這是英國顧問公司的免費月刊
Vanguard News – November 2012
In this issue:
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‘We don’t do that’
Oh yes you do!
Labelling people as ‘blockers’
Incontinent policy-making
Chile portentous for UK education?
Perfect Flow: a true innovation
Interview with a blogger
A blog in Spanish
Forthcoming Vanguard events
Vanguard in health
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‘We don’t do that’
The
CQI published a report on evidence of the contribution made by quality
management to UK plc. Their leader, Simon Feary, went to talk about it
with top civil servants at the Department for Business, Innovation and
Skills. He was told unequivocally that government does not see its role
as telling business or industry what to do. When I read this, my jaw
dropped.
Leaving
aside the massive amount of instruction, coercion, guidance, incentives
and so on rained down on the public sector, I can’t think of any
industry sector where Whitehall’s interference is not palpable; the
primary vehicle being regulation.
In
a couple of weeks I’m joining a discussion with EU officials on
regulation. The good news is every country in the EU recognises that we
have over-done regulation. My pitch will be concerned with the failure
of regulation to be based on, or to facilitate, knowledge.
Ideology
rather than knowledge pervades government’s ‘telling’ people what to do
in every sector. The honest answer to Mr Feary’s request for the
government to do something would have been: ‘no, we don’t do useful
things; government is only concerned with ideologically-inspired
interference.’
Harsh, but representative of what happens.
***
Oh yes you do!
I
noted in a previous newsletter how the All Party Parliamentary Group on
outsourcing and shared services is made up of IT companies, the usual
private-sector suspects with a pecuniary interest in out-sourcing and
members of parliament. There is not one member who expresses doubts; a
completely biased group!
The
Foreword of their recent report admits that public-sector outsourcing
contracts have failed to be delivered on time and don’t achieve the
promised savings – correct! But it then goes on to say that the report’s
guiding principle is that outsourcing has an important role to play in
the government’s plan for deficit reduction and can make the vital
savings needed. Never mind the evidence, let’s continue with our
prejudices.
From
there the report amounts to a list of things ministers will ensure
public-sector leaders comply with in order to be a more productive
feeding ground for the private-sector parasites.
You can read it for yourself:
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Labelling people as ‘blockers’
David
Cameron, our prime minister, complains about what he labels as
‘conservatism’ from the Public Accounts Committee and National Audit
Office when these bodies express concerns over the evidence of major
government-inspired change programmes. He says they need to change their
culture in favour of more risk and openness. He means he’d like them to
be more compliant. It reminds me of what I have been told by the
various ‘think-tanks’ I have spoken at over recent years; they tell me
ministers only want to know how to achieve their ambitions, they won’t
listen to people who think their ambitions are flawed.
I’d
like Dave and co to be more interested in evidence and knowledge.
Knowledge would lead to greater predictability. All we can predict at
the moment is that Dave and co’s ideological initiatives will drive
costs up and worsen morale.
See the news here:
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Incontinent policy-making
I
have complained for years about government’s approach to policy: They
come up with an idea then count how many people do as they are told;
this then becomes ‘evidence’ (‘policy-based-evidence’ as John Kay
observed).
The
man who described me as having ‘incontinent judgement’, David Walker,
ex communications chief for the Audit Commission (not dead yet) once
again came to the defence of the dying monster, using this flawed logic.
Giving evidence to a House of Commons committee looking into the
impending demise of his former employer, he argued that the Audit
Commission drove improvement, confusing their assessments of ‘good’ with
the fact of their coercion on local authorities to comply with their
views of good. He persists in ignoring the evidence of failure
associated with compliance and, moreover, the evidence of outstanding
innovation only achieved by ignoring everything Whitehall, including the
Audit Commission, the controlling arm of the state, holds as good.
Mr
Walker was joined by Robert Black, ex top man for Scotland’s inspection
empire, who, by the way, called me a snake-oil salesman the day first
time we met. They just don’t ‘get’ how their very architecture
undermines their purpose.
Mr Walker is what we used to call a ‘theory x’ man, he thinks improvement will only happen in our councils if Whitehall does some ‘chivvying’ and he cites delays around the Local Government Association's ‘best practice’ project as indicative of ‘them’ needing a push. The LGA’s initiative is no more than a copy of other initiatives (including those of the Audit Commission) that published ‘best practice’ assuming that will lead to improvement. That’s incontinent thinking.
I’m
a theory y man. I want Whitehall to transfer real responsibility for
improvement to those who deliver the services; it is an essential
prerequisite for innovation.
Read more here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
***
Chile portentous for UK education?
I’ve
just been in Chile, talking about policy and practice in public-sector
improvement. Before I went, I read that students were protesting in
favour of free education. What I learned when I got there is its much
worse. Students feel ripped off by private-sector providers, who market
courses to them with promises of benefit; take on students who will drop
out because they don’t have the basics and students find themselves
graduating with pretty worthless qualifications and huge debts. Only the
private-sector providers win.
Chile
has a left-wing government but right-wing policies. You may recall the
country was the subject of the ‘Chicago experiment’: free-market
economics. Chile leads the world in the privatisation of education and
healthcare.
Chileans
complain about the poor quality of education at all levels. A Chilean
academic wrote a column for a leading newspaper that caused a massive
stir, students came to him – and to cut a long story short, a movement
was born. Representatives went to speak to ministers. Politicians
sympathised with and agreed with their arguments, but told them there
was nothing they, the politicians, could do!
You,
like I, might think that’s what politicians are for, doing something
about things that matter to people. The new movement was asked to keep
making a noise as this was the only way politicians could create
leverage on the vested interests.
This
could be what’s to come with education here in the UK. Simon Caulkin
sent me this link to a blog about the privatisation of IT services in
schools; it ought to worry us all:
By the way, if you don’t follow Simon Caulkin’s work, you should: www.simoncaulkin.com
***
Perfect Flow: a true innovationPerfect Flow is a new company, set up out of the work we pioneered on housing repairs in local authorities. These people took the Vanguard approach to logistics to another level – the secret of good logistics being to buy materials at the rate of consumption; tell that to the ‘procurement professionals’ who (wrongly) think it’s smart to club together and buy at lower unit costs.
They have won an award. Sadly it is too late to add your vote for them to win the big prize, but you can see their award-winning entry here:
http://www.smarta.com/
***
Interview with a blogger
I was interviewed by a blogger from an interim management company. You can read it here:
A blog in Spanish
Following my visit to Chile an academic writes:
http://www.
***
Forthcoming Vanguard events
November 8th, Buckingham, Housing Allocations:
Whitehall
has driven the adoption of Choice-Based-Lettings (because it has the
word ‘choice’ in the title). Studying allocations reveals how adherence
to Whitehall policy drives costs and misery into the allocations system;
but it also reveals how to design allocations to achieve outstanding
service, much lower costs and real choice to boot.
November 22nd, Buckingham, Process Mapping and Analysis:
Our popular introduction to studying systems. To book: office@vanguardconsult.co.uk
November 29th, Buckingham, It’s a Method, not a Model!
A Vanguard Network day (network members only) designed to explore how copying models fails and following method succeeds.
To book and to find out more about the Vanguard Network: pr@vanguardconsult.co.uk
December 3rd, Cardiff, 2nd annual knowledge network, Wales.
Exclusively
for graduates of the Fundamentals Action-Learning programmes,
practitioners of the Vanguard Method, Network members and do-it-yourself
practitioners.
Forthcoming action-learning programmes on the Vanguard Method:
Cardiff: February 19th, 26th, March 5th and 12th. Birmingham: February 21st, 28th, March 7th and 14th. Note that delegates will be expected to apply what is taught between sessions.
To book: pr@vanguardconsult.co.uk
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Vanguard in health
Regular
readers may be wondering about whether we are withdrawing from health
(newsletters passim). We have decided to stay with it for the time being
– the big problem being the ‘system conditions’ rained down on health
services that drive in cost and other forms of sub-optimisation. We will
be running an event on our work in health next spring. To stay in touch
with us on health please follow our health blog:
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Thanks for reading!
John Seddon
Author: "Systems Thinking in the Public Sector”, available from Triarchy Press: www.triarchypress.com and “Freedom from command and control: a better way to make the work work" available from Vanguard (www.systemsthinking.co.uk).. “Freedom from command and control” is also available in the US from: http://www.productivitypress.
For independent evidence of the benefits of systems thinking in the public sector see the case studies: http://www.triarchypress.com/
Vanguard
Consulting: Developers of the Vanguard Method, helping organisations
change from a command and control to a systems design. Beware of
imitators, as Vanguard has developed solutions for sectors others claim
to be able to provide the same service. If providers are not accredited
to the Vanguard Method you should not expect a Vanguard service.
www.thesystemsthinkingreview.
Systems
Thinking People – a service helping systems thinkers find suitable work
and helping organisations fund suitable systems thinkers. www.systemsthinkingpeople.com
Vanguard Capchart – simple-to-use tool for creating capability measures. http://www.vanguardcapchart.
Other Vanguard sites around the world:
Ireland: www.vanguard-ireland.com
Scotland: www.vanguardscotland.co.uk
Netherlands: www.vanguardnederland.nl
Denmark: www.vanguard-consult.dk
Sweden: www.vanguard-consult.se
Croatia: www.vanguard-savjetovanje.hr
Belgium: http://www.vanguardbelgium.
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