Strategic Planning and Management in Public Administration Project (British Council)Kick-Off Seminar16 January 2008 Ankara – Sheraton Hotel

A Systematic Overview of Recent Strategic Planning in UK Government

Professor Paul Joycefrom 1 February 2008: Director Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores UniversityCurrently Associate Dean, Nottingham Business School

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Outline

1. What was the strategic planning and management system between 2000-2007? What were its key attributes?

2. How well did it work?3. How will it evolve?

22 April 2023 3Source: Joyce, P. (2008) Leadership and Strategic Management for the Public Services. Chichester: Wiley.

Public Service Agreements & Spending Reviews 1998

Department 5-year strategies produced as part of modern view of enabling government (strategic direction) 2003-4

Capability Reviews carried out for government departments 2006-7

Overview of Key Steps in Modernising Civil Services in UK

Next Steps Agencies 1988

Next Stage in Reform Process?

Invest and Reform Strategy (e.g. 10 year NHS Plan) 2000

Focused & agreed set of national priorities and performance targets for public services 2001-2

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The Next Steps Initiative – Structural Change of the Civil Service

• The Next Steps Report (Jenkins et al 1988) was accepted by Government – this led to separation of policy support to ministers from executive work (service delivery, regulation, tax collection etc)

• The Next Step Agencies that were set up had a chief executive who was to be directly accountable to ministers.

• Each Agency was to have a clear focus and targets.• This experiment was subsequently advocated by Osborne and

Gaebler (1992) who described this as separating “steering” and “rowing”.

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Minister

Permanent Secretary

Minister

Minister gets policy support from department centre

Next Steps Agencies –responsible for delivery

Chief Execs of Agencies accountable for Key Performance Indicators

Chief Exec

Chief Exec Chief Exec

Structural Reform

Hierarchy

Department responsible for both policy support and execution

Source: Paul Joyce (2008) Leadership and Strategic Management for the Public ServicesChichester: Wiley.

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Attributes of strategic management in UK government 1997-2007

1. Strategic priorities were based on the top concerns of the public.2. Attention was paid to creating a consensus in the heart of

government on the top strategic priorities.3. Capability was created in the centre of government to monitor

progress on the strategic priorities, to help departments deliver the priorities, and to report progress to the public.

Key attributes

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2001: Prime Minister’s Units: Strategy, Delivery…

In 2001 the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman announced three new Central Units: “the establishment of a Delivery Unit…; the establishment of an Office of Public Service Reform, which would be based at the Cabinet Office; the establishment of a Forward Strategy Unit, which would also be based at the Cabinet Office. The new offices were all designed to help achieve the modernisation and reform in public services which the Government had pledged in its Manifesto ….”

(Extracts from statement made by Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman [PMOS] on 22 June 2001.Source: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page2107.asp; accessed 2 September 2005)

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Attributes of strategic management in UK government 1997-2007

4. The Government created capability in strategic policy making by setting up the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in 2002.

5. The 5-year Departmental Strategies published in the summer of 2004 were politically owned by the cabinet – they were not simply rubber stamped by ministers in the cabinet.

6. The 5-year Departmental Strategies of 2004 were tools to make reforms in public services systems of health, education, criminal justice, etc

Key attributes

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2004: All Government Departments produced 5-Year Strategies• The 2004 5-year strategies which were produced by all departments

were largely shaped or set by the Prime Minister and his No. 10 Downing Street organisation.

• They were also informed by concerns of the Chancellor.• Ministers were key actors in the formulation of the strategies-most

particularly the Prime Minister. The Cabinet “owned” them. • The importance of these 2004 strategic plans was achieved despite

weaknesses in organisation and process (for example, Comprehensive Spending Reviews was a separate process).

• The process of producing strategies that occurred in 2003-4 was in effect a process of preparing New Labour's manifesto for the general election of 2005.

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The main 5-year strategic plans

Publication/release dates:• Health – 24 June 2004• Education – 8 July 2004• (Comprehensive Spending

Review statement to House of Commons on 12 July)

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Note: “the system fordelivering them was badly out of date”

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Note: “we need anew sort ofsystem”

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Strategy as Instrument of Public Services Reform

In May 2004, “Blair’s [Prime Minister] focus was on the culmination of the five-year strategy process. Increasingly confident of delivery in the short term, he was now looking forward to irreversibly changing the public services so that, as he would put it, they could become self-sustaining, self-improving systems”

(Barber 2007 216) (Emphasis added)

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Source: Strategy Unit 2006

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Attributes of strategic management in UK government 1997-2007

7. The 5-year departmental strategies developed by the Cabinet contained performance targets from Public Service Agreements and were funded by budgets decided by the Comprehensive Spending Review – both of which were developed by the Treasury.

8. The Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit (PMSU) helped to develop strategic policy making capacity in the departments, with which they co-operated.

Key attributes

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Comprehensive Spending Reviews (CSR) & Public Service Agreements (PSAs)• The Comprehensive Spending Reviews (CSR) set the departmental

expenditure limits and allocated resources. The first was 1998. It was repeated in 2000, 2002 and 2004.

• Public Service Agreements (PSAs) accompany the CSR and are national targets agreed by departments and the Treasury. The aim of the national targets is to make sure that measurable outcomes are delivered in return for resources. The Chancellor had a lot of control of policy through the CSR and PSAs.

• Chancellor presented 2004 CSR to House of Commons on 12 July.• In 2004 there was bound to be potential for disagreement between

the Prime Minister who had shaped the 5-year strategies of the three main areas (health, education, and home office) and the Chancellor who presided over the separate process of the CSR and PSAs. Would these dovetail having been done separately?

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Department of Work & Pensions

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Attributes of strategic management in UK government 1997-2007

9. Capability Reviews were carried out for all departments in 2006 and 2007 – they were focused on leadership, strategy and delivery skills of the senior civil service – and were followed up by plans to develop departmental capability.

10.The Policy Review process begun in late 2006 and continuing in early 2007 identified the importance of the model of the strategic and enabling state – which has important implications for the roles of central agencies in the reform process.

Key attributes

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Capability Review programme The Capability Review programme (2006-7) is part of the

wider reform of the civil service. The objectives of the programme are to:

1. Bring about a step change in the capability of departments for future delivery.

2. Improve the capability of the Civil Service to be ready for the challenges of tomorrow as well as to meet today’s delivery challenges.

3. Assure Ministers that departments’ civil service leadership is suitably equipped to develop and execute Ministerial strategies.

So the capability review should improve the future ability of the UK civil service to deliver departmental strategies.

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Source:PMSU2007

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Bureaucratic government Policy making + service delivery

Steering organisation - Policy-making

Rowing organisation - Service delivery

Competitive government

Old model of monopoly suppliers of public services

Creation of steering organisation makes possible catalytic and competitive government

Catalysing government (Governance as community problem solving)

Source: Paul Joyce (2008) Leadership and Strategic Management for the Public ServicesChichester: Wiley.

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How well did the strategy formulation that took place in 2003-4 work?

“A process which had begun in September 2003 and which was at first not taken seriously in several departments had resulted in an agenda for the public services which would dominate the next parliament…It was a personal achievement for him [the Prime Minister], and one was left to wonder how much more he might have achieved had we put in place a coherently organised centre of government and developed an approach to strategy which was better integrated with the Treasury.”

Michael Barber (2007:217) Instruction to Deliver.

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How might strategic planning evolve in the future?

The Comprehensive Spending Review for 2007 has now about 30 national priorities – so the idea of focus is still well established.

The Policy Review that took place in 2006-7 appears to underline a continued commitment to a strategic approach to policy, as shown by the following explanation of the Policy Review’s purpose.

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Bibliography1. Barber. M. (2007) Instruction to Deliver. London: Politico’s.2. House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (2007)

Governing the Future. Second Report of Session 2006-07. Volume II. HC 123-II.