|
Return to Newsletters menu
Vanguard News - January 2010
***
In this issue:
HMRC failing to achieve purpose
Systems thinkers get to grips with the downstream problem
Lean is mean in the car industry
The economic consequences of Mr Brown
Is Mr Brown 'smart'?
The Tories are at it too
Rebellion in London boroughs
The Audit Commission doesn't get it
I'm feeling optimistic
Forthcoming events
***
HMRC failing to achieve purpose
An astonishing revelation from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee:
HMRC is failing to collect £28 billion in owed taxes, more than 15% of the current
budget deficit! More importantly, this failure to achieve the purpose has become
worse, in fact twice as bad, over the last three years. So we must ask ourselves
what has HMRC been doing over these last three years? They have been doing 'lean',
guided by tool-heads; it amounts to wrong-headed industrialisation. I can bet all
their measures will be concerned with activity and cost, measures that always
undermine achievement of purpose, and drive costs up. We know from their presentations
about the 'lean' programme that they monitor workers' activity and they have
standardised the work, both of which will undermine achievement of purpose; and
they have no idea of the volume of failure demand being caused (which will be very
high and indicates the extent of failure to achieve purpose). Recent press interviews
with the new chief at HMRC reveal that morale is low, but the chief has no idea why.
While I am on the subject, we reckon the costs of failure demand downstream of HMRC
(people who have not got their problem solved who turn up at other services for
help - see next piece) to be about £300 million.
Imagine the impact on public finances if HMRC were to work.
***
Systems thinkers get to grips with the downstream problem
The downstream failure of HMRC and DWP was published by Advice UK in 2008 ('It's
the System Stupid! Radically Rethinking Advice'). Since then Advice UK has been
working with advice organisations and the local authority in Nottingham, with our
help, to pilot a systems thinking design for advice services. Last September, they
held what they described as a hugely successful stakeholder day to present the
findings of the initial analysis of advice systems, and these have now been written
up into an interim report, which you can access at http://www.adviceuk.org.uk/_uploads/documents/1MicrosoftWord-NottinghamSystemsThinkingPilot-InterimReport.pdf
The key learning from the review to date: Over 40% of advice agencies' capacity
is taken up addressing failures in the system, generated by public bodies' failure
to get it right for clients; System conditions, many of them the result of funders'
and external agencies' requirements, have a significant impact on the service
that is delivered to clients.
With this knowledge the Nottingham team is now making informed decisions to
improve the system, and are currently experimenting with changes to the design
of advice services. You can keep up to date through the BOLD pages of the Advice
UK website: http://www.adviceuk.org.uk/projects-and-resources/projects/bold
***
Lean is mean in the car industry
Going back to the debacle that is 'lean', during the Christmas break I read a
book all about how 'lean' has gone down (badly) with the workers in car
manufacturing. It shows how 'lean' has been just another tool of management,
used to control and exploit the workers. A complete tragedy, Ohno (the man who
developed the Toyota Production System) would be shocked and appalled. In the
1950s Ohno secured a major transformation in industrial relations by committing
to workers sharing the first fruits of success, putting them above customers and
shareholders.
This blundering wrong-headed lean tools stuff has not only created antipathy
among workers it has, more importantly, meant that manufacturers have failed to
realise the benefits Ohno achieved.
The big mistakes in both the car industry and HMRC are to have kept control with
management and the failure to see the organisation as a system. 'Lean', as applied,
amounts to no more than a bit of process improvement in badly designed systems. The
tool heads have a lot to answer for.
The book on the car industry is titled: 'We sell our time no more, workers'
struggles against lean production in the British car industry', Stewart et al,
Pluto Press. I shall be recommending it to my students.
***
The economic consequences of Mr Brown
A reader sent a link to a presentation by Professor Stein Ringen. It is a
compelling exposition of the failure of the Brown years as chancellor then
prime minister. Massive investment in public service reform but no change; the
central reason being Brown's command and control approach. Apologists for New
Labour argued in response that it could have been worse with another government
and, in any event, waiting times targets worked. Entirely missed the point (and,
by the way, waiting times targets did not work). See the presentation at:
http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/journal/journal-extra
***
Is Mr Brown 'smart'?
Announcing his latest initiative for public-sector reform, Gordon Brown claimed
that we are now entering the 'third generation' of public services. The first
generation, he said, ensured everyone could have access to essential services
that up until then had been provided patchily and inadequately (a snipe at the
previous Conservative administration). His 'second generation' of public services
which, he said, began when he came to power, in 1997, 'transformed investment' and
coupled it with 'tough performance management'. And so to the 'third' generation:
'a radical shift of power to the users of public services'.
Of course this is all spin. A more honest summary would be 'we invested massive
amounts of taxpayers' cash in the creation of a massive management factory sitting
over public services that has coerced them to do dumb things. Now we are desperately
looking for what to do next and, in particular, how we can cut costs'.
Instead of calling this initiative 'Smarter Government', as he does, he should
have called it 'more dumb stuff'. The most wrong-headed idea in his announcement
was that all tax credits and benefits will, in the near future, be 'exclusively
on-line'. He thinks this will mean greater 'personalisation' of services. He
couldn't be more wrong. You can personalise your e-newspaper, your Amazon account
and such-like because you do the personalisation. But tax credits and benefits
have rules. The complexity of these rules is one of the causes of failure demand
downstream of HMRC and DWP, the other main culprit being bad organisation design.
If, as Brown intends, you put the rules into computer systems, you will fail to
absorb variety. I can confidently predict this latest initiative, driven by his
desire to cut costs, will drive costs up and worsen the already dire service for
those who are the most vulnerable.
***
The Tories are at it too
An announcement that is bewildering: the Tories have signed up Peter Gershon and
Martin Read as advisors on public-sector efficiency. These two were New Labour
advisers. It reminds me of the way munitions manufacturers, during the second
world war, who were looking for a new detonator, copied one from a German bomb
that had failed to go off! Gershon and Read believe in IT-led factory designs.
The Tories too, it seems, are believers in economy of scale. It is to be wedded
to an ideological view, in spite of the lack of evidence for success and plenty
of evidence of failure.
I think I have to make a definitive text on the myth of economy of scale an
urgent task for this New Year. We need to do all we can to halt this waste of
public funds.
***
Rebellion in London boroughs
Wandsworth and Hammersmith & Fulham Councils have refused to spend 'endless hours'
serving the Audit Commission's new Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), which they
(rightly) say has proved costly and ineffective. Each reckons to spend about
£200,000 providing the Audit Commission with information. In addition, the
Commission had the nerve to charge each council more than £100,000 for 'audit costs'.
The two councils say the costly and bureaucratic nature of complying with Audit
Commission demands is not a good use of taxpayers' money in an age when budgets are
being squeezed. They argue that the oppressive and pointless CAA regime hinders
councils' ability to deliver better quality services.
Hats off to them! I'm sure this is just the beginning...
***
The Audit Commission doesn't get it
A systems thinker sent me the following quote, following my piece in the last
newsletter on my meeting with Steve Bundred, chief executive of the Audit Commission:
'It is difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends
upon them not understanding it'. Upton Sinclair: an American civil rights campaigner
turned politician (1930s).
I recall listening to the Commission's David Walker (with whom I had a spat last year)
talking about the Audit Commission's role on the radio. He claimed that audit reduced
risk. A nonsense claim, for in fact the Audit Commission coerces people to do the
wrong things, thus increasing risk. Knowledge is the antidote to risk; if Walker
had just a smidgeon of knowledge about the dysfunctional things being driven by
his outfit he would think twice. Walker also maintained that external inspection
leads to accountability. It doesn't. It leads to compliance. We have to move to a
world where people feel responsible, not compliant.
But as Upton Sinclair points out, maybe Walker will never understand these things.
***
I'm feeling optimistic
Despite the continued madness of the regime in the public sector, I'm feeling very
optimistic about systems thinking extending its reach. As well as people standing
up to the likes of Bundred and Walker, there are more and more examples of systems
thinking in practice and, at the end of the day, the results speak for themselves.
The results are always significant, making process improvements look insignificant
by comparison. The impact on morale is always fantastic, there could never be a
book written against systems thinking as there is against 'lean'; for systems
thinking puts people in control - it is intrinsic motivation that is the engine.
Indeed a book of case studies is to be published in a couple of months and all
the authors explain how systems thinking has had a profoundly positive impact on
morale.
In Wales systems thinkers have a great relationship with audit and central government,
something that Westminster will notice as time goes on. Whoever wins the next election,
we can expect a cull of the nonsense jobs in Westminster, the people who impose their
stupid ideas on public-sector managers. All in all its good news for systems thinkers
and I look forward to this year being one of more; more examples, more evidence,
more leadership, more systems thinking.
***
Forthcoming events
Systems Thinking - introductory days
January 14th, Copenhagen; find out more at: www.vanguard-consult.dk/Arrangementer.htm.
February 4th, Bridgend (Wales); for bookings: info@vanguardconsult.co.uk
Open Fundamentals programmes
We are running two open programmes on Systems Thinking Fundamentals, one in Hull,
the other in Bridgend (Wales). These are action-learning programmes where attendees
are expected to do things in their organisations between the taught sessions. You
get more time between sessions in Hull.
Hull dates: January 26th, March 5th, April 21st and May 26th.
Bridgend dates: February 9th, 16th, 23rd and March 2nd.
For bookings: info@vanguardconsult.co.uk
***
Thanks for reading!
John Seddon
john@vanguardconsult.co.uk
Author: 'Systems Thinking in the Public Sector', available from Triarchy
Press: www.triarchypress.com and 'Freedom from command and control: a better way
to make the work work' available from Vanguard (www.systemsthinking.co.uk)..
'Freedom from command and control' is also available in the US from:
http://www.productivitypress.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=3276
Vanguard Consulting: Developers of the Vanguard Method, helping organisations
change from a command and control to a systems design. Beware of imitators, as
Vanguard has developed solutions for sectors others claim to be able to provide
the same service. If providers are not accredited to the Vanguard Method you
should not expect a Vanguard service.
www.thesystemsthinkingreview.co.uk A web-site devoted to Systems Thinking in
the public sector.
Systems Thinking People - a service helping systems thinkers find suitable work
and helping organisations fund suitable systems thinkers. www.systemsthinkingpeople.com
Vanguard Capchart - simple-to-use tool for creating capability measures.
http://www.vanguardcapchart.com/
Other Vanguard sites around the world:
Ireland: www.vanguard-ireland.com
Scotland: www.vanguardscotland.co.uk
Netherlands: www.vanguardnederland.nl
Denmark: www.vanguard-consult.dk
Sweden: www.vanguard-consult.se
USA: www.newsystemsthinking.com
***
You were sent this because you asked for it! You can stop the Vanguard Newsletter
by hitting reply and writing 'UNSUB' in the subject line.
Downloaded from www.lean-service.com - improve service and cut costs
Return to Newsletters menu
| Return to top |
|
|
