Reforming Public Services + cut fraud £22bn + retiring all public service consultants

Reforming Public Services? You thought that New Labour started that in 1997? Quite. You’re right but they failed to deliver because there were too many meaningless targets and too much micro-management which continues to-date.

Hence, the need to re-reform public services. But how?

Irrespective of what the centre says, first, there has to be political will from the leader of the Council and the Chief Executive to [1] thoroughly clean up the political governance and service delivery governance [2] separate wood from the trees [3] retain ‘change champions’ empowering them in the front-line to ‘break rules’ in-line with my tuppence-worth [below] think of and implement service changes to that reduce duplication, unnecessary bureaucratic effort, simplify and streamline delivery, save time and money [4] similarly identify areas of fraud and incisively deal with them including reforming procedures removing silo-mentality, sharing information within and external partners. [5] carry out root and branch reform of the entire culture without fear or favour.

How to reform public services?

As mentioned above my view is to start with the root & branch reform of the entire culture of the organisation.

Establish a TQ Culture Total Quality Culture where the Cultural implications of providing such a service to the customers of any Local Authority service provider are that it essentially involves the whole organisation, every department, every activity, every single person at every level. For such an organisation to be truly effective, each part of it must work properly together, recognising that every activity affects, and in turn is affected by, others.

The purpose and importance of policies and procedures is to translate the Government Legislation, Initiatives, Agendas, and directives  (through LA’s Strategies) into processes by which those could be delivered consistently, reliably, cost-effectively and within time. Such delivery mechanisms would in their own turn introduce a way of monitoring performance and to clearly identify (through the audit trail) where something went wrong, why and how best to address the failing so as not to repeat the same mistake again. Thus introducing such a (motivated) culture to the first step change into continuous improvement cycle.

I have numerous policy, service, procedural and processes innovations. All my innovations have been self-motivated business critical ideas delivering value-for-money or realisable efficiency gains. It is my Dharma, my true inherent nature, to find the most efficient and effective ways to serve – to cut through bureaucracy and wasted effort and to go beyond expectations in delighting the customers. That is the only way to repeat the business. True to that Dharma – my work ethics have always been: “I’ll conduct my life’s work on the basis that the question is not if the opportunities of improvement exist but how they will be taken.”

Hence, I consider myself also a Change Champion, Equality & Diversity Champion (including Older Peoples’ Services Champion), an Innovator, Public Service Improver, value-for-money & efficiency champion, and a Social Entrepreneur.

Although Sir Peter Gershon Efficiency Review insisted that efficiencies are achieved through:

• Maintaining the same level of service while reducing the resources needed or using fewer staff;
• Delivering additional outputs via enhanced quality or quantity of service for the same resource; or
• Remodelling service provision to enable better outcomes.

However, it identifies unacceptable activities as efficiency gains including:

• Re-labelling of activity viz reclassifying inspection as advice;
• Cuts that result in poorer service for the public;
• Transferring costs from one area to another without net reduction or
• Increasing fees and charges to the public.

It identified cashable & non-cashable efficiency gains by workstreams viz:

• Procurement efficiency gains realisable via greater economies of scale;
• Corporate Services – includes Finance, HR, ICT, Procurement, Legal Services, Facilities Management, Travel Services, Security Services, Marketing & Communications etc.
• Productive Time – increasing productivity of front line staff whilst increasing input by reducing absenteeism.
• Transactions – combining activities to deliver efficient services.

Whilst these all are applicable to any local authority, there is nothing new about the common-sense business critical activities that any business, private or public, worth its salt ought to be conducting to survive let alone succeed.

The latest biggest piece of Housing Legislation in a decade has become an act impacting further on the LA front-line staff who will have to take on greater role in regulating private sector housing. There are seven parts to the Housing Act – the first five cover private housing, part six deals with public sector issues & part seven with supplementary matters.

Public sector fraud running at £22bn

The culture therefore ought to identify, deal with and prevent future fraud both internal as well as external.

Slashing public sector consultancy budgets

Given the culture change I have mentioned above, the devolved budgets, accountability and empowerment to decide and deal with public needs will inevitably create a culture that thrives on learning as the keep earning good will from the service users. Such a valued and an innovative culture will in time be able to do away with expensive and unnecessary consultants, greatly reducing their budgets. But what does such a culture appear like?

Cabinet Office Research [1997-1999] confirms that local govt’s impressive track record of finding efficiencies is solely due to the innovative nature of the front-line staff who are in the best place to innovate as they know the systems inside out. The New Labour never got around to devolving controlling from the centre to know how to enable and empower the front-line services to do what they are employed to do.

My tupennys worth:

• Change – besides being unpredictable is essentially inevitable. The greatest personal skill needed for this decade will be manage radical change in order to survive as an organisation. The chaos theory emphasises that in order to lead this change one will actually need to break rules rather than keep them. Public service industry that essentially belongs to the public, there will inevitably be constant change; indefinitely.

• Thus a need for a collective organisational vision which may originate as abstract set of hopes and wishes evolving into something that makes sense for the organisation and its culture. The evidence that the vision has taken root is when people can sum it up in an anecdote or a story and begin to identify with it and live it – convincingly. To that end staff and other stakeholders must be given many opportunities to be involved in and contribute to this process over time.

• Both, political and managerial leader’s ability to make a difference by exercising control has been replaced by the need for negotiation, influence and networking. To be direct, powerful and effective in shaking up the local authority strategically they will need to empower others to act and grow in support of the vision both leaders and followers find worthy.

• This, to some extent, eases the way for the LA leadership to assist staff, averse to change, work with change that they are afraid of. Local government being a staff-rich activity must recognise the salience of staff in the reality of any change. To ignore it would be disastrous. Staff who will not go along with the change will mean no change. People are more important than structures and systems. Leaders must passionately believe in the direction and purpose of change. However, it requires that staff who are going to make that change own the change themselves.

• In order to facilitate this, the leaders need to cut across and move some of the activities outside the established pyramid hierarchies and involve change champions from across the organisation ensuring that staff freely choose the direction of change as their own preservation and survival.

• In order to work with staff’s own motivation as the main driver for change means finding out in detail what that motivation is. This process is essentially collaborative. Leading staff means being willing, able and self-disciplined to listen actively to what staff have to say and having infinite patience to communicate successfully and being able to make oneself understood.

• Hence the key skills a leader will need to lead staff through change are: (1) able to motivate their staff (2) in order to motivate their staff they have to listen to what their staff’s special motivation might be and (3) in order to be able to use that information on their motivation they need to be able to communicate with staff clearly.

• And finally, a leader must recognise that there are staff, in all organisations, wishing to change for some time who are highly self-motivated, talented and innovative bursting with ideas, energy and enthusiasm to excel but have been stopped by senior colleagues or by other barriers. The crucial managerial task is to seek out such gifted gems and to dismantle barriers to performance and productivity and channel talent into avenues that will directly contribute to the achievement of the organisational goals. This is crucial for any local authority in achieving its twin initiatives – Corporate Health MoT & deliver Valuing Diversity Policy.

Indian Who Built Yoga Empire Works on Politics

“We clean up our bodies,” he cried. “Then we will clean up our democracy!”

Swami Ramdev plans to do for the body politic what he has already done to the country’s creaky physiques: whip it into shape. He announced last month that he would found a political party that would field candidates for each of the 543 parliamentary seats in India’s next general election in 2014.

“What the people need is honest, brave and responsible leadership,” he said in an interview.

Can Britain do with a people’s champion like Baba Ramdev?

What is my manifesto, you ask?

Labour strapline Future Fair For All

So what have they been perpetrating so far in the last 13 years? Inequality, Injustice and Incompetency?

Dear All

I am standing as an Independent Candidate  not affiliated to any political

Power to blame the People for Con Govt's mismanagement

party making a stand for the common good – to change the political governance and electoral governance of British Parliament.

Our liberty and freedom are based on the Magna Carta. This introduced the idea that nobody is above the law; not even the King or the Queen. Certainly not the MPs.

• For nearly 800 years since that charter was signed, the jury has been our fundamental protection against abuse by the government

• We have kept faith with the jury system to reach important, judicious verdicts. We trust them more than the decisions made by the paid elite.

Why the Independents?

Millions of people like you are disillusioned with the way this country is run. People are unhappy about politicians’ expenses, u-turns and deception. They do not want to vote for any of the traditional parties.  There is likely to be a hung parliament where every seat won will count.

Independents work together for the people that the politicians forgot.That is just about everyone in the country apart from the small and elite political class.

We intend to ‘open up and clean up’ politics. We will give back to people their pride in our country and its institutions. We will let them become the ultimate jury.

• The politicians both in Europe and Westminster are disconnected and distant.
• They are out of touch with your needs.
• The political party system is broken.
• The parties are run by a small and increasingly cliquey group of interchangeable politicians.
• Less than 1% of the UK population belongs to a political party.
• Less than 20% of the electorate actually voted for the current government.
• The parties are just glorified employment bureaux for career politicians.
• Many of these would not be able to earn that much in any other career. That is why they milk the system.
• These MPs have to obey the party whip in order to get ahead. They become lobby fodder and patsies.
• They cease representing you and start representing themselves and their parties.
• The government always has the majority of MPs who are coerced by whips to vote for war, ID cards etc.
• This is not the parliament the British people desire and deserve.
• The Independents stand using their own hard-earned money to get real change in the European and British political & electoral governance.
• The adherence to Nolan Principles [Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership] and The Bell Principles to serve their constituents and their country, not themselves or their party.

You form a great jury, united by three guiding principles.

• Politics for the People
• Politics with Principles
• Politics without Parties

Built on these there are five policies for the English Elections:

• I will represent you, not any party line or whip, and vote in line with the needs of constituents, the Country and my conscience [Angustha Purusha].
• MPs must be above any suspicion. Expenses to be approved only against receipts to be published along with any outside earnings. Their pension to be brought down in line with average for the British private sector.
• MPs must be stopped going native on the gravy train.
  
• MPs should serve no more than three five-year terms.
• Formation of external body with real teeth to keep MPs honest. The English Parliament should set up an Independent MPs Complaints Commission to investigate accusations about MPs and their staff.
• A mark on the ballot paper every five years no longer keeps the politicians in check. You should be able to express what you think is important. Referendums even to deselect MPs should be held whenever requested by 5% of the electorate.

A manifesto of topics that the electorate want to see enacted but which the traditional parties do not support has been researched. MPs will enable legislation on these proposals but they will only become law if an authorising referendum of the people endorses them.  This gives power right back to the people.

We want to give the people the opportunity to make these things happen:

· Holding a referendum on the status of the UK within the EU

· Setting up an English Parliament on English matters

· Reducing the number of MPs by a third (from 650 to 433)

· Changing Commons elections to proportional representation

· Requiring referendums on petition by 5% of the electorate

· Limiting government borrowing to 10% of expenditure

· Protecting bank customer deposits from casino banking

· Limiting benefits to 80% of the after tax minimum wage

· Sentencing violent criminals to ‘army style’ punishment

· Limiting UK troops in Afghanistan to the NATO average

· Requiring private medical insurance for non-EU citizens

· Establishing a 10 year residence requirement for UK Citizenship

· Allowing state schools to opt out from local authority control

What would be my further personal contribution?

In line with my Independent Parliamentary Candidacy in May 2005 on the platform of Equality, Diversity, and Social Inclusion and Social and Political Justice I would further fight for:

• Making both the British Parliament truly representative of the very diversity that elects it.
• Requiring only local residents of over 5 years continuous residency to be able to stand for local constituencies.
• Deselected MPs and not to receive the resettlement grant or Legal Aid.
• Require a written Constitution to be drawn up.
• Directly elected House of Lords to make both houses fully accountable and representative.
• Directly elected Prime Minister but with proper regard to the British funding constraints and indirectly implied obligations and undue influence akin to the American model.
• Change in our electoral system in line with European model based on PR [Proportional Representation] or Alternative Vote [AV] or other fairer system decided by the referendum.
• Separating the legislative and the executive – with British Cabinet chosen by the PM but not sitting in Parliament. This way the whips will be eradicated and the House of Commons can properly begin to scrutinise the House of Lords and holding the Government to account for you – the people.

So, what can you do to clean up politics?

Make sure that you, your family, your extended family, your friends, colleagues and acquaintances come out to vote for the Independents to send a clear message to the British Parliament. A Hung Parliament, devoid of horse-trading and making bed-fellows, negotiating each bill as it comes might well be the very medicine the English Political system have been waiting for.

Both Dr David Starkey and I are of the firm belief that this is once-in-a-lifetime, unique, and unmissable opportunity to bring on a British innovation, revolution and a root-and-branch reform of our political governance. That is what Tom Paine [a Founding Father of United States] argued and struggled for in the 18th century.

Be a stakeholder in this august opportunity. In years to come the citizens of Britain will be proud to have innovated and implemented such a change in our political governance preserving the public purse and, with it, the public trust.

Anant Manishanker Vyas
Independent Candidate, Milton Keynes North

Would you vote for a candidate who disturbs your engrossed attention elsewhere?

Is there point of canvassing home by home?

Clegg conundrum

And if all else fails you can always help them break into their own flats when they have accidentally locked themselves out, as Mr Pound did recently with one constituent.

“She said to me ‘I think I will probably vote for you now, but then again I am not sure I should vote for someone who can break into a door that easily’.”

In for a Penny; In for a Pound?

Better vote Jury Team

Clegg conundrum

Casting your vote in next month\’s general election could improve your financial health, whichever party or Jury Team you choose to support.

Casting your vote in next month\’s general election could improve your financial health, whichever party or Jury Team you choose to support.

The Jury Team is black+white+grey - it does not change colour to suit its environment

Neither does it 'massage' the figures to partially blind you with 'economics'

Are the Police being used as political football to a degree?

Police accused of failures over anti-social behaviour

Professor Gloria Laycock, director of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London, said communities needed to take some control.

She said her research from Germany found parents, communities, schools, and teachers took more responsibility than in the UK.

“In the UK, 60% of people said they would do nothing, they felt it was the responsibility of the police, the courts and the parents – and I think that’s a really big problem,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Dealing with conflicting priorities is not only a British problem.

In my experience, both as a victim of crime and ASB and as a local govt service provider dealing with ASB & Crime the claims made by the Police on their performance do not match up to give credibility to the quote by Sir Robert Peel [‘the public are the Police and the Police are the public‘]. It feels, from where I am standing, more like a spiel. WE are all aware of Police failures but…

It must be remembered that all public services, especially the Police, are over-burdened by over 4000 criminal legislation put out by Labour [almost one per day], micro-managed meaningless targets, prescriptive requirements of excessive record keeping, paper work, etc that make such services desk-bound rather than beat-bound where they ought to be.

In addition to the plethora of legislation benefiting only the legal services the Govt passed another legislation permitting 24/7 opening of bars, clubs and venues serving ever-increasing consumption of alcohol of ever-increasing strengths and measures directly resulting in rowdy and alcohol fuelled criminal activities. The direct result of micromanaged targets, paper work overload, conflicting priorities responding to innumerable public 999 calls, Police forces divided in silos – all result in the Police having to deal with easily achievable targets in preference to other crimes thus giving rise to dissatisfaction in other areas of Policing. Some thing has to give. That is at the crux of the whole incompetent mess created by the Govt.

This is not an excuse made for or on behalf of the Police but a balanced and reasoned defence for the over-worked and highly stressed public servants like me.

The upper house of India’s parliament has approved a bill to reserve a third of all seats in the national parliament and state legislatures for women.

The upper house of India\’s parliament has approved a bill to reserve a third of all seats in the national parliament and state legislatures for women.

Great for representative democracy and great for gender equality. Never too late I say. Both India and Sri Lanka were the first in the World to have female PM & President respectively and female Ambassador, High Commissioner, Govt Minister etc.

See the link to Indian female freedom fighters Indian Female Politicians and freedom fighters – to name a few Rani of Jhansi, SAROJINI NAIDU, KASTURBA GANDHI, ARUN ASAF ALI, Indira Gandhi, KAMLA NEHRU, VIJAYALAXMI PANDIT, MADAM CAMA, BEGUM HAZRAT MAHAL, Padmaja Naidu, …

Shreemati Indira Gandhi India's First & World's Second Woman Prime Minister - Anant & Guru Dutta Ravi, at PM's residence New Delhi 1967

I have always believed India to be the only exemplar democracy in the World before and after the Moghul & British rule. It has come of with goods time and time again leading the World by example.

Western nations with all their hype on equality, diversity, democracy, social justice etc have yet to come up with the ‘goods’ – USA with BAME female president & UK with BAME female PM [BAME – Black & Asian Minority Ethnic].

You have the opportunity on 6 May 2010. Use it. Vote for the change you want; else, stop complaining.

Britain’s unsackable incompetents

When people talk about the benefits of working in the public sector, they usually mention the generous pensions [write Harriet Sergeant in The Sunday Times][which thanks to Labour’s Financial Mismanagement have almost disappeared]. Hence there will not be much to show for my second to none service for the last 32 years!

But there is another, even more significant perk: you have almost no chance of being fired. [This certainly is not my experience of the public sector I am in] but I do believe the pervasive and pernicious incompetency invariably attracts the same of a feather.

Consider last week’s report on the shocking treatment of the patients of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust [I trust that you have read my experiences of the same incompetency within Milton Keynes NHS Foundation Trust?]. The report pointed to up to 1,200 unnecessary deaths, yet not a single individual has been ever disciplines! It beggars belief. Indeed Martin Yates, the Trust’s former Chief Executive, “has since left [just as I mentioned in my report earlier] with a pension pot of £1m, six month’s salary  and a reported £400, 000 pay-off” Pay-off for what exactly? For releasing the incompetents from having to discharge their obligations to the public?

Or take the case of 7-year-old Khyra Ishaq, starved to death in a case described by the judge as “beyond belief”. Not one of the 5 anti-social social workers involved has been disciplined. [I believe this from my experience of Children, Schools & Families Directorate].

It’s the same story in Education. Given the failure of many schools to impart even basic literacy, there must be plenty of incompetent teachers, yet the General Teaching Council for England has suspended just 12 in the past 9 years! [I can believe this from my experience as the Chair of School Governors in Milton Keynes]. Errant state workers survive every scandal and keep moving smoothly on to the next pay level. Only the public and public sector workers like me suffer only because in doing something right I am doing something wrong. My pay scale has not altered for the last 31 of my 32 years in Camden.

Latest: Dr Sabah Al-Zayyat failed to attend the disciplinary hearing about her negligence in identifying the fatal injuries upon baby P. She has been given ‘more time’ to ‘decide whether she’s willing and able to attend’ the disciplinary hearing – a clear of ‘competent’ self diagnosis.

Could we all be tought to lip read so that we can quarrell without disturbing the neighbourhood?

Lip reading but not lip service.