John’s Idea

The title of the CLG’s paper “Effective Partnership Data Management” (EPDM) is not exactly welcoming and guarantees a small readership even in local government.  This is a real shame because it’s an interesting report and addresses an important issue.

If we are honest the detail of performance management in the public sector is a nerd’s paradise.  The language used is often inaccessible.  This is a problem because it is a mainstream issue.  By and large I found the EPDM report easy to read (although I struggle with terms like disaggregate data) but I’m not convinced that others are looking at it even in the CLG.  Perhaps I need to look harder but I haven’t seen any read across, either way, from this work to the Total Place initiative although the synergy seems obvious.

Sentiment around performance management in local government feels delicately poised.  On the one hand there is a general recognition that performance management has improved and the capacity to monitor inputs and outputs has had a major impact on service performance.  There is also the recognition that devolution, the pursuit of outcomes and the leadership role of local government in a locality generates the requirement for a new performance management approach.  Sustainable Community Strategies (SCS) and Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are the embodiment of this.   We are only at the beginning of a long journey however and stamina will be tested when the Audit Commission starts to evaluate performance through the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA).  Sentiment about the old performance system also provides a difficult legacy for the new system.  The general desire to reduce targets easily translates into getting rid of targets and measurement altogether.

Getting it right will be crucial  but getting it right is not easy.  In public sector we constantly beat ourselves up with private sector comparisons which at best are only partially valid.  Tesco is clearly a brilliantly managed business (other brilliantly managed super markets are available) but their performance management challenge is relatively simple in comparison with the leadership of a place.  Tesco can generate detailed information about every element of its business, from suppliers to stores, to customers. Despite its size this information enables it sell different product lines to different populations and more recently to manage of portfolio of different types of stores (from small “convenience” to superstore).  Crucially leaders at Tesco can use this information to direct and innovate in a fairly straight forward way and methods of reporting progress to their key stakeholder (shareholders) are tightly defined.  

Hardly any of the above applies to the public sector, particularly when we view the public sector as a group of organizations delivering “outcomes” to a local population.  Even within councils we don’t have the equivalent process derived data which flows from each element of the Tesco “fulfillment” process.  The disparate nature of the services provided and the range of “customers” these services are delivered to (and the different types of relationship involved) make a unified view of fulfillment impractical if not impossible. While the electorate is the ultimate stakeholder for a council leader the reality is that there are a whole host of other stakeholders (government in particular) who need to be convinced that progress is being made.

Devolution and deregulation doesn’t remove the need for performance management it just changes the requirement.  The EPDM report breaks the requirement down into four categories:

Strategic management: • How could sharing of detailed disaggregate (unique citizen) data be used to support evidence based, citizen centred planning of service delivery?

Performance management: • What solutions need to be put in place to streamline the flow of aggregate data across central, regional and local government agencies? How could disaggregate data be used to reduce the performance reporting burden on local government agencies? What approaches should be used to drive more effective knowledge sharing and benchmarking across LSPs and partners?

Operational delivery: • How could disaggregate data and intelligence be used to improve front line delivery of services both in terms of improved service for customers and increased operational efficiencies?

Citizen engagement: • How could the solutions being proposed to improve service delivery more directly support the citizen empowerment agenda? How could these solutions improve the flow of timely information to citizens?

These requirements are challenging but have to be addressed – to some degree – if we are going to realise the ambition of devolution.  Responding to them is complex and even contentious (for instance around re-use of personal data) but the report does suggest a way forward.  The fact that the report doesn’t seem joined up with other initiatives (Total Place) suggests an urgent need to raise its profile and make sure that its not just the performance management enthusiasts who get involved 

The Cabinet Office publication “Power in Peoples Hands” talks about how online technologies extends the potential of citizens to hold the public sector to account.  It sites examples from around the world that are “breaking down government monoplies in information presentation and use”.  Achieving a new relationship between citizens and services involves public servants:

1. counting what counts: collecting high-quality data in the first place, and combining performance data with information on wider social outcomes so that citizens have reliable and balanced information at their fingertips;

2. opening up information for use: making information (including performance and financial information) available so that citizens can compare services and make informed decisions, drive improvements in services, and hold government to account from the bottom up;

3. opening up information for re-use: making information and data available so that it can be easily re-used by citizens – mobilising a wealth of expertise to facilitate innovative use of data by citizens; and

4. harnessing the power of networks: using interactive technologies, such as web 2.0, to break government monopolies on information creation and open up dialogue between and among citizens and professionals.

David Cameron is making a similar point when he talks about “post bureaucratic government” and perhaps more controversially “google government”.  As he states “technology can be put information that was previously held by a few into the hands of many”.

A great place to see how this might work is the “Help me Investigate” web site.  Essentially you set the community using the site a challenge and you and others collaborate to get the answer.  Its first ”big win” was the identification of the worst place to park in Birmingham.