This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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End promised to public service post-code lottery
30/10/2001
Consumers interests will always be put first by the
Executive in its drive to improve the quality of public
services in Scotland, a conference in Edinburgh was told
today.
Deputy Minister for Finance and Local Government Peter
Peacock insisted that the so-called 'post code lottery', in
which the standard of service you get depends on where you
live, had to be ended.
"We must end the postcode lottery, and raise all public
services to the levels of the highest," he said at the 4
th annual Government Computing Scotland
Conference. We need to learn from the excellent projects
already in place and extend them to all our citizens."
The Minister signalled his determination to address
departmental attitudes and organisational behaviours which
resist change in public services. He said:
"Increasingly the message coming back is that cultural
change within organisations is the biggest change required
if we are to make joint working a success and improve
public services. That is an issue we need to tackle with
our partners across the public sector."
Mr Peacock also signalled that the Executive would make
more resources available through the Modernising Government
Fund to enable current experiments in improving services to
be rolled out across Scotland and to tackle the
organisational changes needed.
This includes £26 million from the MGF (£17 million of
which going to local government) which is oiling the wheels
of innovative practice resulting in 32 separate pioneering
projects throughout Scotland.