Improving Public Sector Productivity – The Human Side of Mission Driven Government

This is an open programme and an in-house training course, which we can deliver either online or in person. For further information and pricing contact [email protected] or phone on +44 20 7661 7817.

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Overview
The idea of “doing more for less” has been a constant in civil and public services for decades now. The imperative for improvement is not going away. If anything it is getting more intense.

This seminar aims to challenge established mindsets and approaches about how to improve public services productivity and efficiency and offer a more ‘human-centred’ alternative perspective with a proven track record of successes.

It starts from understanding the realities of actual public service work from the ‘bottom-up’ and investigates how it can be improved without necessarily investing huge amounts in new capital or technical equipment.

Mission-Driven government is currently being examined, promoted and used in several countries in their approach to the delivery of public services. We shall look at how to make it work most effectively in your own context.

Who is the seminar designed for?

Leaders at all levels of public organisations can benefit from, and implement, a different approach to public sector improvement. Research suggests that as much as 80% of improvements to public services can come from ‘bottom-up’ innovation and this can be initiated at any level.

So whether you are a senior leader or a font-line manager you could benefit from the ideas and approaches explored in this session. Anyone with an interest in how Mission-Driven government can make a difference will find the practical focus of this event both useful and informative.

How will you benefit from attending?

You will learn different examples and thinking about ‘human-centred’ organisational change that can improve your own practice and help your organisations.

The ideas shared will enable you to change your own approach to management and leadership in a fundamental way. It will only be the start of a journey, one that you will create through your own future practice.

Learning outcomes
You will:

• Examine the history and legacy of Mission-Driven government, and how experience shows us that it can be used to produce maximum benefit in public service delivery
• Understand how to make “bottom-up” insights actually work in organisations in practical ways
• Understand how “whole system” factors contribute to, or prevent, the successful delivery of governmental agendas and public services
• Understand the importance of practical collaborative action approaches, such as ‘co-production’, ‘co-operative production’, and ‘social production’ in delivering the aims of Mission-Driven initiatives
• Understand how to apply the concept of ‘practical innovation’ in government
• Analyse several interesting ‘new’ ideas about how to organise public (and private) services which are currently emerging, and how you can us these in your organisation
• Understand the vital importance of understanding the front-line realities of how work actually gets done

Agenda

Introductions and Aims of the Seminar

Session One Organisational Intelligence: understanding the reality of diverse public services work and organisation

• Public services share some common features (their public purpose) but they are also incredibly diverse in their work and organisation
• It is important to understand the nature of specific organisations and their work rather than having a generalised and abstract (and often unhelpful) overview
• A framework for understanding these differences will be presented and discussed, and this will be applied to the context of Mission-Dirven government
• The dominant form of public services is not bureaucracy (as it is often depicted) but it’s actually ‘human services’ like health, education and social care
• Productivity means something very different in different types of public services
• You will be encouraged to think about the nature of your own organisation(s)?

Session Two Public Productivity: beyond the silos

• Productivity of public services is often viewed in narrow organisational silos. While this is important, it ignores the ‘whole system’ factors that drive (or constrain) productivity improvements. This can be a major constraint on Mission-Driven approaches
• Localised productivity or efficiency improvements can even harm the overall success of a whole system
• One important factor to consider is ‘co-production’ – with users of services
• Another is ‘co-operative production’ with other public services, private sector and civil society organisations
• And finally there is ‘social production’ – the contribution of wider society – including informal and non-monetary factors – to the effectiveness of public services in the context of a Mission-Driven approach

Session Three The Human Side of Productivity

• Many interesting ‘new’ ideas about how to organise public (and private) services are emerging
• One of the most radical is the Buurtzorg system in the Netherlands
• But Buurtzorg is only one example of many new organisational forms and experiments in self-management; co-operative structures; collective intelligence; work-flow redesign; etc
• Some other examples like HITs (high intensity theatres in the UK NHS) will be examined.
• Although many of these initiatives are ‘new’ the ideas underpinning them are actually quite old

Session Four Practical Innovation: short podcast discussion between Colin Talbot and the authors of this book on “Practical Innovation in Government”

Session Five Getting Started: Look, Listen, Learn

• Adopting a more practical, grounded, approach to improving public services productivity starts by looking, listening and learning
• Looking at the front-line realities of how work actually gets done
• Listening to the front-line staff doing the work and what their frustrations and hopes are
• Learning from them, and others who are succeeding in improving services
• Applying this approach in the context of Mission-Driven government initiatives

Final Discussion and Questions

Close

Our L&D ethos

We’re here to enable you to perform better!

Our L&D team

• All former practitioners, now professional trainers, our L&D team have provided open and bespoke solutions for more than 100,000 public servants from 120 countries

Our L&D seminars

• A vast reservoir of international, transferable knowledge and perspectives about effective, delivery-focused approaches to working smarter in the public sector

Please contact us for further details, or to arrange a conversation with a member of our training team to discuss in-house delivery options, including tailoring the day’s training to your specific organisational development needs.
You can email David Leakey on [email protected] or phone on +44 20 7661 7817.

Crown Commercial Service supports the public sector to achieve maximum commercial value when procuring common goods and services.