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chapter eight: Structures, outcomes and people
82. The five fundamental elements of reform are closely interlinked, and all of them raise questions about how we:
- organise the structures of the public services;
- create the right relationship between the devolved government of Scotland and the various agencies who deliver services on the ground; and
- mobilise and motivate the people who work in public services.
Shared Outcomes
83. We are committed to maintaining a strong and universally available set of public services. But if we are going to tackle the most urgent problems we face, we must be prepared to set clear priorities for action - and those priorities need to be shared across the public services.
84. Our national priorities must be about outcomes - the real improvements that people see in their communities and in their lives - better health, reduced crime and anti social behaviour, an improved environment and increased educational attainment.
85. The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform set out the Executive's approach to the Finance Committee on 27 September 2005:
"We are determined to establish a dialogue and process that will allow us the following:
- to become much more outcome focused in the use of resources;
- to spend less time on monitoring how money is spent;
- to spend less time on demanding myriad plans from our delivery agents about how they will go about achieving objectives;
- to spend more time achieving the headline outcomes.
And, through the detail of an outcome agreement, to trust organisations to decide on their own how they will achieve the outcomes." 9
86. Moving to a truly outcome-based approach means radically re-thinking the relationship between the Executive and the wider public sector - linking funding and performance reporting directly to the outcomes we want to achieve, and allowing flexibility at the point of delivery to take account of local circumstances and needs. We are already developing outcome agreements in a number of areas, such as anti-social behaviour and regeneration. We now aim to go further, and test out ways of using outcome agreements right across the functions of a local authority or Community Planning partnership.
87. We will also consider whether we should do more to incentivise success. Currently, funding to public bodies is sometimes paid out regardless of whether the recipient of the funds achieves targets and priorities related to that funding.
88. As part of the development of an outcome approach, we want to look at whether funding should be more dependent on the contribution to agreed priorities; what other incentives we can put in place for high performance, such as a reduction in central targets or regulation; and what sanctions may be appropriate for failure to fulfil agreed commitments.
Discussion points:
- What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of a radical move to an outcome based approach?
- What more can we do to incentivise success - in achieving outcomes or high quality, efficient services?
Leadership and human capital
89. High performance is not only dependent on good systems. It needs strong, visible, and dynamic leadership, and a skilled and motivated workforce.
90. We wish to explore what more can be done to develop the leadership capacity of public services across Scotland. We will build on the successful Scottish Government Forum in December 2005, which brought together the senior management of the Scottish public sector for the first time.
91. We are already looking at how we can set up a brokering service able to make leadership development opportunities available across different organisations. We want to look at whether more can be done to develop leadership capacity, including ensuring current and future leaders are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to work collaboratively with other agencies.
92. We are also examining wider workforce and human capital issues affecting the Scottish public sector.
93. We have to consider the many possibilities to motivate and mobilise the considerable potential of those already working in public service. We must actively work to create the conditions to get the best out of everyone involved in public service; to enhance career flexibility, support effective succession planning and create the diverse and ever changing pool of talent that will meet our ambitions for world class public services.
94. At the same time, we must ensure that those services do not consume more human capital than they need.
How services are organised
95. There is a considerable number of public bodies in Scotland, including 32 councils,
14 territorial health boards plus 8 special health boards, 8 police forces, 8 fire services, 22 local enterprise companies, 6 sheriffdoms, 43 further education colleges and 20 higher education institutes, and a range of other public agencies. We also have a complex web of partnerships, networks and contractual relationships amongst these bodies and with voluntary and private sector organisations.
96. This partly reflects the emergence of a more decentralised state and a networked, collaborative approach to service delivery. But enormous amounts of valuable professional resources are invested in order to make this complex web work together. This presents us with a real risk that we simply end up managing fragmentation which fails to deliver real benefit for the user and greater efficiences in how we organise our public services. There are many benefits that will flow from a more co-ordinated approach to public service delivery and we must ask ourselves what will be the best structure to plan and deliver public services to a nation of five million people. The status quo should not be seen as an option as we move to more modernised configurations of services.
97. This is about more than deciding the 'right' population base for an efficient council or health board. Almost all public services - whether health, education, policing or waste management - have local, regional and national dimensions. Delivery of the core service is typically at neighbourhood level; specialist services often need to be co-ordinated regionally; inspection and strategic priority setting is often a national responsibility. We need structures and relationships which allow all these levels to interact effectively. In particular, we want to find ways to involve citizens and local communities more; and to co-ordinate services nationally, without creating more bureaucracy and additional tiers of government.
98. Another area for consideration is the potential for streamlining the relationship between central agencies (government departments, agencies and NDPBs) and local agencies - for example whether more responsibility for local delivery of services might transfer to local authorities, with NDPBs dealing with national strategy and regulation.
99. Recognising the elected status it has, we are clear that there must continue to be a strong role for local government but we are not satisfied that the current set of powers and responsibilities is appropriate in every respect, or is delivering the best outcome for communities. We welcome the fact that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities is also considering fundamental questions about how the role and functions of councils might develop.
100. We cannot start with a clean sheet, and change for its own sake has enormous costs in disruption and decreased efficiency and effectiveness. But concerns about the effectiveness of the current framework are shared across the public services.
101. We are, therefore, challenging the whole public sector to work collaboratively to develop proposals for service reorganisation, and for local bodies to bring forward their ideas for local solutions - new ways to organise, structure and deliver public services in their area. We are placing no limits on how radical these changes might be and how they may come about. For instance, we welcome the proactive approach adopted by Glasgow's Pathfinder seeking to co-ordinate the council, health board and local enterprise company's services to create more unified public services.
Discussion points:
- Are there areas where structural change would bring better outcomes than improved working together across boundaries?
- Are there better models for the relationship between central and local agencies?
- What are your proposals for locally developed reform initiatives?
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