Abstract

Legislation going through Parliament is about to drive significant re-organisations in the NHS, the Police and in the Regional tier of Government. Simultaneously, Quangos have been abolished or amalgamated, and virtually every public body is restructuring and making changes to cope with reduced budgets.

This paper looks at the implications for public engagement and consultation, and explores ways to minimise the risks inherent when organisations make changes of this kind.

Introduction

1.1.  There has rarely been a time when large organisations remain structurally stable. Maybe there should have been, for many would assert that stability is a pre-requisite of good performance.

1.2.  In practice, however, large Companies and large public bodies alike seem to be in a constant state of flux. Smaller firms and individual departments are not immune from this constant merry-go-around, but it seems that the larger the organisation, the greater chance of re-structuring. Not for nothing did Managers in IBM famously joke that the initials stood for “I’ve Been Moved!”

1.3.  When commercial Companies re-organise, their rationale is normally about responding to different market conditions. New products may need new entities to develop and manufacture, or new channels to distribute or sell. Change of this type is almost always based on customer feedback and/or a shift in consumer behaviour. When Government makes similar changes, it may be to implement new policies or to signal changes of emphasis in the delivery of public services or regulatory functions. This Government’s policy shift at the highest level focuses the role of government itself, and claims to place people at the heart of that change – small government, Big Society.

1.4.  In the current climate, there is another highly-visible driver, namely cost- cutting. The Government’s deficit reduction programme permeates huge swathes of the public realm, and has led Whitehall departments, Executive Agencies and other public bodies to re-assess their priorities and work programmes. Whilst these have inevitably caused internal re-organisations, the Government’s so-called ‘cull of Quangos’ has involved the absorption into Departments of duties formerly discharged by others.

1.5.  Of even higher-profile, and amid political controversy are flagship Coalition policies that will abolish important public bodies and attempt to create a new relationship between the state and the individual:

• Police Authorities will disappear when elected Police and Crime Commissioners are introduced under the Police Reform & Social Responsibility Bill
• NHS Primary Care Trusts in England will be abolished and some of their functions transferred to GP Commissioning Consortia under the Health Bill
• Regional Development Agencies and associated regional bodies go when the Localism Bill becomes law

Beyond these, the relationship between public bodies and a host of other organisations – including the Third Sector is undergoing radical change, particularly to accommodate the Government’s evolving concept of the Big Society.

In all directions, the salient characteristic of the public sector landscape is one of active or imminent re-organisation and the purpose of this paper is to explore some of the issues that arise under such circumstances and the implications they have for public engagement.

1.6.  Section Two considers what exactly is meant by a reorganisation and illustrates some typical scenarios.

1.7.  Section Three is a discussion about the implications.

1.8.   Section Four specifically addresses what happens to public and stakeholder engagement.

1.9.  In Section Five, there are various suggestions and ideas that could prove useful in ameliorating some of the adverse consequences of re-organisations.

1.10. In our Conclusions Section we try to bring together the key issues and pose some questions for readers to consider.

2. What exactly is a re-organisation?

2.1.  The much disputed quotation, apparently wrongly attributed to Petronius over

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.The famous quote

Caius Petronius circa AD 61

2,000 years ago, remains popular because it seems to capture a recognisable sentiment among those affected

by re-organisations. But to characterise all re-organisations in such a way and to dismiss them as largely cosmetic is almost certainly unfair.

2.2.  Whilst the evils of ‘confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation’ can certainly be found in many exercises, best practice change management can avoid them. Indeed there are plenty of examples where new structures have been smoothly introduced and led to the new resulting organisation performing successfully.

2.3.   For the purposes of this paper, we define a re-organisation as significant change in who does what and/or in the accountability for activities.

2.4.   Implicit in the definition is that it excludes process changes and/or method improvements. Such changes happen all the time; they are the stuff of day- to-day management.  Some are small-scale, whilst others make for major changes in the way business is done; even the smaller alterations in processes or procedures can, cumulatively transform the way things are done. Just consider the impact that new technology has on communications as electronic mail and real-time systems have taken over from letter writing and the Royal Mail.  But re-organisations are not the same thing as changes in operating practices. They are about changes to the structure of organisations and the way they arrange for work to be undertaken.

2.5.   Some of the confusion stems from Managers’ motivations for re-organisations.  On occasions, the purpose of the re-structure is to enable or encourage method improvements that have proved difficult to implement in the current environment.  Introducing online ordering as a new Sales channel, for example may not feasible without setting up a new organisation to run it.

2.6.  Whether accompanied by, or occasioned by a re-organisation, a change in operational processes is inherently a different development.  Change management principles clearly apply and this includes anticipating who is likely to be impacted and ensuring they are consulted appropriately.  But the emphasis is wholly on the mechanics of transactions and the speed or accuracy of information.

2.7.   Re-organisations, particularly in the public sector, are more typically found in scenarios such as the following:

• Amalgamation or separation of departments

For example, a Planning department and an Economic Development department merging to form a new unit in a local authority, or the merger of two Police forces or Community Safety Partnership

Amalgamation or separation of jobs/functions For example, an Equalities/Diversity Officer having her job merged with that of a Consultation Officer

• New/Different ‘ownership’

For example, The functions of a Quango is absorbed back into a Government Ministry or the Government Ministry discharging functions to ‘issue based’ elected representatives, such as the planned Police and Crime Commissioners

• New/Different branding

For example, a Housing Association adopts a new name to identify more closely with a particular local area.

2.8.   Regardless of the scenario, these changes have probably gone through a process lasting weeks and months. It starts with an Announcement (probably preceded by much speculation!), the appointment of a senior person to oversee the change, publication of an organisational concept, a consultation over any job losses or re-structuring, the making of appointments and their phased implementation as staff take up those appointments.  To call the process ‘messy’ is an understatement, and successive embellishments of Human Resources management guidelines as well as legislative requirements have made re-organisations a minefield for employment law.

2.9.    All this can clearly be disruptive and everyone with real-life experience knows this. Presumably those who instigate such changes do so sincerely in the belief that it is a price worth paying and that policy outcomes justify the disruption. They may be less comfortable with successive independent analyses that have cast doubts on some of these assumptions.  The latest include National Audit Office reports on Government departmental re-organisations, and a very pointed criticism of the Quango reduction exercise by the Public Affairs Select Committee.

3. Implications of a re-organisation

3.1.  Anticipatory reactions

Once an announcement is made, behaviour changes, both internally as well as among external stakeholders, customers and indeed the media. Sometimes this can influence the course of the re-organisation itself, or may constrain

1. it. If Senior Managers resign, the management of the change can be left to people lacking detailed knowledge of the organisation.

There are currently classic examples of anticipatory actions being taken. For example, the Department of Communities & Local Government effectively dismantled Regional Development Agencies well ahead of the Localism Bill that is still proceeding through Parliament. The NHS has managed Primary Care Trusts on the assumption of their forthcoming abolition and is presiding over their merger into clusters of GP

consortia , whilst staff numbers decline and budgets are reduced. Local government, police and PCTs are restructuring in preparation for those changes – again before any decision has actually passed through the Houses of Parliament!

More seriously at times is when key interfaces stop taking the organisation seriously. If authority, power or influence are seen to be draining away, clients or stakeholders may look for other ways to achieve their objectives or press their arguments.  Couple this with the high levels of mistrust of government, political apathy and the impact of the recession on specific communities and there is every danger of a power vacuum.

3.2.  Deferment of decisions

Even committed work programmes are at risk when a re-organisation is announced and unless the proposed change is implemented very quickly there is an inevitable delay whilst the impact of decisions are checked with those that may assume responsibility in due course

The true cost of delay varies. In the fields of planning and development, delays can be enormously costly; witness the pressure placed on planning officers by supermarket developers or major infrastructure builders in the waste or energy sectors.

In more administrative environments, the consequences of delay are less immediately visible – often they take the form of a knock-on effect on other processes.

Such is the inter-locking nature of bureaucracies that decisions in one department can have a disproportionate impact on activities elsewhere.  A critical aspect of change management is therefore to identify key dependencies and plan properly through impact assessments and other techniques

3.3    Loss of skills or knowledge

Uncertainty has a pernicious effect on staff morale, but its most obvious manifestation is usually a haemorrhage of talent.  The most able or those with most marketable skills just leave. Where previously there were qualified professionals, there are now unfilled vacancies or interim Managers lacking experience of the organisation or the role.

Nothing destroys the credibility of a body more than for its expertise to disappear visibly.  The larger the organisation, the greater the chance of camouflaging the situation; in smaller organisations, the departure of a single individual can, at a stroke, undermine its reputation.

Of course, the converse also applies. A new structure that attracts proven expertise, or proficient practitioners, can establish its authority quickly, but the relationship between individual competence and Corporate credibility can be a subtle one and complicated by PR efforts and other considerations.

3.4    Imperfect handover

In the ideal world, new responsibilities are absorbed or relinquished smoothly. Too often, however, organisations fail to plan adequately and are heavily dependent upon the accidents of timing.

In addition to the difficulties of people at both ends of the handover being of compatible status and background, physical assets such as databases, computer systems or even buildings need to be transferred properly. Of even greater risk, especially in a cost-cutting climate, is that work previously undertaken by several people has to be absorbed by far fewer with the inevitable, and indeed intended, consequence that processes and activities will be stopped.

In an effective handover, those relinquishing responsibility will have prepared the ground and set expectations among those affected by decisions to cease or substantially affect key stakeholders. In practice, of course, they may have little or no idea what a new organisation might do; on occasions they may

find themselves highly prejudiced in their approach to developments of which they disapprove.  It is no surprise that handovers can be unpleasant, possessed of rancour or maybe even non-existent.

4. Implications for public engagement

4.1   The patchwork quilt of public engagement processes and mechanisms found today is far from perfect. In fact, it is full of historical anomalies, duplications, overlaps and inefficiencies, many of which stem from re-organisations. Other inefficiencies result from a plethora of short term, well intentioned initiatives, rarely fully implemented or independently evaluated, but having introduced extra staffing which tend to remain if only because an extra pair of hands is always welcome.

One can therefore safely assume that some reorganisations might well improve this situation and prove of real benefit to the engagement infrastructure.

In the meantime, however, the scale and prevalence of reorganisations raise a number of issues that warrant close examination. Here’s why:

• So many public bodies have struggled with public engagement and have unfinished business with a lot of their stakeholders
• Public expenditure reductions and their consequences require a step- function improvement in the quality of stakeholder dialogues
• Expectations for meaningful engagement and consultations among the general public and civil society have grown significantly in recent years.

Political rhetoric extolling its virtues, and legislative initiatives such as the

Localism Bill have added to a growing culture of public involvement that has to go beyond meaningless ‘tick box’ exercises

4.2   In the light of these considerations, it is possible to identify a range of worrying as well as comforting implications

4.2.1    Issue ‘ownership’ may change, and someone else (or some ‘body’) may ‘own’ the subject-matter.

It does not necessarily follow that the issue owner is the same as the process owner, but the transparency principle requires that everyone is aware of the change and preferably, the rationale behind it.

4.2.2    There is a risk that the corporate memory may be erased.

In consultation, it is often said that the consultee’s memory is better than the consultor’s. This is partly a numbers game, as public bodies often deal with large numbers of representative bodies etc. They often keep inferior records and are less effective in transferring knowledge between departments or individuals.

The disruption of a re-organisation further loosens the direct link with previous actions, and obliges public bodies to rely on second-hand information

4.2.3    ‘Receiving’ or ‘Inheriting’ organisations may not honour previous commitments

Fears of such a discontinuity may not even be justified.  But a reasonable suspicion that it might is enough to affect a re-organised body’s shirt and medium-term credibility.  Community groups and others will probably judge new organisations according to their willingness to stand by statements and guarantees offered by their predecessors.

4.2.4    Relationship management may be disrupted.

So many critical dialogues between public bodies and their

stakeholders are facilitated or organised through key individuals, many of whom are highly experienced in the relevant culture and modus operandi of such situations. This is especially true of relations with ‘hard-to-reach’ or seldom-heard groups, and if such individuals leave the organisation it can seriously damage the prospects for meaningful engagement.

4.2.5    There can be a clash of engagement cultures

‘Engagement culture’ is just another way to describe the ways in which public bodies actually hold their dialogues.  It may be as basic as the difference between going out to meet your stakeholders and waiting

for them to come to you. More frequently, it encompasses a raft of behavioural characteristics, and as public bodies have developed their relationships differently, amalgamations or separation of functions can cause significant destabilisation.

4.2.6    Earned trust and confidence-building takes time

Genuine dialogue needs trust between parties that often have conflicting objectives.  It cannot be manufactured overnight, but has to be ‘earned’ over time.  Involving key stakeholders in major decisions is a laudable goal, but re-organisations slow down this process

4.3   Many of these are problems and can easily be cited in a litany of objections by those who wish to oppose a re-organisation. For balance, therefore, here are three more positive implications that hold the prospect of benefitting public engagement.

4.3.1    The introduction of new minds and fresh blood into engagement processes.

Public bodies frequently complain that they regularly find themselves in dialogue with the ‘usual suspects’. But it also happens the other way around. Managers can also become stale in the engagement role and re-organisations can frequently inject new life into tired consultative or participatory mechanisms.

4.3.2    New opportunities can be provided to address an updated policy context.

If the policy environment changes, the nature and possibly the methods of the dialogue may also need to be different.  Consider, for example the advent of the Big Society agenda and how ill-fitting existing engagement machinery appears to be for such a new phenomenon.

4.3.3    New or re-organised bodies can influence expectations and set their own standards.

Stakeholders welcome clarity and many respond positively to unambiguous statements on a public body’s approach to meaningful dialogue.  The problem, of course, is that these have historically not delivered on their promise and it will take skill and substance to overcome justified scepticism. It is not impossible, however and are-organisation scenario provides an opportunity to do so.

4.4     As demonstrated above, the implications are a mixture of positive and negative factors, with much that is dependent upon the circumstances of each case. When sufficient time is allowed to plan a re-organisation, there is at least the opportunity to get it right.  If the fences are rushed, the risks increase.

Timing, however, is only one aspect – albeit a challenging one. Equally important is management awareness. If people at the top understand what is most vulnerable in the kind of shakeouts that we now witness, there is a chance that evasive action can be taken.

5     How to avoid the worst consequences

– some suggestions

5.1     There are practical steps that Managers can take that will limit the impact on public engagement. They are not solutions, but might go some way to smooth the path of major changes in actions and accountability

5.2     Suggestion One: Involve key stakeholders in planning the re-organisation

This is probably the most ambitious suggestion and naturally difficult to make a reality.  Governments in a hurry tend to take decisions first, and consult people afterwards. But on a smaller scale, departmental re-organisations and other slightly less global changes need to follow a more involvement-oriented pattern.

The truth is that those who understand how public bodies actually work and the impact they have are their key stakeholders. These may not always be wholly objective and as ever, there are axes to grind.  But their views will be informed and they might offer useful insights. Interestingly, some of the most articulate critiques of public bodies will come from its stakeholders and if those who initiate re-organisations had the imagination and wisdom to take them into their confidence at an early stage, they might gain useful input for their decisions. Sadly keeping plans secret seems more important than obtaining timely advice.

Even if it is too late to involve them in the reorganisations it may not be too late to involve them in a meaningful dialogue about the implications of the decisions already made.

5.3     Suggestion Two: Assess what parts of the public engagement

‘legacy’ is most important to preserve

The transfer of the public engagement brief from one body to another begs the question of what, if anything, will change. More often than not, no-one knows. The ‘receiving’ body will keep its counsel, and will politely listen to the recommendations of the ‘transferring’ body.  Whether it acts upon such advice is another matter.

And why should it? After all, the new organisation has every right to take stock and will probably be expected to effect changes either to policies or to relationships. It will be suspicious of previous practice, especially if expecting to deliver a cost-cutting agenda. Taking a topical NHS example, why should GP Commissioning Consortia necessarily accept all that soon-to-be-abolished

Primary Care Trusts have been doing in the way of public and patient involvement? Equally why should a newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner have any regard for the work of the Police Authority that went before him/her? Expect them to be highly selective.

The departing bodies will be keen to ensure their successor builds on the good work and progress which has already been made with stakeholders and communities; all too often we see the same mistakes being made under another rationale or strategy.  Maybe we should stop fooling ourselves that activity equates to progress and ensure the engagement legacy is understood and captured effectively.

What may help is to obtain an independent assessment of the public engagement ‘legacy’. Looking objectively at stakeholder relationships, the effectiveness of continuous consultative machinery or dialogue methods used in one-off consultations, it may be possible to identify the strongest aspects of current practice and provides an evidence base for changes.

5.4     Suggestion Three:  Re-examine public engagement roles and responsibilities

A re-organisation provides an excellent opportunity to take a fresh look at who exactly does what by way of engagement with key stakeholders. Far too many public bodies have chopped and changed at regular intervals and failed to establish a consistent approach to public involvement.

There are reasons for this.  Local Authorities, in particular, spread the responsibility between central teams working in the Chief Executive, Policy & Performance or Corporate Communications departments and functional service delivery units. This pattern has led to allegations of poorly

co-ordinated consultations, and of variable standards.  A much-cited example of avoidable inefficiency is the proliferation of stakeholder databases as each department maintains its own lists of civil society groups and individuals who seek an involvement with the Council. Often they are exactly the same people who sit on the Police Key Individual Network database and the same people who are on the LINks/PALs databases.

Progress towards better co-ordinated public engagement across public bodies has often been a case of ‘too little, too late’.  The relative de-emphasis of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) means that attempts to ‘join-up’ the engagement activities of the NHS, Police and other service providers have stalled. Community Safety Partnerships, however, remain a statutory body under this Government and Ministers continually repeat their desire that

public bodies improve partnership working arrangements, changing them as they see fit. The duty to cooperate remains!

When activities and accountability move, there is a tendency to re-write job descriptions. If this amounts to adding ‘catch-all’ public engagement clauses to existing jobs, it will not amount to much.  The hard stuff is about information systems and about budget responsibilities for engagement tasks.

5.5     Suggestion Four: Conduct a Handover Issue audit

For most public bodies there is a whole range of issues which are subject to dialogue with various stakeholders. Some of these are high-profile and are well known to Managers at many levels in the organisation; others are less visible and may only be familiar to a small group.

In terms of relative importance, some of the issues will be of pivotal strategic importance to management; the result of engagement on these issues could make a significant difference. But the impact of each issue on the stakeholders themselves may be very different.  For example, discussions

between local authorities and the voluntary sector concerning funding and Big Society ideas are clearly of some significance for Councils. But for some charities, they are a matter of organisational life or death.

A new organisation, taking over responsibility for public engagement may not be in the best position to gauge the varying dynamics of such relationships, and the relative importance of different issues to different stakeholders.  So we suggest that a systematic review of all the issues ‘on the table’ would greatly enhance the quality of the handover.

5.5     Suggestion Five: Use the Big Society test

Not everyone likes it, but the Coalition Government probably should be judged,  at least in part,  by its own standards. That standard is the Big Society. For the purposes of a discussion of public services reorganisation, this effectively means a re-definition of the relationship between the State and the individual, including a clear shift towards greater personal responsibility and a reducing role for the State agencies.

This may well mean less dialogue with some groups and on some subjects. But it may also mean more dialogue. A clear example might be where a public service stops performing a task and other organisations meet the same requirement by doing something different. The transition will only work well if there is high-quality engagement not only between the parties, but also involving all those who are affected directly or indirectly.

So a key test for re-organisations might be to determine whether the will, the processes, the skills and relationships have been assembled to undertake this new and possibly radically different agenda. In other words, does the change meet the Big Society test?

6.0 Conclusions

Public Services Plc must change. Few dispute this.

Managing that process requires a strong commitment to a more accountable public service which fully meets the needs of the people they serve. Those masterminding this process believe that the pain of cuts and change is a price worth paying if we are to create a new relationship between the state and the individual. Their critics will point to Petronious and claim that we are just creating the illusion of progress, producing confusion, inefficiencies and demoralisation.

Caught in the middle of the debate, public bodies await legislation and regulation to work through the legal and political processes and the interlocking bureaucratic panic sets in. This is the danger point; partnership posts are cut, engagement roles watered down and a silo based approach to cost cutting adopted.

Expensive mistakes are made when reorganisations are accompanied by a retreat from engagement. At the very time when they need more dialogue than ever, Managers, or even elected members, huddle together in secret to plan ahead. So the people that politicians and government bodies represent and serve are arguably removed from the decision making process carried out on their behalf, raising questions about accountability and indeed the real commitment to Big Society.

We know many organisations have tried to mitigate against this risk, but practitioners inform us that the implications are huge.  Marginalising the public could have a significant effect on reputation, satisfaction and trust. Public Services Plc may find itself in trouble.

Maybe what is needed is greater transparency in reorganisations, and a willingness to ‘name and shame’ when Managers do it badly. Too many media stories where the root cause lies in mismanagement appear too late to rescue a failed policy. We need more investigative journalists willing to delve into the structures and accountabilities of public bodies.

It’s not all doom and gloom though.

With many budgets now set for the next few years and legislative changes in their final stages, now may be a perfect time to take stock and build on what has gone before, and to develop a new relationship with stakeholders and the public.

For public engagement practitioners, these could be exciting times, but they need support from Senior Management, and leadership from the very top.

Questions for consideration

• Who are your existing stakeholders and who else should you be talking to?
• Have you considered alternative ways to engage with stakeholders to develop your new approach to business?
• Have you really listened to their knowledge and experience, and used it to ensure you are not attacked in 6 months time for ‘not listening’?
• Are you throwing the baby out with the bath water?  What did work in the past and what is the legacy that you want to preserve for your successor?
• Have you completed a full audit of issues and techniques to create a corporate memory?
• If you have redeveloped engagement roles or merged engagement with other roles such as communications or equalities, have you set aside a reasonable budget to ensure those staff have the capabilities and capacity to deliver the change?

Susan Ritchie has an academic interest in the relationship between the state and the individual. After creating the first degree in Citizenship in the UK, and advising the (then) government on Citizenship and teaching, she ‘tested’ the theory in local and central government. She is now founder and Director of a social enterprise (www.mutualgain.org) which is committed to to empower organisations and communities to reconnect within the social space that lies between the state and the individual.

Rhion Jones

is founder and Programme Director of the Consultation Institute and joint- author of ‘The Art of Consultation’ – the only book ever published on the subject of public consultation. He is a prolific writer on the subject, is much in demand as a keynote speaker and conducts Masterclasses

This is the 27^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