Efficiency 2 articles

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Targets are inevitably counterproductive

last updated about 1 year ago, 1 Comment

Thanks to Public Strategy, I came across an interesting article by John Seddon on Avoiding Avoidable Contact. The article is a vigorous attack on the UK Cabinet Office for putting out new guidance on how government bodies should set targets for reducing avoidable contact (contact with the public that does not generate real value, e.g. enquiries about what an official letter meant or when a query is going to be dealt with etc). One key element of the attack is a general rejection of the UK gov...

posted in targets Efficiency management UK

113_1356_medium Paul Johnston

Public Services and the Efficiency Treadmill

last updated about 1 year ago, 0 Comments

Recently I had an interesting meeting with a large innovation UK local authority who felt that they (and other public services) needed to embrace radical reform or face the prospect of having to run ever faster in order to keep still. Their worries reflected the budget crunch that most UK public sector bodies are having to deal with. But their main fear was that as incomes rise, the demand for public services rises too only without a corresponding increase in citizen's willingness to pay the ...

posted in Efficiency