"Transformation Agenda targets could be exceeded by local government, says Civica"

1. Civica, one of the UK’s leading providers of consulting, software and services for the public sector, believes that while the Spending Review has set challenging targets for 2008-11, its focus on system-based improvements in business processes, procurement and asset management offers vision for effective transformation and service performance uplift.
In addition, the intention to create a Local Government Delivery Council and rationalise Public Service Agreement (PSA) outcomes has the potential to help create lasting co-operative frameworks – ‘building blocks’ – for Transformation, where parties align their efforts jointly and pragmatically toward change. In recent years, different local organisations have been pressurised to deliver outcomes to fit a central template. With an enormous agenda, local government certainly remains committed to change and to systems investments that support the emerging transformation vision: analysts have already estimated that public sector ICT spending growth will outstrip that of the UK market in general, growing at 6.9 per cent per annum over the period 2007-2011.¹

Working with organisations across the public sector, including 89% of UK local authorities, Civica is observing and supports the development of a 'mixed economy of partners' (including local authorities, police forces, primary care trusts, etc.) that are establishing joint and collaborative approaches to building services within the Local Area Agreements. Through its close involvement, Civica believes that Transformation, whether corporate-level or incremental – supported by new frameworks – has the potential over time to deliver much improved understanding of service costs and critically, system-based efficiencies that could ultimately exceed the review’s targets.

2. Civica welcomes the establishment of a Local Government Delivery Council within the Spending Review’s Service Transformation Agreement (STA). This outline framework has the potential to provide a strong interface for local level understanding between central and local government and for driving the Transformation Agenda, while keying pragmatically into the Treasury’s requirements. Civica believes there is a need for a national forum that facilitates change while understanding and responding to local operational constraints.

3. At all levels a clear focus on local outcomes is imperative, and Civica supports the cut in the number of PSA outcomes. This should reduce reporting requirements on local authorities and release additional resources for change programmes. However, it is imperative that these outcomes are objective, easily measurable and relevant to individual local service improvement outcomes.

4. Civica is concerned by the STA’s failure to acknowledge a lack of public sector management capacity to progress significant change programmes; this situation will become more acute as demographic change takes effect. Civica believes that the lack of this capacity is an inhibitor for service innovation as well as a constraint on such approaches achieving their full potential. The rise of an ‘economy of partners’ presents one way to address the capacity issue (whether through multi-agency ventures, joint venture models or shared services groups and the growing value of improvement agencies in developing standardised process thinking). Nevertheless, with some shared service initiatives having been found not to work, Civica believes that part of the STA funding must encompass leadership, project management and training that will facilitate the longer term management of transformation programmes and, equally importantly, optimise return on investments in change programmes that have already been made.

5. Civica believes that further progress must still be made in creating stronger dialogue between central and local government organisations and robust policy frameworks that recognise involving both that drive change. This is essential if genuine transformation and performance improvement is to be supported by understanding of what works locally. Such policy frameworks need to create ‘building blocks’ that underpin larger scale alignment of local service transformation programmes and their associated delivery mechanisms. Local government bodies will also benefit from much clearer guidance and the evolution of practical standards that enable them to ensure local service resilience while working more closely with multiple partners. These advances would also reduce the risks associated with national joint venture models which do not adequately reflect local market conditions. Civica believes that progress in these areas will ultimately provide the foundations for nationwide transformation and citizen-centric services that deliver results beyond the Transformation Agenda targets.