service delivery.

Once again, information technology hasmade it easier for governments tosurvey and to respond to the concerns ofservice-users. CivicRADAR (www.civicradar.com) - being piloted inConnecticut - enables citizens to com-municate information to the citygovernment, make service requests andregister complaints 24 hours a day.More importantly, the system allowsthem to track the response of the variousdepartments and agencies online andwhen the requests are resolved, com-plete a satisfaction survey.

In the private sector, price comparisonwebsites now enable consumers tosearch for the best prices for standardgoods and services such as airline flights.Websites have been launched enablingthe public to compare the pricescharged by competing public utilities

Customer-centricgovernmentCustomer-focusedpublic servicesconsider the public’sexperiences as serviceusers. They seek toengage through shortfeedback loops – fromthe service user directto the service provider– rather than longloops – which flowfrom user to providervia policymakers.

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2. Customer-centric Government

(such as electricity and gas). But manygovernment services are heavilysubsidised or provided free of charge, sothat price comparison may be of littleassistance.

On the other hand, a growing number ofwebsites enable citizens to compare thequality of services. The US Departmentof Health and Human Services (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) allowspatients to compare the performance ofhospitals across the United Statesaccording to a range of performancemeasures. In the UK, an independentguide to the performance of hospitalsand medical consultants is provided bya public-private partnership known as DrFoster (www.drfoster.co.uk). In theeducation sector, the UK governmentallows parents to compare the stan-dards of neighbourhood schools (http://schoolsfinder.direct.gov.uk) and non-government organisations offer similarservices in the US (www.greatschools.net).

Personalisation

Personalisation suggests that the publicare provided with a customer-friendlyinterface with government services.Developments in information technol-ogy have opened up new ways ofpersonalising public services, withfacilities available 24/7 and the ability tomake appointments online. It issummed up in the 'MyGov' concept -tailoring government websites toindividual need. As an extreme example

of personalisation, some North Ameri-can governments now allow drivers toorder customised number plates online.The state of Virginia allows customers todraw on any one of 180 differentdesigns, some of which are sponsoredby community organisations and socialcauses (www.dmv.virginia.gov/webdoc/citizen/vehicles/plate_search.asp).

Business Link (www.businesslink.gov.uk), an online information service forsmall business in Britain, is an exampleof this new generation of customisedservices. For example, an individualwishing to start a new business caninput details on the kind of businessthey are proposing to establish, and theonline service will provide them with astart-up organiser, with all of the re-quired links, and (say) prompted assis-tance and precedents for preparing abusiness plan.

Increasingly, individuals are looking forprivate services to be incorporated intothese personalised online facilities. Thisis leading to a debate about whethergovernments' electronic services shouldbe opened up to third party intermedi-aries who would act more as the agentof the citizen than as the agents ofgovernment. Australian immigrationvisas are managed through an interna-tional network of travel agents. In theUK, banks have explored the possibilityof enabling customers to lodge theirreturns and pay their taxes through thebanks' websites, and insurance compa-nies have suggested that motor vehicle


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registration might be undertaken bythem on their policyholders' behalf.

However, since many public servicesinvolve personal care, case manage-ment remains an important means ofpersonalising public services to theindividual. It is resource-intensive andmust be prioritised on those in greatestneed, but governments continue toexplore new models. For example, theUK government is introducing a na-tional scheme for case-managingoffenders through the criminal justicesystem.

In the health sector, pilot schemes arebeing introduced for managing thelong-term health needs of the chroni-cally ill, with the objective of improvingquality of life and reducinghospitalisation rates. Health Mainte-nance Organisations in the USA pio-neered these models, with privatehealth insurers and state social insur-ance providers elsewhere in the worldadapting them to local need. SouthAfrica introduced managed care in thelate 1990s, and Australia started con-ducting trials with 'coordinated care'shortly thereafter. The UK is alsoexperimenting with integrated caremodels for the management of chronicdisease.

Choice

It was long assumed that the concept ofcustomer choice had only limitedapplication to public services, but theUnited States and Australia have

pioneered choice in education throughvoucher arrangements. In Australia, thishas been accomplished simply byallowing government funding to beallocated across the public and inde-pendent sectors according to studentnumbers.

Where public services are provided freeat the point of delivery, it is still possiblefor customers (or their agents) to choosebetween alternative providers. UnderAustralia's Job Network , job seekers canregister for assistance with any of arange of approved service providers intheir area, drawn from the private andvoluntary sectors.

Concerns have been expressed thatchoice is not equally accessible for somedisadvantaged groups. This can beaddressed partly through differentialvouchers, which offer proportionatelygreater benefits to the disadvantaged.In the UK, the government is appointing'choice advisers' to assist families inmaking meaningful decisions aboutschools. Every local authority is toappoint a network of choice advisersfrom 2008.


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Case Study 2: Choice-basedLetting in Public Housing

In 2000, Harborough District Council (aUK local authority) launched a choice-based letting system for the allocation ofpublic housing. It was based on the so-called Delft Model that had been widelyadopted in the Netherlands.

Instead of allocating housing to appli-cants with no alternatives and littleexplanation as to decisions, choice-basedletting gave tenants the opportunity toregister for and respond to advertise-ments for available properties. They wereprovided with information about theproperties and neighbourhoods, and localmarket conditions. And simpler and moretransparent selection criteria wereintroduced. Applicants who turned downoffers were no longer automaticallypenalised. Choice-based lettings havesince been adopted by many localauthorities in the UK.


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Most public servants are involved indelivering services to citizens, and yet, inmost governments around theindustrialised world, the senior ranks ofthe public service have been dominatedby policy generalists with only a fewhaving a commercial or financialbackground. Governments have tendedto be driven by policy models ratherthan delivery models.

Politicians and public servants are nowpaying much greater attention toquestions of implementation, and thestructures, processes and capabilitiesnecessary to strengthen the publicsector's competence in delivery. Therehas been a growing recognition thatmany good ideas fail, not because theidea itself was wrong, but because theexecution was flawed.

Transforming the senior civil service

Traditionally, the core public service wascareer-based, with civil servants re-cruited on the basis of examinations oracademic credentials, and thereafterenjoying lifelong tenure. They weretransferred between positions asneeded, which required them to begeneralists.

In recent years, a number of countrieshave shifted to position-based systems,where the focus is on finding the bestcandidate for the job in question, oftenby competitive recruitment amongstinternal and external candidates. Anglo-American governments have tended to

adopt this approach more often, al-though Sweden, Switzerland andHungary have also been leaders.

In many countries, chief executives andsenior civil servants are now hired onterm contracts, with performance-related pay. Organisational structuresare determined and public servants arerecruited, employed and promoted bythe chief executive of the individualdepartment or agency, rather than acentral public service board. And in anattempt to avoid a fragmentation of thepublic service and encourage leadershipdevelopment, a number of govern-ments have established a 'seniorexecutive service'.

The US federal government was the firstto introduce such a service, followed inthe late 1990s and early 1990s byAustralia and New Zealand, and laterby the Netherlands and the UK. SouthKorea has a strong career-basedtradition, but in 1999 the governmentintroduced the Open CompetitivePosition System, with the objective offacilitating the transfer of skills fromoutside government. Ministries were todesignate 20% of senior positions foropen competition.

Even with a senior executive service,these countries have experienceddifficulty in attracting significant num-bers of external applicants for seniorpositions, and governments havesought to involve the private sector inother ways.


3. From Policy to Delivery

From Policy toDeliveryThe traditional empha-sis on policy develop-ment in the seniorranks of government isbeing replaced with afocus on managementand service delivery.

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Private sector expertise

In 2004, the Japanese Prime Ministerappointed senior business leaders andacademics to a Council for the Promo-tion of Regulatory Reform (www.cao.go.jp/en/reform/previous_reform.html).This expert committee was used todevelop an important new initiative formarket-testing public services that hassince been implemented by thegovernment.

North American governments have longappointed senior business executives tohigh-level 'commissions' to design andthen to oversee the implementation offinancial and operational reforms. TheGovernor of Georgia, Sonny Perduerecently appointed a 'Commission for aNew Georgia' (www.new-georgia.org),led by CEOs and senior executives fromthe private sector, to harness innovationand technology to improve cost effi-ciency and customer responsiveness.

In Virginia, Governor Mark Warnercreated a 'Council on Virginia's Future'(www.future.virginia.gov) involvingsenior politicians, public officials andprivate sector executives. The briefincluded providing a long-term focus onhigh priority issues, improving govern-ment performance, and engagingcitizens in a dialogue about Virginia'sfuture.

When it set about to create a newmarket for elective surgery in the Na-tional Health Service (NHS), the British

government appointed an executivefrom the private sector as the newCommercial Director in the Departmentof Health. He was given a strongmandate for reform and he, in turn,relied heavily on secondments from theprivate sector to support the initiative.The programme is regarded as havingbeen a success, although thesustainability of this model is uncertainas many of the staff have since returnedto the private sector (www.dh.gov.uk/en/Policyandguidance/Organisationpolicy/Secondarycare/Treatmentcentres/DH_074351).

Driving delivery

Another way in which governmentshave emphasised the primacy ofdelivery is through the creation ofspecialist units at the centre of govern-ment to ensure that key targets aremet. The New South Wales stategovernment in Sydney, Australia,established a Premier's Delivery Unit in2006, to drive improvement in thedelivery of public services. A similar unitwas established by the UK governmentin 2001, to oversee the government'sperformance management system.

In 2006, the British government estab-lished a Delivery Council (www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/public_service_reform/delivery_council),made up of leaders in operationaldelivery from across government 'toshare best practice (e.g. on commis-sioning models) and to provide expert



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practitioner input to the design andmanagement of delivery models'. Keydelivery departments in the UK havealso been appointing 'CommercialDirectorates', staffed with personnel witha strong commercial background.

Deregulating public services

One of the most important reformsidentified for improving public servicedelivery has lain in the reduction of thebureaucratic red tape imposed on publicservice managers. In order for managersto be given greater autonomy, it hasalso been necessary to make themmore accountable - 'making the man-agers manage' as well as 'letting themanagers manage'. One of the fourpillars of Singapore's public sectorproductivity reforms has been 'MaximiseDiscretion'.

Devolution of financial responsibility hasbeen central to these reforms. Typically,governments have moved to three-yearforward estimates, output budgeting,accrual accounting and charging gen-eral government agencies for capitalassets. At the same time, chief execu-tives have been made responsible forthe financial performance of theiragencies, with associated performancepay.

In human resource management, therehas been a trend towards assigning theresponsibility for recruitment andpromotion to the chief executive ratherthan a central government board orcommission.

Consistent with these developments,when the new US Department ofHomeland Security was created in2002, it was exempted from provisionsof the civil service law relating to hiring,compensation and promotion.

Case Study 3: Iowa's CharterAgencies

In 2003, Iowa launched its CharterAgencies programme (http://charter.iowa.gov/default.htm). Agencies areable to volunteer for charter status,which ensures them greater financialand managerial freedom, in return forcommitments to deliver measurableservice improvements and savings. Sixagencies stepped forward in 2004, andtogether they represent more than halfof all state employees.

Charter Agencies are exempt fromacross-the-board budget cuts for threeyears; they are able to retain half ofunspent appropriations and 80 percentof all new revenue generated; they canactively market goods and services tothe public; they are exempt fromrestrictions on staffing numbers andmay award employee bonuses.However, they are subject to the state'scollective bargaining arrangements.

It has proven somewhat easier to givegreater management autonomy toservice delivery agencies. Wheregovernments felt that it was inappropri-ate to privatise state trading enterprises,



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they corporatised or commercialisedthem, expanding their freedom to engagein business activities, whilst also increasingtheir financial and regulatoryaccountability.

A great deal of work remains to be done inensuring that these reforms flow down tothe managers involved in the delivery offront-line services - school principals,hospital administrators, prison governorsand police commanders.

In the UK, there has been an attempt toincrease managerial autonomy at thislevel. The most striking examples lie in thecreation of semi-autonomous 'trusts' outof high-performing service units. Theearliest of these were foundation trusthospitals (www.dh.gov.uk/en/Policyandguidance/Organisationpolicy/Secondarycare/NHSfoundationtrust/index.htm), followed more recently by cityacademies (www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/academies/what_are_academies/?version=1) and trust schools (http://findoutmore.dfes.gov.uk/2006/09/trust_schools.html), which enjoy greatercommercial freedom than traditionalpublic institutions.


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Over recent decades, many governmentsaround the world have adopted someform of performance management. Arecent survey among OECD nations foundthat three-quarters included non-financialperformance data in their budgetdocumentation, although half neglectedto link expenditure to targets or applyrewards or sanctions.

The trend is for governments to movefrom simple and indirect forms of perfor-mance management towards moredemanding models where budgets aredirectly linked to targets and governmentsbuy outcomes rather than just paying foroutputs.

Performance measurement

This is the most basic kind of performancemanagement. It consists of monitoringand reporting accomplishments, usuallyin comparison with some benchmark -past performance, some ideal notion ofbest practice or external benchmarksdrawn from the public or private sectors.

In one of the most comprehensivenational projects, the Australian Productiv-ity Commission publishes an annual'Report on Government Services' (www.pc.gov.au/gsp/reports/rogs/2006/index.html), comparing the performance of awide range of public services across thevarious states.

Following an extensive programme ofcommunity consultation in 2000, theAustralian state of Tasmania laid down a

number of high-level goals and detailedtargets for improving the state'sperformance, under the title TasmaniaTogether (www.tasmaniatogether.tas.gov.au). Performance assessment andpublic reporting is overseen by a statutoryProgress Board that is appointed on abipartisan basis.

The government of Virginia (USA) isrequired by legislation to publish anannual scorecard reporting progressagainst long-term objectives, currentservice performance and productivityimprovement. Performance against thegovernment's key targets is trackedonline at 'Virginia Performs' (www.vaperforms.virginia.gov), and the publicare able to study the state's performanceover time and against other states.Citizens are able to search detailed resultsby agency and by locality.

Performance accountability

This implies the existence of a manage-ment cycle, in which performance objec-tives are agreed, achievements aremeasured and reported against thoseobjectives, reforms are made with a viewto accomplishing the targets, and there isa system of escalating interventionswhere agencies fail to respondadequately.

North America have been in the forefrontof this movement, with state govern-ments setting targets for local schooldistricts and intervening in cases ofpersistent failure. Two of the early movers

4. Managing For Results

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Managing forresultsPerformance man-agement is con-cerned with thedelivery of resultsrather than justcompliance with rules.

were North Carolina and Texas, wheresignificant gains in student performancewere observed by the mid-1990s. In2000, the Bush administration introducedthe 'No Child Left Behind' Act (www.whitehouse.gov/news/reports/no-child-left-behind.html), obliging states tointroduce annual report cards, with anobligation to take corrective action whereprogress is lacking.

Case Study 4: Intervention inFailing Schools

The UK established an independentinspections agency for schools in 1992,and published the first scorecards, basedon public examination results, the sameyear. For some years, parents have beenable to check the performance of localschools based on inspections by the Officeof Standards in Education (www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports) or the examinationscorecards (www.dfes.gov.uk/performancetables) that are based onstudent performance.

Starting in 2000, the government built onthese foundations, developing a compre-hensive performance managementregime, with around 1,400 failing schoolsbeing placed in 'special measures', and afurther 200 closed for failure to reform.The evidence suggests that thisprogramme was successful across thetargeted measures.

Performance accountability can also beused as an intensive management tool forturning around underperforming

agencies. The best-known example isCompstat, a system introduced by theNew York Commissioner of Police, BillBratton, in 1994. It was designed todirect police resources into crime hotspots and reliable and timely statisticsabout policing outcomes lay at its heart,with front-line commanders meetingregularly with senior management toaccount for their performance. Compstatwas seen as having made a majorcontribution to the dramatic fall in NewYork's crime rates in the 1990s andwithin five years, more than a quarter ofpolice departments across Americawere imitating the initiative.

Following Compstat's success, Baltimoreintroduced CitiStat (www.ci.baltimore.md.us/news/citistat/reports.html) in2000, using a performance account-ability model based on Compstat, tomanage severe problems with em-ployee absences, sick leave, workers'compensation and overtime. Thescheme was later broadened to includeother performance criteria and it is nowbeing rolled out across the entire stateof Maryland.

Pay-for-Performance

Since the 1980s, more than two-thirdsof OECD countries have introducedperformance related pay for at leastsome of their public service, includingthe United Kingdom, the United Statesand Canada, Australia and NewZealand, and a range of Europeancountries including Germany, Italy, the

4. Managing for resultsPage 17



Netherlands and Sweden. Korea has alsoadopted performance pay in recent years.

In New Zealand, which was one of theearly adopters, the Public Service Com-missioner determines the performanceincentive, limited to 15 percent of theremuneration package. The performanceof the organisation and the public serviceas a whole is taken into account. InCanada, a committee of departmentalsecretaries assesses performance, withthe Prime Minister making the finaldetermination. In the Australian federalgovernment, ministers are consulted, butthe Prime Minister and the head of hisdepartment play a central role.

Experts disagree as to whether perfor-mance bonuses are effective and appro-priate in motivating individual employeesin the public sector, and some havecautioned at the danger of politicisation.Some extend these reservations to theuse of financial penalties in theincentivisation of underperformingorganisations. While financial incentivesmay be of limited value where govern-ment agencies are budget-funded, thesuccess of performance sanctions inmanaging contracts for the delivery ofpublic services by the private sectorsuggests that they can be usedsuccessfully.

Performance contracting

Performance contacting involves purchas-ing outcomes or outputs from a public,private or voluntary sector supplier,

through a legally-binding or a quasi-contractual relationship. Competitivetendering and public private partner-ships (PPPs) are dealt with later in thisreport, but performance contractingdeserves to be considered separately.

Some countries have engaged inextensive competition of public services,and in the process, they have devel-oped sophisticated models of perfor-mance contracting. Several UK govern-ment agencies, and local governments,are now using contracting to procurebetter social outcomes (such as diversityand sustainability outcomes), ratherthan focusing just on value-for-money.

Governments have also employedquasi-contracts (or 'service levelagreements') between policy agenciesand delivery units, in an attempt toadapt the lessons of performancecontracting to public sector agencies. Forexample, Denmark employs perfor-mance contracts between ministriesand line agencies, and between minis-tries and chief executives, with associ-ated performance-related pay.

Performance budgeting

At its simplest, performance budgetingmay mean nothing more than present-ing performance data as part of budgetdocumentation. A stricter version at-tempts to link funding to outputs andoutcomes specified in the budgetpapers. The promoters of performancebudgeting hope to use these measures


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to drive budgetary and managementdecisions.

The US federal government introducedthe Government Performance andResults Act (GPRA) in 1993, requiringagencies to develop strategic plans,annual performance plans and perfor-mance reports. GPRA was regarded assomewhat groundbreaking in giving theCongress a role in the process. In 2004,the GPRA was taken a step further,moving to align performance informa-tion with budgetary decisions, with theOffice of Management and Budget(OMB) asking agencies to submitperformance budgets. Since the mid-1990s, more than 30 US states haveintroduced performance measurementlegislation, but Texas and Maryland arein the forefront of moving to true perfor-mance budgeting.

Some of the more rigorous forms ofperformance budgeting are to be foundin the higher education sector (forexample in the Scandinavian countries),where a proportion of the funding isbased on academic performance. In theUK, this approach is also used forresearch funding. Case-mix funding (or'payment by results') in the healthsystem is yet another form of perfor-mance budgeting. The United States,Denmark, Norway, Chile and some ofthe Australian states have been usingcase-mix funding for hospitals, and theUK is part way through the introductionof such a scheme.

In the United States, health insurancefunds and Health MaintenanceOrganisations have introduced pay-for-performance (P4P) programmes forphysicians and hospitals. At elsewhere,there has been a movement in the pastthree or four years towards paying foroutcomes, although efforts are stillbeing made to improve the quality ofmeasures. The federal government'sMedicare and Medicaid programs arealso experimenting with outcome-based funding methods.

From inputs to outcomes

There has been a distinct move fromthe specification of inputs to the fundingof outputs, and while the shift to pur-chasing outcomes has proven moredifficult, governments continue toexperiment. Several local authorities inthe UK are now contracting for out-comes in the cleanliness of their streets.Part of the contractor's profit is at riskbased on local citizens' perceptions ofcleanliness (as measured by indepen-dent research).

Australia's Job Network and the Frenchequivalent partly reward welfare-to-work providers based on the success oftheir clients in retaining their jobs overthe medium-term. And experimentsare underway in Australia and the UK,testing whether the risk of hospitaladmission rates for the chronically-illcan be shifted to private and voluntaryproviders.



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In the UK, the Highways Agency hasadopted an 'Active ManagementPayment Mechanism' (www.highways.gov.uk/roads/2998.aspx) in newtollroads delivered under PPPs. Thisincludes financial bonuses and penaltiesfor road congestion caused bybreakdowns, road works and specialevents, as well as adjustments based onthe number of accidents (benchmarkedagainst comparable roads).


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Governments have always looked to themarket to purchase some of their goodsand services. But over recent decades,they have increasingly adopted market-type arrangements to assist them inmeeting public ends. Unlike theprivatisation initiatives of the 1980s,market-oriented government seeks touse the economic incentives createdthrough these instruments to deliverpublic purposes.

e-Auctions

A simple example of a market instru-ment now widely used by governmentsto deliver value-for-money are elec-tronic auctions. e-Auctions assist increating a more competitiveenvironment, as well as saving onprocurement costs. Housing, medical,computing and other office supplies arejust a few of the services being boughtthrough reverse e-Auctions, whichintensify the competitive pressure forsellers.

Online auctions are particularly valuablefor local governments that may nototherwise be able to attract significantmarket interest. In the UK, consortia oflocal authorities have formed regionalpurchasing organisations to increasetheir commercial leverage. In the UnitedStates, the federal government hascreated a single site, FedBid (www.fedbid.com) to handle federal, state andlocal government online procurementservices.

Governments are also auctioningrestricted public services online. TheSingapore Land Transport Authorityconducts online bidding for 'certificates ofentitlement' for vehicle ownership (thenumbers of which are capped) (www.lta.gov.sg/ocoe). Oklahoma allows real-time electronic bidding on state bonds(www.ok.gov/ostbid/index.php).

Environmental markets

Carbon trading, popularised through thedebate over global warming, is a kind ofenvironmental market designed to assistin the management of CO2 emissions.Also known as 'cap and trade', this formof regulatory system relies on a statutoryceiling on emissions within a definedgeographic area, with companiesassigned individual limits, which can bebought and sold. The benefit of such asystem is that those companies capableof reducing their emissions at the lowestcost are incentivised to do so throughbuying entitlements.

The trading of environmental credits waspioneered by the US government withsulphur dioxide (SO2) trading introducedin 1990, and a variety of schemes havesince been implemented around theworld (http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/trading/index.html). The Australian stategovernment of New South Walesintroduced salinity trading in the HunterRiver in 1992, as a way of balancing theinterests of coal mines and vineyards,both of which use the river. Trading isnow undertaken online, with the public

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5. Market Instruments

MarketInstrumentsIn the regulation ofprivate activity, in theprocurement of goodsand in the delivery ofpublic services undercontract, governmentsare using marketinstruments to deliverbetter outcomes.

able to monitor trends (http://hrs1.epa.nsw.gov.au).

Governments have also used tradablerights for the management of waterextraction from rivers and groundwatersystems, and for regulating the exploita-tion of fishing resources. Australia is oneof the world leaders in the use of watermarkets, with online trading (www.waterfind.com.au). And the Great BarrierReef Marine Park Authority uses a tradingscheme to control the number of touristoperators on the reef (www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/permits/emc).

Competition and contracting

Contracting of public services has be-come increasingly commonplace overrecent decades, partly as a by-product ofthe information revolution, and partlybecause of the popularity of PPPs in theprovision of infrastructure and the associ-ated services.

IT-enabled change: Governments turnedto the private sector for IT services largelybecause there was no in-house capabil-ity in this field and, given the pace ofchange, there was little point in develop-ing it. What has changed in recent yearsis the expansion of the associatedsupport services which private sectorfirms are capable of managing on behalfof clients. The term most commonlyused is 'business process outsourcing',and the range of services variouslyincludes asset management, financialmanagement (including payroll, pen-

sions and accounts), human resourcesadministration, procurement and supplychain management and help desks andcustomer information.

A number of Asian countries, but mostnotably India, have developed a newindustry in supplying these services tooverseas companies, and particularly inthe English-speaking world. Somegovernments struggle with the politics ofoutsourcing public services to overseascountries, because of the perceivedimpact on local jobs.

PPPs: Australian governments pioneeredthe asset procurement model that hascome to be known as PPP or the privatefinance initiative (PFI), in the late 1980s.Until recently, they continued to be worldleaders in PPP toll roads, although the UShas recently overtaken them. The marketleader in the PPP markets is the UKwhich has signed more than 800 PPPssince the policy was first actively pursuedin 1996.

But the PPP model has now beenadopted right around the world, withsome countries such as Spain and Japandeveloping more sophisticated procure-ment models than the UK. In many ofthese countries, the service element inthese contracts is largely confined tofacilities management, but there aresome important exceptions - prisons(UK, USA, Japan), hospitals (Japan), andtollroads carrying market risk (Australia,Canada, USA).

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Public service contracting: In addition tothese developments, there has beencontinuous expansion in the range ofpublic services delivered under contract,as governments have developed newmodels and private firms have devel-oped new service capabilities. Thefollowing are some of the leading-edgeexamples:

One of the most successful areas ofpublic service contracting has been thecustodial sector, with private firms insome countries managing entire prisons,undertaking prisoner transportation andhandling home detention with electronictagging. Both the US and the UK haveworked with the private and voluntarysectors in the provision of probationservices.

In 1996, Mozambique contracted themanagement of its customs service to aprivate company originally establishedby the UK Customs Service, with a viewto reconstructing its systems and pro-cesses and retraining its staff. Morerecently, this firm has advised Bulgariaand other countries on themodernisation of their customsprogrammes (http://www.crownagents.com).

In the USA, the state of Georgia hasrecently contracted out the manage-ment of entire local authorities. SandySprings (www.sandyspringsga.org) wasthe first of these, in December 2005,appointing a private contractor to deliverall of its services. Contracted services

included: the call centre, accounting,purchasing, human resources, informa-tion technology and support for fire,police, water and sewerage, and gar-bage services, street design andmaintenance, planning and zoning,inspections and permits. Some towncouncils in Singapore contract out theadministration of all their common areasto managing agents.

Contestability

'Contestability' is not another word for'competition'. It refers to the reform ofpublic services by using the threat ofcompetition. It is not necessary that theservice in question actually be market-tested: only that there is a pool ofalternative providers, and a mechanismfor the injection of competition shouldthe incumbent fail to improve.

The US federal government has beenoperating a contestability regimethrough its 'Most Efficient Operation'(MEO) policy in procurements. Agenciesare able to defer competition by dem-onstrating that they meet an acceptablelevel of performance.

In the UK, the government has used thisapproach in reforming elective surgery inpublic hospitals, and the managementof Local Education Authorities andprisons, and there is a commitment touse it in reforming probation services. Forexample, the Prison Service undertakes'performance tests' of underperformingprisons, with the threat of market-testing


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if an acceptable standard is not reached.Some Australian state governmentshave also used this approach with theirprisons, improving human resourcemanagement.

Public service markets

More recently, governments havelooked to the design and managementof entire public service markets. One ofthe most widely-studied examples isAustralia's welfare-to-work market.

Case Study 5: Australia's JobNetwork

Under Australia's welfare-to-workmarket, assistance with job placementfor the unemployed - historically apublic sector monopoly - was changedto a case management model and thento performance-based contracts. JobNetwork is a managed market that hasreduced costs and significantlystrengthened performanceaccountability.

Similar markets for job placement arebeing created in France, Germany, theUK and Japan. In the UK, the govern-ment is investigating a market modelwhere the private and voluntary sectorproviders would finance the initial skills-development and placement effort, andpayments would only be made to theservice provider once the beneficiaryhad remained off unemploymentbenefits for a defined period of time(www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dwp/2007/welfarereview.pdf).

Japan has recently adopted a some-what different approach to introducingpublic service markets. In May 2006,the Japanese Diet passed the 'ActRegarding the Reform of Public ServicesThrough the Introduction ofCompetition', or the 'Market TestingLaw' as it is popularly known. This waspart of Prime Minister Koizumi's reformpolicy entitled, 'Leave to the privatesector what it can do'. In piloting theprogramme, the government selectedeight model projects in three fields.These were drawn from 119 proposalsmade by the private sector in late 2004,when the government invited externalsuggestions as to possible areas ofreform.

The UK government has a formal policyof developing a 'mixed economy'composed of public, private and volun-tary sector providers across a widerange of public services. Examples ofmarkets under development include:managed health care for the chroni-cally-ill, elective surgery, secure mentalhealth, offender management, thetransition from welfare-to-work, fostercare and residential care for children,parental support and local government.

The creation of a mixed economyinvolves much more than merelycontracting out public services to privatecompanies. The government hascreated new forms of public entitiescapable of operating in these markets,and significant work is underway ingovernment in identifying and over-coming the barriers to voluntary sector

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participation.

One of the results has been the emer-gence in the UK of hybrid organisationsconsisting of joint ventures betweenpublic, private and/or voluntary providers.For example, Working Links (www.workinglinks.co.uk) is a joint ventureinvolved in the UK job placement market,involving the government-ownedJobcentre Plus, two commercialorganisations, and an Australian voluntarysector provider.


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Overlap, duplication, fragmentation,balkanisation, 'turf protection','stovepipes', the 'silo mentality' - a widevariety of terms have been used todescribe the challenge of trying to ensurethat government departments andagencies work together. The solutionshave variously been described ascoordination, collaboration, serviceintegration, 'seamless government','joined up government', 'holistic govern-ment' and the management of cross-cutting issues. Whatever the name, thechallenge of making public servicescoherent for the customers and citizenswho interact with them remains one ofthe most difficult areas of publicadministration.

Structural Change

One of the most common solutions toservice integration lies in merging agen-cies and creating super-departments,although this can shift the coordinationproblems elsewhere. New Zealanddeveloped a system with two differentkinds of ministers - 'vote' ministers whonegotiated outputs and secured budgetallocations, and 'responsible' ministerswho represented government agenciesfrom a supply perspective. The distinctionwas sometimes made between thegovernment's 'ownership' interest and its'purchase' interest (the latter beingconcerned with the delivery of outputs).

Case Study 6: Australia'sCentrelink

Centrelink (www.centrelink.gov.au) wasestablished by the Australian federalgovernment in 1997 as a one-stop shopfor a variety of welfare services. It pro-vides services for two major policydepartments that purchase front-deskservices from Centrelink, so that welfarebeneficiaries only have to tell their storyto government once. Reorganisingsocial welfare transactions in this wayenabled Centrelink to presentgovernment's services according to 'lifeevents' such as 'looking for work' or'planning your retirement', rather thanthe categories that made sense toindividual departments.

It was established as an arms-lengthagency with its own board, and withquasi-contractual relationships with itsclient departments. Centrelink was ableto rationalise the number of serviceoutlets, and create a single website anda central call centre. Over time, it has alsobeen able to negotiate arrangementswith other departments to serve as their'front desk'.

Centrelink is widely regarded as havingdelivered its objectives, although it hasnot been without its challenges. Aligningfile structures across departments andcreating a centralised database raisedprivacy concerns. In some cases, gov-ernment wished to give new policyinitiatives a distinctive brand, and in-sisted that Centrelink should not function

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6. Joined Up Government

Joined upGovernmentGovernments aresearching for newways of overcomingthe fragmentation andduplication in the publicsector.

Case Management

Case management - coordinating thedelivery of multiple services to targetpopulations - is another long-estab-lished method of joining up services,particularly welfare-related services.Typically it is expensive, and so tends tobe reserved for high priority services, orwhere the costs of a lack of coordinationare high.

This same approach of relying on a'service champion' can be adopted ingiving stakeholders a voice ingovernment. The UK government hasrecently announced that it will appoint'Customer Group Directors' to representsectors of the community withingovernment, such as small businessesand the aged.

Shared Services

Another form of joined up governmentwhere there is currently a great deal ofinterest is in 'shared services', particu-larly in corporate support. In the UK, theNHS has formed NHS Shared BusinessServices (www.sbs.nhs.uk), a jointventure with a private company, toprovide finance, accounting and payrollservices to public healthcareorganisations. The scheme is voluntary,but participating organisations areguaranteed a 20% initial cost reductionand ongoing savings of 2% a year, withtimely and high quality reports.

as the one-stop shop. And the separationof policy and delivery into separateagencies proved to be difficult to maintain.

Cross-cutting Reviews

In some policy areas, such as crimereduction and children at risk, where anumber of different departments andagencies have a stake, the answers lie incross-departmental reviews. Jointprogrammes can be established to targetsuch issues on a collaborative basis, withintegrated teams and 'joint budgets'financed out of a common fund. The UKhas adopted this approach in recent yearsin dealing with priority issues such as drugabuse and mental health.

Place Management

Place management solutions are basedon devolving authority and spendingresponsibility to neighbourhoods andcommunities. They focus on ends ratherthan means, addressing the outcomesdesired for a particular locality. In the moreradical proposals, budgets may be unitedunder a local 'place manager'.

In the United States, place managementwas often known as 'comprehensivecommunity initiatives'. In Australia, 'singlearea budgets' were developed as a wayof integrating federal, state and localgovernment programmes that impactedon a single community.

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The concept can equally extend tocustomer service centres and otherfront-desk facilities. Australia's Centrelinkis a shared service centre for customer-facing transactions.

In 2006, the American states of Iowa,Maine and Vermont formed a drug-purchasing pool to negotiate collectivelyfor discounts in drug costs under theMedicare and Medicaid. School districtsin the United States are creating sharedservice arrangements to take advantageof scale economies whilst remaininggrounded in the local community.

Police forces in Norfolk, Suffolk andCambridgeshire (in England) have beencollaborating with a view to increasingeffectiveness and reducing costs. A JointGovernance Board was created, with thechair rotating between Chief Constables.The original services targeted for studywere call-handling, firearms-licensing,major investigations and scientificservices. This was later extended toinclude custody, property, fleet andprocurement.

One-stop shops

One-stop shops were long discreditedas a solution, since without majorrestructuring, they place another layerbetween the public and the officials whowill eventually resolve their concerns.These arrangements can to be knownas 'first-stop shops' and, in France,'foyers'.

However, web-based technologieshave created renewed interest in one-stop shops. The Singapore governmentbroke new ground in 1999 in creating asingle gateway to government informa-tion and service, known as the eCitizenPortal. It was quickly copied by othergovernments around the world: Singov(www.gov.sg) in Singapore, DirectGov(www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm) inthe UK, and USA.gov (www.usa.gov) inthe US are the descendants of theseearly initiatives.

Over the past decade, many Americancities have developed 311 call systems -a single phone number to provide quickaccess to non-emergency services -with callers directed to the appropriatepart of government within seconds.Across America they have been taggedwith the slogan, 'One call to city hall'.

No Wrong Door

Instead of joining up the front office orthe back office, government can join upthe intermediate systems so thatdifferent departments function as a frontdoor to each other's services. Thisapproach recognises that the publicmay call upon government's services ina variety of different ways, and seeks toensure that regardless of the way inwhich the approach was first made,services are provided in a coherent andcoordinated manner.

The idea appears to have been pio-neered in the social welfare sector in

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Arizona in 1998, when it was recognisedthat the need for welfare assistancemight manifest itself as an educationproblem, a health problem, a housingproblem or a law and order problem,and that the need for coordinatedservices remained the same no matterwhat the point of entry. The concept wasquickly adopted in other states, althoughit has proved difficult to implement.

In the United States, 'No Wrong Door'has been applied most often in socialwelfare services, but the London Devel-opment Agency has recently adopted asimilar approach in serving smallbusiness. Success depends heavily onthe development of common supportinginformational, technological and policyarchitecture.

Alternative channels

In many situations, citizens engage withpublic and private sector organisations inthe same transaction. In renewing amotor vehicle registration, a driver willalso need to renew his insurance. Insubmitting a return and paying hertaxes, a taxpayer will need to interactwith banks and accountants as well asgovernment.

Some citizens have asked why relatedpublic and private services cannot bejoined up in a single, integrated service,and some private providers have chal-lenged the assumption that governmentneeds to remain the sole channel fordelivering such services.

Australia continues to enforce a strictsystem of visas, but since 1996, visitorsfrom many countries have been able toobtain electronic travel authorities (ETAs)through a network of around 300,000travel agents worldwide. The govern-ment has maintained its visa system,but it is invisible to the individual tourist.

In the United States, a voluntaryorganisation, Earth911, has broughttogether information on the state of theenvironment from more than 10,000communities across America, particu-larly through its Beach Water Qualityservice (www.earth911.org/waterquality/index.asp?cluster=0).Earth911 has been able to convincefederal, state, local and voluntaryorganisations to share information,where government organisations likethe Environmental Protection Agencyhad believed it was impossible.

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Public engagement

'Power to the People', Joseph RowntreeReform Trust Ltd, March 2006 (http://www.jrrt.org.uk/PowertothePeople_001.pdf)

Gerry Stoker, Why Politics Matter, London:Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Customer-centric government

Charles Leadbeater, 'Personalisationthrough participation', London: Demos,2004.

OECD, 'Responsive Government: ServiceQuality Initiatives', OECD Publishing,February 2006.

On choice, see The Centre for Market andPublic Organisation at http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/CMPO/research/choice/choiceindex.htm

From policy to delivery

'The UK Government's Approach to PublicService Reform', London: The PrimeMinister's Strategy Unit, 2006, Chapter 5.

Managing for results

Dall Forsythe (ed.), Quicker, Better,Cheaper? Managing Performance inAmerican Government, Albany, New York:Rockefeller Institute Press, 2001.

Teresa Curristine, 'GovernmentPerformance: Lessons and Challenges',

OECD Journal of Budgeting, (2005) 5:1,pp.127-151.

Market instruments

Stephen Goldsmith and William D.Eggers, Governing by Network: The NewShape of the Public Sector, Washington,DC: The Brookings Institution, 2004.

'The UK Government's Approach to PublicService Reform', London: The PrimeMinister's Strategy Unit, 2006, Chapter 6,

Joined up government

'Modernising Government', Cm 4310,London: The Stationery Office Limited,1999; Performance and Innovation Unit,'Wiring It Up: Whitehall's Management ofCross-Cutting Policies and Services',London: Cabinet Office, 2000

Christopher Pollitt, 'Joined-UpGovernment: A Survey', Political StudiesReview, 2003, Vol.1, pp.34-49.


Further Reading

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