- access to services for the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- scrapping benefits for weekend and "out of hours" working to replace the nine-to-five culture with one that favours the convenience of tenants and other local people
- bringing in chief executives from outside the public sector
- replacing existing multiple pay grades with fewer grades
- more staff training
- performance targets and leadership training for chief executives
- ODPM "regional directors" to oversee weak organisations.
At the moment, these are only draft proposals, yet to be approved by the ODPM but, if adopted, they could be the beginning of a revolution in council working practices.
The unions called them "a recipe for pay chaos" (HT 10 October, page 8), but what do others think?
Phil Morgan, chief executive, Tenants' Participation and Advisory Service
The paternalistic attitude of "we know best, you're only a tenant" has persisted for far too long. The strongest of these proposals is for more training for staff. If workers' roles are to change, they must be supported through that change. Sometimes, through open recruitment, new staff at various levels can bring expertise to the public sector that supports a customer-driven approach. Chief executives should be set performance targets and held to account for them.
Yes, support should be given to weak councils, although the case for peer group support from neighbouring authorities is far stronger than ODPM regional directors with their different capacities.
Matthew Knowles, principal policy adviser, British Chambers of Commerce
Reform of the public sector is long overdue. In exchange for the recent increases in taxation on business, efficiency in the public sector must be improved and there are many ways to achieve this.
Regional pay scales are essential to the success of reform: there's no need for people who work in the South-east to be paid the same as those who work elsewhere. It keeps wages at an unrealistically low level in the South-east and distorts the labour market elsewhere. Flexibility is the key to all positive change in the public sector, so I welcome the government's commitment to change in this case.
The desire to see all council services online is also pleasing: 24/7 access to services will be invaluable, providing they are improved to cope.
Yet perhaps the most drastic change is still to come. The public sector must focus on doing less and doing it better. The constant rise in public sector employee numbers and salaries is unsustainable; business has to pay for this ever-increasing state sector and there is only so far we can stretch. We are at that point now.
Carolyn Hayman, chief executive, Foyer Federation
The fact that the paper on suggested reforms is co-authored by the ODPM is indicative of the extent to which local authorities seem to have become branch offices of Whitehall. One has to wonder whether senior positions in local government now offer the same job satisfaction when there are so many, sometimes competing, demands to respond to central government initiatives and diktats, and so much reorganisation.
Of course we need minimum standards of quality, and councils need to measure themselves against each other. But there also needs to be opportunity for locally inspired innovation at all working levels. Perhaps the "earned autonomy" of the top-performing councils will give them the space to do this, and inspire other councils to win the same freedom. But weak councils are likely to benefit more by being overseen by expert practitioners than by the ODPM.
Helen Dawson, acting director, Office for Public Management
The most startling thing for me in the report was the finding that council employees receive, on average, just 1.5 days of off-the-job training per member of staff at a cost of just £159 each – well below the average for private sector employees. Surely this accounts for some of the performance problems that some councils have.
If the pay and workforce strategy is going to support improved housing services it must enable housing services to be reconfigured to meet customers' needs for out-of-hours, flexible services; ensure all staff get access to high-quality, practical training throughout their careers; make pay competitive at all levels and sufficiently attractive to bring private and non-statutory-sector people into senior management positions in housing; ensure any move to performance-related pay is tied to customer satisfaction, not just government targets.
John Craggs, group strategic executive, Sunderland Housing Group
After the large-scale voluntary transfer in March 2001, Sunderland Housing Group inherited more than 700 tradespeople under TUPE, who all received a weekly wage and a varying bonus. A joint team of staff and union representatives was pulled together to harmonise their terms and conditions with the group's other 900 staff. Now employees are paid a salary for customer care, quality, training and so on, which does not depend on which trade they represent.
The carrot-and-stick approach is a tool of the past. Paying staff a consistent and fair salary with enhanced conditions of service is a far better deal. Early indications are that our employees and customers share this view. Reinforcing this new culture through a trained and developed management structure is the key.
Gordon Perry, chief executive, Kensington & Chelsea tenants' management organisation and chairman, National Federation of Arm's-Length Management Organisations
There is little in the report that any fair-minded individual could oppose. Yes, there are some challenging ideas, but so there should be if we are to maintain the growing momentum for change and improvement in the context of ever-increasing customer expectations and demands.
We must find a way of balancing the needs of staff and customers. Work-life balance may be good for us, but it needs to be good for our customers too.
We are already implementing the significant majority of the recommendations of this report at Kensington & Chelsea tenants' management organisation. We think our improving recruitment and retention results, lower sickness levels, and higher staff morale all indicate that most of the recommendations simply make sense.
Louise Russell, director of local government and housing, Vantagepoint Management Consulting
This culture change has to be led from the top – by leadership teams of officers and members with a clear vision and priorities. Improving the leadership skills of senior managers, particularly chief executives, is therefore a key priority for improving local services. Bringing individuals in from other sectors may help, but there are poor managers outside local government as well as in.
Public sector staff have a reputation for resisting change, but my experience of helping a number of authorities to improve indicates that, when staff are involved in developing change and improvement programmes, they often welcome new approaches which give them clear priorities and targets and which value their contribution to achieving these.
David Reeson, director within public sector advisory services at KPMG UK
Not everything needs to be delivered 24/7, but the public increasingly expects that services – paying council tax and hotlines – will be more available, meaning councils must adopt a more flexible approach to addressing these needs.
Many councils are successfully tackling these issues but much more remains to be done and some are progressing too slowly. The role played by chief executives is fundamental and is the key to starting and maintaining the impetus for change. Good leadership, effective communication and training are critical to the success in taking this agenda forward. Approaches and techniques that are common outside the public sector can play a part in this, although even private sector methods often need to be adapted to meet the requirements of councils.
Councils need to recognise that radical change will be needed if they are to meet the demands of customers and achieve performance targets set for them.
Source
Housing Today
No comments yet