14 March 2008
Public sector organisations must step up the pace of innovation and be prepared to take risks to do so, Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has urged.
Speaking on March 11 at a conference on transformational government, organised by the Cabinet Office, O'Donnell said: 'Not innovating is just no option. We're going to have to take more risk.'
He warned: 'If we do nothing, we are going to have services that are less and less meeting public expectations' and added: 'There are constraints within the public sector that are slowing down the pace of innovation... this is something we can work on dramatically.'
But meeting the challenge of 'delivering more with less' could only be done 'if we're very innovative', he said.
The conference also heard Sir David Varney, the prime minister's adviser on service transformation, call for more benchmarking of key services, such as contact centres. Both public and private sector centres 'basically have the same model', he noted. 'The best of the public sector buys an hour of a contact centre operator's time and delivers 49 minutes in terms of contact time with the public. The best of the private sector is the same.' But he added: 'The average for the public sector is 19 minutes.'
Before 'planning a strategy for what to do with it all', it was important to 'get it into shape', he said. 'We have a big issue about the extent to which we benchmark.'
Varney scorned those who informed him the financial settlement was tough and they were 'tearing their hair out', telling delegates: 'I just say, have you got contact centres and are you benchmarking them? If not, you are not at the end of your tether or you have a condition that needs some treatment,' he said.
The Number 10 adviser said driving on performance improvements was essential if a transformational strategy was to work.
Earlier in the conference, transformational government minister Tom Watson launched a Customer Service Excellence standard, a successor to the Charter Mark.
'The standard is designed to help public services deliver the culture change we are all determined to see,' he said.
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