Section One: Introduction

This month, the Prime Minister launched a White Paper called Open Public Services1

It comes in a tradition of Whitehall attempts to describe an over-arching framework for the mind-boggling array of public services. Reading it from cover to cover is an arduous task, as was the case with its predecessors, for every Government seems unable to resist peppering the text with references to any and every initiative that could loosely be regarded as relevant and which it believes to be a success!

Reaction has been predictable. Trades Unions and left-leaning commentators see the paper as inevitably leading to wholesale privatisation with the attendant risks that the demise of Southern Cross (just as Mr Cameron announced the paper) illustrates. In contrast, private providers and their advisers welcome the opportunity to offer their services. Somewhere in the middle, the third sector is scratching its head, intrigued by the possibilities but unsure if it can ever compete with commercial interests.

It is not the role of the Institute, or this Briefing Paper, to comment on the wisdom or otherwise of Government policies in such a controversial area. Instead, this short paper seeks to highlight its implications for public engagement.

Section Two seeks to explain the main differences between the Coalition Government‟s approach and that of the previous administration. This is important, for there is more continuity than is commonly appreciated, and there is merit in avoiding unnecessary disruption to stakeholder relationships and citizen engagement.

Section Three explores the Government‟s analysis of the different types of services and its ideas for delivering them. In Section Four, we try to anticipate what this will mean for public bodies, elected members and for public engagement structures and professional staff, whilst in Section Five, we propose some tentative conclusions.

The Government wishes to promote a debate on its ideas and has written the White Paper so as to act as a consultation – though without a fixed closing date, nor any apparent reference to the Code of Practice for Government consultations2. It poses a total of 28 separate questions; some are so general as to amount to a considerable consultation in their own right. It has also created a specialised website to host the
dialogue – www.openpublicservices.cabinetoffice.gov.uk

1 Open Public Services White Paper Cm 8145, July 2011
2 http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/better-regulation/consultation-guidance
Section Two: What‟s new?

Most people glancing at the panel (below) will struggle to find anything new. This is partly because much of what it contains has been the subject of debate on specific items of Government policy since the General Election. Indeed, the extended Parliamentary consideration of the Health and Social Care Bill has ventilated many
of these issues, and is rumoured to have delayed the finalisation of this White Paper.

Although the Big Society is scarcely mentioned, parallel themes abound in this paper. As for Localism, the thrust towards decentralisation is a major theme, and provisions of the Localism Bill are referred to at regular intervals. Other key messages, however, are more familiar, having become conventional wisdom in recent years.

For a fascinating comparison, it is interesting to reach for the previous Government‟s
2008 Cabinet Office paper, Excellence and Fairness; Achieving world class public services.3 They have much in common.
The White Paper‟s key messages
– at a glance

A move from „top-down‟ to „bottom-up‟ thinking
A retreat from producer interest to customer/citizen needs
Five principles:-
o More choice
o Decentralisation to the lowest possible level
o More and more diverse service providers
o Fair access
o Accountability
Three generic types of services
o Individual services
o Neighbourhood services
o Commissioned services
De-bureaucratising public services, and removing „barriers to entry‟
Rapid intervention if services fail
The strategic importance of information as an engine of transparency
Information – and engagement will be digital by default

3 Excellence and Fairness; Achieving world class public services. Ref 288002/0608
Cabinet Office

The last Government was committed to a greater use of commissioning, and coined the phrase world-class commissioning. It also spoke the language of choice and was, of course, committed to the publication of service performance data in an attempt to help citizens make those choices. At the time the then opposition criticised league tables, but the principle of performance data seems accepted by both Governments.

But, in two important respects, the 2011 White Paper departs radically from its predecessor

• The Labour vision spoke about ending „unfair postcode lotteries‟ and wished to address this by enshrining universal entitlements. The Coalition Government‟s localism strategy points in a different direction, though with references to minimum standards.
• The previous Government saw the main driver of managed change and service improvement as being through the professionalism of public service staff. Indeed a substantial part of the 2008 paper is called New Professionalism. The 2011 paper appears to assume that public sector organisational structures and inherited working practices have led state employees to under-perform and that the introduction of competition from new and more diverse suppliers will lead to better outcomes

Open Public Services could not be clearer about its different view. The Foreword, above the signatures of both David Cameron and Nick Clegg makes it clear that it seeks to „wrest power out of the hands of highly paid officials and give it back to the
people ‟

So the test it sets itself is very much a „power to the people‟ concept. In this it echoes Hazel Blears and other Labour Ministers who talked about „empowerment‟. The challenge for public engagement professionals is to look at the Coalition‟s plans to try find those mechanisms and processes that might make it more successful in this endeavour than its predecessor.

It certainly uses the right words!
“It will be vital to consult and engage with those who use public services, as well as those who are or could be delivering public services …”
Open Public Services 2011
Par 2.14, page 6

Section Three: The new services portfolio

For the purposes of planning public services, the Government has identified three different categories of services. The concepts may be well established, but the labels are new, and are destined to become standard usage in the coming months and years

• Individual services – services that are used by people on an individual basis, such as in education, skills training, adult social care, childcare, housing support and individual healthcare etc
• Neighbourhood services – services provided very locally and on a collective, rather than an individual, basis – examples include maintaining the local public realm, recreational facilities, community safety etc
• Commissioned services – those services that cannot be devolved to individuals or communities, such as tax collection, prisons, emergency healthcare and welfare to work.

Initial reactions to this categorisation have been critical, with commentators pointing out that all the services are commissioned anyway, and that the distinctions between them are very blurred at the edges.

From the standpoint of public engagement, however, this is a useful framework, for the ways in which the Government envisages the three categories being developed, delivered and monitored, suggests different models of dialogue and helps focus on the investments needed to make them work.

Individual Services are not new, and innovative ideas such as Personal budgets have been gradually introduced in recent years. Supporters of these services seem convinced that it will be possible to help vulnerable and disadvantaged people by giving them enhanced access to personal services, and we expect that stakeholder groups representing them will have much to say about how these are configured.

A major element in the paper‟s proposals for individual services is found in a Section entitled Using data to support choice. This includes what is called
„aggregated customer feedback‟ – what many people would recognise as Tripadvisor-style websites.

”…there will be an increase in web-based services that allow consumers of individual public services to share opinions and to compare performance data.”

Open Public Services 2011
Par 3.18, page 19
Clearly, the thinking behind all this is that greater public awareness of what is possible and what is good, will lead over time to a better informed consumer – aware of the minimum standards outlined in the White Paper, and who will „drive provider complacency out of the system‟ .

One way it does this is by improving the process for disappointed service users to gain redress. The aim is to characterise service failure as a form of maladministration and offer remedies through the Government Ombudsman process. This is a novel suggestion and maybe sits a little uneasy alongside a desire to recruit new and diverse service providers who might identify less with the kind of bureaucratic processes normally associated with Ombudsmen. But, if implemented, it forms another innovative element in the dialogue between service provider ad
service user.

This raises the issue of accountability. For this, the White Paper talks about people needing a „Voice‟ , and cites as a forthcoming example, the migration of Local Involvement Networks (LINks) into Healthwatch, which it claims will speak out on consumers‟ behalf and act as „agitators for choice‟ .

In the same way as Eric Pickles, as the Secretary

”… voice comes through participation in service design or management, and via champions in the form of elected
representatives such as councillors and unelected representative bodies such as consumer organisations.”
Open Public Services 2011 Par 3.27, page 23 of State for Communities and Local Government has called for legions of „armchair auditors‟ to monitor the performance of public bodies, the White Paper says that it needs „a revolution in accountability and participation„ (our emphasis). It naturally points to the forthcoming elected Crime and Police Commissioners, but is also referring to the Overview and Scrutiny concept. It also mentions the need for independent service providers to open up their processes and information to aid transparency and even recommends they hold their meetings in public.

Neighbourhood services is where localism really starts to make a difference, and reflects a determination to push responsibilities for public services down as far as they can go.

Its belief is that „there is a huge appetite for people to get directly involved in the delivery of the services they use‟ (S. 4.4, page 26), but there is relatively little research data that supports such optimism. This is part of the debate about Big Society, and there are differing views about the latent potential of volunteering as a force for changing the dynamic of community aspirations.

The Localism Bill proposes a number of new „rights‟ designed to encourage greater neighbourhood control over planning and service provision. Parish and Town Councils vary enormously in their capabilities and motivation to undertake additional responsibilities; in many un-parished parts of the country, neighbourhoods are yet to be comprehensively determined. The Neighbourhood planning provisions of the Bill enables communities who wish to do so, to establish spatial plans – which can be granted an unprecedented degree of legitimacy if they obtain the endorsement of its residents through a Referendum.

How many local communities will actually wish to take advantage of these new opportunities is unknown. Recent experience of Library closures for example, suggests a greater willingness than many thought possible, for community groups to volunteer to provide services. For this to happen, there is a need for excellent civic activism and effective machinery for dialogue and discussion. The Total Place concept sought to provide opportunities for local elected members to look at the use of resources and budgets across a wider range of public services, and it appears that this is still an aspiration by the Government – re-christened Neighbourhood Community Budgets.

Commissioned Services covers everything else, whether delivered by national or local government, and is fundamentally a declaration that, in future, substantial areas of public service will be subject to what is called „open commissioning‟ with provisions for potential providers to challenge procurement decisions.

The White Paper acknowledges that the key to successful implementation is to have „strong mechanisms of accountability‟ (par 5.8). It goes on to specify three such mechanisms – open data, ”The starting point for good, local commissioning is public engagement and accountability – so that the public‟s priorities drive the type of service which is commissioned…” Open Public Services 2011 Par 5.9, page 31 participation and democratic oversight, and it is assumed that these, in combination, will deliver the necessary checks and balances in a world where there are multiple service providers.

Transparency of who has been awarded what contract seems ever more significant, as much that is contracted today is held to be commercially confidential and one of the more interesting proposals in the paper is that the Government Digital Service (GDS) will supervise the development and ensure the quality of suitable datasets. The thinking seems to be that the point of having extensive information available in the public domain will make decision-makers cautious and more accountable for commissioning decisions.

”Our plans …help to create a culture where public sector professionals are rigorous in assessing the impact of their decisions because the cost effectiveness of these decisions can be scrutinised.” Open Public Services 2011
Par 5.21, page 35 The White Paper is more hesitant about the extent to which elected Councillors should assume the role of Citizen Champions – acting in respect of all service providers working in their areas. This seems destined to form part of a future consultation – and those with long memories will hear echoes of the „place-shaping‟ thinking and „community leadership‟ rhetoric of almost a decade ago.

For services commissioned nationally, the accountability appears to rest with Ministers with a role for the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons.

In summary, the three generic types of service will require rather different types of engagement. Individual services will need excellent feedback loops and a dialogue with representative groups or communities of interest specialising in the needs and circumstances of service recipients. Neighbourhood services should re-invigorate existing democratic or representative structures and leverage collective community processes. Commissioned services may need to develop user communities, stakeholder panels or segmented surveys.

What will be fascinating is the interplay between the three groups of services. For in one geographical area, all three will combine to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of public services, and there will be a need for some kind of process to guard against duplications and overlaps; even more critically, someone needs to ensure that there are no service needs that „fall between two stools‟. It presupposes a continuing need for a strategic needs assessment – something that is already explicit in the plans for Health & Wellbeing Boards or Police & Crime Panels.

Experience has shown that these, like much else, can only deliver a robust understanding of a community‟s requirements if it engages honestly and professionally with local people and interested stakeholders. The next Section explores what this may mean in the coming years.

Section Four: Implications for public engagement

The Government faces something of a dilemma.

It understands the proven need for more and better quality engagement, but realises that many of more visible forms of citizen involvement have appeared to many people to add very limited value. To be blunt, much of it has been characterised as „red tape‟ and the kind of bureaucracy which is held to stifle innovation and delay decisions.

It is not an accident that the Government‟s decision to scrap the „duty to involve‟ came in part from a review of burdens imposed on local government and a desire to simplify or abolish voluminous sets of onerous Guidelines. (On the other hand, the Department of Health‟s decision to impose an almost identical „duty to involve‟ on Health & Wellbeing Boards may well be an accident!)
The question, therefore, is whether ways can be found to simultaneously enhance engagement whilst de-bureaucratising the process.

In principle, this seems very difficult. If services are disaggregated so as to respond to more local needs and be delivered by more organisations, rather more conversations may need to take place. So there is limited mileage in seeking to reduce the number of dialogue interfaces and reducing the number of relationships that may need to be built and maintained.

Fortunately there are a number of best practice measures that can be taken and that are consistent with the intentions of the Government White Paper.

1. Integrate public and stakeholder engagement into service design and delivery.

We face a period of unprecedented reconfiguration of public services, and this will necessitate much development, piloting and implementation work. None of this is cheap or quick, but will be done better if user views and preferences are built-in from the start. Even critics of consultation and public engagement see the logic of this form of involvement and, where improved services are the result, a sound business case can normally be developed. Co-production is plain common- sense.

Too often, customer or citizen views are an afterthought – a „bolt-on‟ extra added sometime after the product was designed. This always costs more. Take, for example the increasing incidence of online-delivered services. Smart service providers already build into the process a feedback loop, which at its simplest is a way of asking the public: What do you think of that transaction then?
2. Find mechanisms to keep needs assessments up-to-date

A source of waste, and a reason for much disappointment, is the tendency for customer or user requirements to become out-of-date. There are services that were designed years ago to meet requirements that have long changed. With
one-size-fits-all solutions this is quite likely, as changed requirements affect small groups of customers first before being mainstreamed over time.

Localised requirements may reflect less overall change, but people will have a higher expectation that services will be modified to accommodate their changing needs. In short, they may need to be more responsive, but this means having machinery in place that can track changing requirements.

Fortunately there are a range of techniques including permanent panels or special interest groups that can respond quickly to changing circumstances. These will be particularly important for those public services where needs are affected by economic conditions or changing democratic control etc.

3. Ensure all service providers appreciate the need to engage with their customers

This could work both ways. Having greater diversity in the supply chain might add to commissioners‟ work in having to brief them all individually and ensuring they engage satisfactorily with stakeholders. On the other hand, if the spectre of competition spurs them to compete according to how effectively they engage with and serve the customer (rather than, say, price), we could see the coveted
„race to the top‟ rather than a „race of the bottom‟.

Private sector providers – and many social enterprises, pride themselves on being more customer-oriented than traditional public sector deliverers. However, public procurement processes do not always allow for this to be a major factor either in the award of contracts or in subsequent performance monitoring.

One step that Councils and other service commissioners could take would be to establish that the cost of measuring what customers think of the service they receive be absorbed into the overall cost of the service. In that way, a customer consultation exercise becomes „embedded‟ into the overall service delivery cycle rather than be a vulnerable budget line-item of overhead costs in a policymaking department. In short, integrate public engagement into operational service delivery.

4. Exploit the potential of social media

The White paper‟s references to service-oriented data suggest that central Government is aware that social media may have a role to play. But it struggles to explain it well enough.
Too many public bodies are hesitant, and are possibly unsure how best to use the new technology.

“Too many senior people in the public sector are approaching social media as a distraction or even worse as a nuisance.” Jon Bradley, Participate Stop Playing Games and Start Taking Social Media Seriously – A Call to Action for Public Bodies July 2011
Yet, it is in the sphere of public engagement that these channels come into their own, as they are designed for the expression and exchange of opinion. We are only just beginning to learn how to absorb and interpret the immense quantity of information moving across the medium, but this is no reason to ignore them. Jon Bradley (see panel) quotes a Councillor who recently said in effect “We don‟t do social media here.”

But her constituents do – and on a huge scale. Public services are about to be discussed, reported upon, and commented upon, to an extent unimagined by previous generations, and the neighbourhood, Council or Government department that contracts a supplier failing to deliver satisfactory performance, will hear about it quicker than ever before.

The job of public engagement staff may, therefore, start becoming significantly focused on assembling evidence about what users and other stakeholders think – if only in order to set the agenda for more conventional dialogues. Leading edge organisations will start gearing themselves up for this revolution right away.

5. Mobilise the front-line

Those who deliver public services are probably in the best position of all to hear and see what people think about them. Yet we rarely ask their opinions, afraid that the so-called „supplier interest‟ will obscure the message.

Of course, service delivery staff will have their own views, and it is true that many will be resistant to change. But this is not a sufficient reason to dismiss
their potentially key role as the eyes and ears of listening organisations that need to engage with the users or consumers of service. Teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, housing officers, policemen, traffic wardens – indeed everyone
who discharges front-line duties, are all receiving feedback on an hourly basis.

Unfortunately very few organisations have developed the processes to capture
and use this wealth of information. It is not rocket science, but does demand that middle Managers play an important role in facilitating the practice. They also
have to motivate their staff to think positively of customer opinions, and to encourage appropriate dialogues.

This needs a significant culture change – but nothing more ambitious than the changes foreshadowed in Open Public Service. For the White Paper seems to assume that if the traditional public sector monopolies are broken down and replaced, at least in part by smaller service providers, that they will naturally be better at listening to and empathising with customers. In theory, this may indeed be true as shortened lines of management authority can speed up the transmission of information up and down an organisation. But a more significant factor may be the leadership of the organisation and a willingness to listen.

So what happens if the service provider is not a public body, but a private contractor? Or a social enterprise? Will front-line staff be constrained or banned from reporting anything other than through their immediate bosses? Probably. So there may be a case for insisting upon whistleblower provisions in contracts. Whatever the solution, more suppliers, and especially more diverse suppliers, will mean that front-line feedback becomes critical.

6. Motivate elected members

For local authorities now is a pivotal moment. For years they have complained that central Government has crowded them out and constrained their decision- making. So the Localism Bill comes as the response to their criticism, and it places elected members right in the eye of the storm.

Open public services challenges Councils and others not just to accept previous decision-making powers minus a raft of limitations and regulations. It obliges them to re-think and re-configure a range of services that have remained pretty much as they have been for some time. Expenditure cuts will force the pace of some change, but the White Paper effectively paints a more radical picture than just same services but cheaper.

It may be tempting to allow officers to develop the options and to advise on competing solutions, but elected members need to be more proactive for two reasons. First, few service changes will be free of controversy; indeed they may involve balancing the interests of one group of residents against another – winners and losers are unfortunately found in many change scenarios. A political judgement may be required. Second, the impact of public service policies must always be measured against local conditions, and it is the elected members who have the legitimate authority to speak on behalf of local people.

The thrust of Government policy is to encourage members to act as local advocates for their own neighbourhoods, and as problem solvers to address local issues. Formal multi-agency structures, such as Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are, for the moment unfashionable, and the inference is that brokering solutions becomes a more ad hoc process deeply involving local Councillors. Among the new tools at their disposal will be Community Budgets and, of course, the ability to influence who delivers what through open commissioning.

Section Five: Preliminary conclusions

If the heading betrays a degree of caution, it is because Open Public Services is one of those Government statements that might or might not change the world as we know it.

It is relatively easy to dismiss aspects of this document. It re-states much that has become conventional wisdom – at least in the ruling Coalition, and many of its proposals have broad all-party support. But recent years have shown a credibility gap between what Ministers wish for – and what ultimately happens. This Government faces another dilemma. One of its most fundamental doctrines is decentralisation. So its ability to dictate on matters such as public services is by definition more limited than it might be. Even those services that are currently run from Whitehall, such as the NHS, seem destined to be subject to more local influence than before. Ditto for the Police.

On the other hand, the White Paper emerges at a time when expenditure cuts oblige public bodies to think more radically. It is an established rubric of change management that you need a real crisis to force really significant change. And, though this may come as a shock to some, the true scale of budget reductions are yet to be felt. Even though many bodies have suffered from the front-loading of the cuts, commentators point out that the first tranche of cuts are relatively straightforward, but they get harder as time goes on. In summary, this White Paper may lead to change simply because the financial arithmetic will push things in that direction.

There is a danger that there will be attempts to implement parts of the White Paper without people being fully persuaded. The White Paper is clear that public engagement is a pre-requisite for much of this agenda; some of the more explicit references to this are quoted in this paper. But will policy-makers and politicians observe this advice? Or will they try to cut corners?

The White Paper signals a departure from universal service provision and the adoption of more flexible, less predictable commissioning arrangements. To succeed, public bodies will need to work creatively and honestly with a range of stakeholders, and the skills of public engagement will be needed as never before.

The reorganisation of key public services such as the NHS risks losing important public involvement skills, and other public bodies will need to guard against other unintended consequences of Government policy. It is now the duty of the Consultation Institute and other Think Tanks to highlight what is needed to support the White Paper, and to develop the skills, training and processes required to engage properly with everyone affected.
POSTSCRIPT

How the Consultation Institute can help?

The Institute is able to help public bodies equip themselves for the challenges implicit in this White Paper:-
It can deliver ‘independent’ Briefings for elected members and officers; these can cover Localism, the Big Society and/or the White Paper and are geared towards encouraging fresh thinking about personalised, neighbourhood and commissioned services
It can help public bodies undertake a Baseline Review of current public engagement activities, and a Skills & Capability Audit to assess whether or not it has the necessary skills and processes to undertake them properly
Tailored training courses can help public bodies skill-up for the public engagement activities needed to support the White Paper
Fast-track training programmes enable organisations to build Corporate capability in public engagement

This is the 28^th Briefing Paper; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement