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chapter four: Fundamentals of reform - Quality and innovation
33. We are determined to achieve public services that instil a sense of confidence and pride in the users and providers, and for Scotland to have a deserved reputation for world class public services. We already have much to be proud of. We have world class higher education - with two of the world's top five universities for life sciences. The attainment of Scottish school pupils has increased - across the board - since 1999.
34. But world-class quality is not universal across our public services and all too often it is those members of our society least well equipped to speak up for themselves that have to tolerate poor quality. In order to achieve our aspirations we must recognise the penalties for not delivering, and we must do more to:
- Foster innovation
- Build in continuous improvement
- Set and achieve universally high standards
- Tackle poor performance
Continuous improvement
The Standards in Scotland's Schools etc. Act of 2000 made fundamental changes to school education in Scotland.
The 2000 Act had two principal strands in relation to the delivery of school education; each of which is a radical development in its own right, with long-term consequences for Scottish school education:
- giving every child in Scotland a statutory right to a free education designed to fulfil the individual potential of that child. This is a visionary entitlement, founded in the terms of the UN Charter on the Rights of the Child; and
- a requirement on local authorities and Scottish Ministers to plan for continuous improvement in school standards. Underpinning this, the Act gave Ministers power to determine National Priorities in education to direct improvement and frame school and authority planning. The 5 Priorities set in regulations under the Act have remained consistent pillars for improvement activity since 2001; providing stability and coherence while driving improvement forward.
Fostering innovation
35. As a small, well-connected country, Scotland has the conditions to be a public sector hothouse for innovation - finding new solutions to old problems, and tackling emerging issues.
36. The centre has a role in helping to identify, support and spread knowledge of new ideas. But most good ideas emerge locally - from the people and organisations at the front line. We need to create a culture which recognises innovation, builds on it and spreads it around the system, and we need to ensure that we have the structures and incentives that allow innovation to flourish.
37. That means sharing good practice across the public sector and learning from the voluntary and private sector and internationally. It may also require us to adjust targets and performance management and reporting systems if they discourage new ways of delivering real benefits for the public.
Quality and innovation - Student Awards
The Student Awards Agency introduced online applications in 2002 - a year ahead of the rest of the UK. This year around 24% of applications were made online (compared with 3% in England and Wales).
Through use of technology and process improvements, the Agency has reduced the average time to process applications from 28 days in 2000 to 11 days. SAAS is around 5 times as fast and a third less expensive than the comparable service in England and Wales.
38. Our framework for continuous service improvement is Best Value, which sets a common standard for public service management. The Best Value regime has proved a major driver of reform and modernisation in local government, and the Best Value audit process is increasingly challenging under-performance, as well as identifying success. We will continue to roll Best Value out across the public sector, and will learn from experience elsewhere.
39. As we move towards increasing public service integration and a greater focus on outcomes, our Best Value arrangements may need to evolve, to focus on the outcomes that a variety of public service organisations deliver jointly, rather than primarily on internal processes within organisations.
40. The Centre for Change and Innovation in Health and the Local Government Improvement Service have been established to support improvement and innovation in the NHS and local government respectively, and the Joint Improvement Team and the Joint Futures Unit work across Health and Local Government to secure joined-up working and improved service delivery. We are already exploring how these organisations and other initiatives can work more effectively together to support change and improvement across public services, and to strengthen the capacities of public services to learn from evidence of successful practice.
Universal standards
41. The Partnership Agreement set out our commitment to national service standards, where appropriate, reflecting what any citizen in Scotland should have a right to expect from their public services. 3 We wish to explore how we can strengthen that service guarantee for the public, while retaining diversity and flexibility of provision.
Intervention
42. Our approach to reform involves greater trust and freedom for the bodies that deliver public services - removing unnecessary bureaucracy, allowing services to work in new ways, and focusing on the outcomes that matter, whilst guaranteeing that greater freedom goes hand in hand with a determination to ensure that service failure is not tolerated, in any part of the public services.
43. Our work on developing an outcome approach, which is set out from paragraph 83, will consider what powers of intervention may be appropriate where there is significant service failure, or a serious risk of such failure. We will also consider what other powers of intervention might be appropriate, for example through the Best Value regime.
Discussion points:
- What more can be done to foster a culture of innovation and creativity in public services?
- How can we strengthen the Best Value process?
- How best can we identify and ensure minimum service standards across public services?
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