Putting the Frontline First: Smarter GovernmentPutting the Frontline First: Smarter GovernmentSG_953e16ca-f1de-4af5-a2b8-3b426db7adabTo reform the government of the United Kingdom_4cbdeee9-76bb-4236-aed0-1c41e8b90e44Citizens and SocietySTRENGTHEN THE ROLE OF CITIZENS AND CIVIC SOCIETY_e32a3e82-63b2-47fc-b744-93e2bd430ac31Smarter government means giving people the tools they need to help shape services and to hold government to account. Technology has a key role to play in building this new relationship – both in opening two-way channels of communication between citizens and professionals and in providing increased transparency on the effectiveness of government. As citizens shape public services, government will help them to play a more active part in managing their own needs, serving their own communities and strengthening civic society.Service StandardsGiving people guarantees to high quality public services that are at the centre of their lives, driving up standards_7610841a-7055-42b0-a910-0c4f49574bda1.1Commitments: driving up standards by empowering citizens with guarantees to high-quality public services -- in health, we are introducing new guarantees in the NHS9 Constitution, including an entitlement to be treated within 18 weeks and seen in two weeks for urgent referrals for cancer, or for the NHS to offer the option of going private. This means that patients will be clear about the level of service they have the right to expect and will be able to access alternative provision if standards fall short. We will also introduce an entitlement to a health check every five years for 40–74 year olds, starting in April 2012. These complement the commitments we set out in Building Britain’s Future for the further transformation of maternity services to ensure they are better able to offer personalised support throughout pregnancy – offering greater control and choice for all women. And in the coming months we will also bring forward proposals to extend the choices which patients have to receive their care at home, in comfort and with the support of their family, and in a way which suits them and their personal circumstances. We will publish our detailed plans for a National Care Service in early 2010, which will include proposals for new entitlements and rights for social care. in education, new guarantees for pupils and parents were first set out in the Schools White Paper in June, which we will underpin through legislation in the Children, Schools and Families Bill. Core guarantees include: • one-to-one tuition for the children who are falling behind10 in reading, writing and maths by the age of seven and who are unlikely to catch up by the time they leave primary school; and one-to-one or small group tuition for any pupil who does not master the basics and reach expected national standards in English or maths by the time they leave primary school. • A personal tutor for every secondary school pupil who will be the named point of contact between the parent and the school. • A school leavers’ entitlement – the September Guarantee – giving all 16 and 17 year olds the guarantee of a suitable place in education or training. Where parents and pupils do not receive these new guarantees, parents will be able to seek redress through the Local Government Ombudsman. We are also legislating so that local authorities will be required to survey all parents of Year 6 children in their area and assess their satisfaction with the range and quality of secondary schools. Where there are high levels of dissatisfaction, local authorities will be required to respond with plans for improvement, potentially including expansion of good schools or, depending on the availability of capital, the establishment of entirely new schools. in policing and justice we have set out plans in the Policing White Paper to strengthen accountability and redress if entitlements are not met. From March 2010, Police Report Cards will be available online, giving the public a clear view of the quality of policing in their area – including, for the first time, access to information below force level on a quarterly basis. We are also introducing the right to public meetings with senior police officers to address concerns about performance or other issues. And for repeat victims of crime – including antisocial behaviour – we will be consulting on free access to legal support to pursue an injunction from the courts if the police and other agencies fail to act in a reasonable timeframe.Digitalised Public ServicesAccelerating the move to digitalised public services, enabling transactions that are online, personalised, flexible, and time-and cost-efficient_e58b9b32-2712-4954-82a3-44c07381f2b41.2Actions: accelerating the move to digital services -- We will invest £30 million with UK Online to support the development of the national Plan for Digital Participation to get more than one million people online in the next three years. We will roll out the groundbreaking ‘Tell Us Once’ service for births and deaths nationally, together with local government, in 2010. We will work with local government partners to pilot ‘tell us once’ for people’s change of address in selected areas for 2011. if these pilots are successful we will then aim to roll the programme out nationally. We will accelerate plans to drive more rapid transition to online and personalised services. Departmental channel strategies will set out service by service how transactions with government will move online as rapidly as possible, with a view to targeting near 100% by 2014. they will need to address extending online access to the digitally excluded population and funding considerations. The strategies will inform a Digital Britain Roadmap, which will be produced by the end of 2010. this will focus on transition plans for key services such as student loans, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Child tax Credits to be online, and by Budget 2010 we will have set a timetable for an online Child Benefit service. users of these services – families with young children, young adults and unemployed people – will be a priority for targeting the digital inclusion work, to ensure that they are able to access services online as the services are made available. We will make it easier for public services to join up, by establishing a set of common protocols and reviewing the legal framework that governs the way in which public services exchange information. We will also join up and transform Directgov, nhs Choices and Business link so that they provide a platform for departments to design and deliver personalised digital services. Directgov will champion citizens’ perspectives to help departments to design and deliver excellent digital services. We will collect all VAT returns and employer tax returns exclusively online by 2011 and we will streamline engagement with the tax system through use of diverse communications channels. We will encourage local authorities to increase to at least 80% the proportion of applications for school places being made online by 2011/12.Open Data and Information Radically opening up data and public information to promote transparent and effective government_27a2b0b1-ce53-4619-9f01-3d66db52b8461.3Commitments: government’s public data principles -- ‘Public data’ are ‘government-held non-personal data that are collected or generated in the course of public service delivery’. Our public data principles state that: • Public data will be published in reusable, machinereadable form • Public data will be available and easy to find through a single easy to use online access point (www.data.gov.uk) • Public data will be published using open standards and following the recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium • Any ‘raw’ dataset will be represented in linked data form • More public data will be released under an open licence which enables free reuse, including commercial reuse • Data underlying the Government’s own websites will be published in reusable form for others to use • Personal, classified, commercially sensitive and third-party data will continue to be protected. Actions: opening up data and promoting transparency -- We will release valuable public datasets and make them free for reuse. this will include: • Releasing health data such as the NHS Choices data • Consulting on making Ordnance Survey mapping and postcode datasets available for free reuse from April 2010 • Increasing access to and reuse of public transport data29 including the national Public transport Access node database, with information available to the development community by April 2010, providing live incident warnings and traffic camera images to googleMaps™ and increasing the number of gPs-enabled buses to cover 80% of journeys by 2015 • Opening Met Office Public Weather Service data to include: releasing significant underlying data for weather forecasts for free download and reuse by April 2010, and working to further expand the release of weather data, while recognising all public safety considerations; releasing a free iPhone application to access weather data by April 2010; releasing a widget that enables other websites to deploy Met office supplied weather information by April 2010; and making available more information on Met office scientists, their work and scientific papers, free of charge • Publishing, by spring 2010, details of how the fiscal stimulus announced in the Pre-Budget Report 2008 has been spent, disaggregated to local level • Launching a public consultation early in 2010 to seek views on how we could publish further financial data so that it is user-friendly and accessible, with a view to putting a live system in place by summer 2010 • Integrating ONS data with www.data.gov.uk from January 2010. We will make government data accessible through a single access point at www.data.gov.uk, which will go live from January 2010 with over 1,100 central government datasets free for reuse, ranging from lists of schools to traffic volumes on the trunk road network. We will encourage local government to release local public data and make it free for reuse, and establish an open-platform local data exchange. Professor nigel shadbolt will lead a local public data panel to ensure that data are linked effectively across local authorities, the local government Association, government departments and agencies. We will create new ways for the citizen to interact with public services and public policy. By December 2010 we will extend user comment capabilities on nhs Choices to cover all health services, and we will publish key consultations online via the Directgov consultation index, with tools for interactive dialogue, enabling citizens to comment on draft legislative bills. We will make a number of important technical improvements to public data: we will aim for the majority of government-published information to be reusable, linked data by June 2011; and we will establish a common licence to reuse data which is interoperable with the internationally recognised Creative Commons model.Personal ResponsibilityEncouraging greater personal responsibility through technology and interactive services so that more people take an active role in improving their own life chances_80969711-f60c-454d-8b3a-ca559dadee321.4Actions: encouraging greater personal responsibility -- We will make use of all new forms of communication wherever possible, using mobile and online applications – including social networking sites – where efficiencies for both users and providers can be gained. this includes encouraging the wider use of text messaging for gP appointments and other health and public service areas. Plans will be set out in departmental channel strategies by March 2010. We will support primary care trusts in the use of predictive risk models in healthcare, in order to identify those individuals most at risk and build on the successful lessons from applications already in use. We will identify which other public services could benefit from predictive risk modelling across each department, by Budget 2010. We will set up a taskforce to investigate what more can be done to reduce fraud, using the best techniques from the private sector. this will report by Budget 2010. We will enhance our overall approach to behaviour change, with the Cabinet office and the institute for government publishing a report in January 2010 examining how best to apply these theories to the most important policy challenges.Civic SocietyBuilding a stronger civic society by working collaboratively with communities to improve and deliver public services_a9b4dc1e-7fbe-49fc-909d-5c597a932e511.5Actions: building a stronger civic society -- We will work with stakeholders to produce a regularly updated Civic Health Index from early 2010, to enable citizens and leaders to assess how well civic society is faring and how it can be enabled to thrive. We will pilot Social Impact Bonds as a new way of funding the third sector to provide services. the Department for Communities and local government (Clg) is actively developing a pilot to use social impact Bonds to draw in new investment into third sector service provision. this has the potential to radically change how government funds the third sector, by rewarding social investors for work which reduces future social costs. We will finalise the model for a Social Investment Wholesale Bank, providing capital to organisations delivering social impact and ensuring the long-term sustainability of social enterprises. the process of engaging with potential providers of the Bank will commence by Budget 2010. We plan to provide the necessary launch investment for the Bank from the Dormant Accounts scheme, subject to resources, as well as funding for youth facilities to ensure that in every community there are places to go for young people, and funding for financial capability. We will also strengthen our support for community asset transfer and ownership by promoting wider use of community shares from early 2010 and reviewing scope to relax existing clawback conditions on publicly funded community assets. We will develop criteria on social assets by Budget 2010, to determine whether alternative delivery structures such as cooperatives or third sector entities would offer the greatest value for public assets. this will include looking at how civic organisations could be given new rights to access unused spaces. We will financially support innovative programmes to bring services together with civic society. this includes the young Foundation pilot programme to bring entrepreneurs into primary care trusts to stimulate innovation and strengthen relationships between the local community and frontline public service professionals. this also includes supporting the ‘innovation exchange’ in the next financial year to bring together third sector organisations with the most innovative ideas on tackling social problems with local public service commissioners and investors. Also, building on recent young Foundation41 work on civic society, we will explore further options to strengthen interaction between neighbourhood services and citizens.Centre and FrontlineRECAST THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CENTRE AND THE FRONTLINE_8cb5b5ff-533a-4bbd-9a8e-2dd617b3ce052Strong national entitlements, performance management and regulation from the centre help guarantee excellent public services for citizens and communities. However, if local public services are too focused on meeting national objectives they may fail to fully respond to local challenges and need. Setting out high standards for all services at a national level, but not prescribing the means to achieve them, means government can take a ‘Total Place’ approach to public services. This frees up the frontline to determine what works best for their local areas and communities, and to respond to the user-driven direction outlined in the previous chapter. Local flexibility to innovate helps government to deliver better quality public services, more efficiently.Local ControlLetting local areas have more control over setting priorities and guiding resources by simplifying performance management from the centre and increasing local flexibility over the use of resources_42e42d60-fdf7-4d8a-8757-53dceb8a73a62.1Actions: letting local areas set priorities -- We will streamline the Government’s national performance framework. At the next spending review we will significantly reduce the number of high-level priorities we set out at a national level. over time, as we roll out the system of entitlements and guarantees, we will be able to reduce the number of national indicators for local authorities. As an initial step, by April 2010 we will remove a number of indicators that are no longer relevant or needed. And as the new personal entitlements and guarantees become embedded, we will look to reduce the number of national indicators more substantially from 2011, following a review and appropriate consultation. We will align the different sector- specific performance management frameworks across key local agencies – the nhs, police, schools and local government – thereby increasing the focus on indicators relating to joint outcomes. We will set out in Budget 2010 the key areas where frameworks for specific frontline sectors can be further aligned. Actions: letting local areas guide resources -- We will increase local flexibility over resource use with a package of measures from 2010, which build on the findings of the total Place pilots. these measures are likely to: • See more devolution of resources to local authorities and local delivery organisations: both devolving more centrally held funding, as well as de-ring-fencing funding which has already been devolved, where this is possible without impacting on the delivery of national priorities or limiting wider flexibility. By Budget 2010 we will set out specific proposals to reduce the level of ring-fencing for local authorities • Reduce the number of different funding streams across the board so that services are not funded from a large number of small central pots. By Budget 2010, we will set out plans to bring together the most fragmented funding streams, including the numerous different funding streams for housing and simplifying the area-based grant for local authorities. We will also set out plans by Budget 2010 to synchronise grant payments from departments to local authorities for the financial year 2011/12, to make it easier for local authorities to manage their spending more strategically • Consider single area-based capital funding – total Capital – for a set of local public services with recommendations by Budget 2010. this could increase the efficiency of capital investments and public sector assets in a place or city region, in part by encouraging more co-location of services and shared procurement of common infrastructure. We will look for further opportunities to encourage local authorities to benefit from joint ventures and use their trading powers to create further commercial opportunities. We will continue to enable better use of resources by promoting the appropriate use of pooled budgets. We will: • Develop a small number of focused pilots to devolve pooled budgets to frontline service leaders, working with local strategic Partnerships and Children’s trusts. these pilots will be up and running by the end of 2010 and, if successful, rolled out nationwide • Publish guidance on effective pooling and aligning of budgets at a local level by Budget 2010 to incentivise and support local partner organisations to do this more often and more effectively – building on existing successful models of multi-agency working, such as Family intervention Projects which are being expanded to reach 50,000 problem families and have been proved to cut crime and antisocial behaviour • Consider options relating to stronger local scrutiny of spending on public services and publish specific proposals in early 2010Frontline BurdensReducing burdens on the frontline, whether from reporting, inspection or assessment, with a focus on removing those burdens of least benefit to local people_7bf61f8a-9b27-44c0-b4ea-a1a8173270532.2Actions: reducing burdens on the frontline -- We will reduce the total number of burdens on local areas, as well as the cost of compliance with existing burdens. We will: • Coordinate timings, where appropriate, of all assessments, inspections and reporting arrangements across central government and AlBs by 2010/11 where they are focused on similar outcomes • Develop options to coordinate and rationalise burdens on the frontline through better coordination across Whitehall. Potential options include a new cross- government data gateway for requests from central government to the frontline; or a shared web portal bringing together all regulations and guidance for local areas in one place, allowing frontline professionals, businesses and the public to highlight burdens that can be reduced. We will report on firm options by Budget 2010 • Review the work and number of inspectorates across the public sector with firm proposals by Budget 2010. this will include the abolition of her Majesty’s inspectorate of Court Administration. As part of this work we will look for opportunities to give the best-performing organisations greater freedom from central control, for example to local probation areas that meet tough performance criteria • Explore sharing costs of collecting data more equally and identify how we can move to a fairer system for the suppliers of that information. We will significantly reduce the cost of burdens by ensuring that reporting, inspection and assessment frameworks only include what is really needed to guarantee accountability, access and quality. We will: • Ask the Total Place pilot sites to use their forthcoming local reports in February 2010 to record the total burdens across local agencies involved in their particular pilot topic, and to highlight their priorities for streamlining these burdens • Undertake work in each government department to identify the biggest obstacles to effectiveness imposed by departments and arm’s-length bodies (AlBs) on the frontline. this will build on existing programmes such as the Department for Children, schools and Families’ (DCsF) review of obstacles to delivery • Draw these two pieces of work together to inform the Government’s response to the Total Place reports on key reporting, inspection and assessment burdens where the cost outweighs the benefit, or where there is significant overlap between frameworks. We will remove as many identified burdens as possible in time for the 2011/12 financial year.Comparative DataHarnessing the power of comparative data so that it is available to citizens and frontline professionals, and is at the centre of local scrutiny and simplified performance management systems._025c376b-7ae3-4b5e-ad45-9cead725dd392.3Actions: actively publishing comparative data -- We will make it easier to compare performance across frontline services, by publishing data on public service performance, citizen outcomes and value for money in achieving those outcomes. We will publish this data in reusable form on www.data.gov.uk by 2011. Specifically this means that: • In local government we will work with the sector to develop comparable measures of value for money across a range of local government services. We will consult on these from spring 2010 and publish them in 2011. • In the health sector, we will publish hospital-trust-level reference costs for specific treatment categories (or healthcare resource groups) online in early 2010. • In education, we will publish as much data as possible from the national Pupil Database and other sources that is relevant and compatible with preserving individual anonymity from April 2010 onwards. • In the criminal justice system, we will benchmark offender management in prisons and probation during 2010, and benchmark the whole of the prison and probation system, by the end of 2011. • For police force performance, we will publish quarterly 12-month moving average crime data at police authority level, by 2010. this will inform the new Police report Card being developed by her Majesty’s inspectorate of Constabulary, and will allow comparisons across forces and basic command units or their local equivalent. By Budget 2010 the report cards will also incorporate value for money data which will enable comparison of forces’ costs and productivity. Actions: using comparative data to drive performance -- • We will introduce best practice tariffs in the NHS by 2010/11 to address unexplained variation in quality. We will also extend tariff principles into new settings, by introducing new currencies for mental health by 2010/11 and for community health services shortly afterwards. • We will introduce a presumption that, starting from 2011, public sector inspectorates begin to reserve top performance ratings for those service organisations that have performed well against value for money considerations. • We have asked the Audit Commission to develop proposals for assessing the use of resources across a whole area by Budget 2010, for inclusion in Comprehensive Area Assessments. this will assess how well local authorities and other frontline organisations are collectively managing their resources to deliver value for money for local communities. • We will enable the best performers to mentor the poorest. We will work with local government to roll out a peer challenge process across all local authorities from spring 2010, building on work already under way in london. We have asked the nhs institute for innovation and improvement, and the national Policing improvement Agency to facilitate professionally led mentoring schemes. • We will examine where else benchmarking data are appropriate and can underpin performance management frameworks.Government and DeliverySTREAMLINE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT FOR SHARPER DELIVERY_c92b9c6c-45f1-4ba6-8b40-d7408bb3b50e3Central government has a clear task. It must provide leadership on the big challenges – ranging from reducing child poverty to supporting economic recovery – and help public services deliver day-to-day excellence. This means setting policy priorities, guaranteeing national entitlements and building up capacity for the frontline. The previous chapters set out how public services will become more transparent, user-driven and locally accountable. The challenge for central government is to support this response by becoming even more agile and effective. Smarter government can meet this challenge by streamlining the centre, sharpening its focus on excellence and freeing up efficiencies for the frontline.Innovative GovernmentEquipping the Civil service to meet future challenges by reshaping structures, strengthening performance management and putting innovation at the heart of government_c546b637-f009-4c93-90f8-ca9b46d093f43.1Actions: reshaping the Civil Service -- We will modernise Civil Service structures to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and management layers, increase staff empowerment and reduce the cost of the senior Civil service, saving £100 million annually within three years. this review of organisational design, supported by the Cabinet office, will build on the Capability review reforms and draw on the insights of current and next generation Civil service leaders who will be responsible for successfully delivering these reforms. We will then apply a similar organisational design reform to middle management (grade 6/7) level to ensure consistent modernisation across the Civil service. to improve productivity and encourage delivery of significant savings in the Civil service, we will allow managers new flexibilities in order to achieve them. We will also put in place radical reforms to senior pay across the public sector, including tougher scrutiny for senior appointments, and comprehensive transparency and accountability arrangements. in addition, the Prime Minister is writing to Bill Cockburn as chair of the senior salaries Pay review Body to commission a review of senior pay looking across the whole of the public sector, reporting to the government in time for Budget 2010. Actions: strengthening performance management and benchmarking -- We will improve transparency of Civil Service performance by publishing departmental performance scorecards in the next round of annual reports in spring 2010. these will set out departments’ progress across a range of key performance indicators, including progress on service delivery, efficiency, cost and corporate priorities. We will deliver a package of performance management improvements across the Civil service. this means we will: • Set out Permanent Secretary remuneration, performance-related pay and pay awards in all forthcoming annual reports, alongside new performance scorecards, with processes that ensure the two are clearly linked • Ensure value for money objectives are reflected in the objectives and appraisals of all Civil Servants responsible for the management and delivery of programmes • Improve sickness absence management, including a commitment to match the best performance in comparable private sector companies departments, by Budget 2010. the Cabinet office will coordinate an approach to ensure that these processes identify poor performance, and will establish fair and fast procedures to deal with it. We will enable the UK to be one of the top performing administrations in the world by 2012. By Budget 2010, we will benchmark the Civil service against the best administrations in areas where we have most to learn from other countries. to do this, we will: • Work with the OECD and other international partners, and with eu and Commonwealth countries with comparable systems of government, to benchmark the performance of individual departments and ministries • Arrange an international conference on smarter government during 2010 to share public service expertise from country to country, and to work towards the creation of a virtual centre for excellence on value for money delivery in the oeCD. Actions: putting innovation at the heart of government -- We will drive innovation across government, with the Department for Business, innovation and skills rolling out a package of support to all departments before Budget 2010. this package will include adapting a tool from the nhs national innovation Centre to provide a cross-government showcase of the best innovations and a number of practical interventions such as innovation capability building exercises to support departments in tackling key challenges. We will commission the National School of Government to develop a new corporate learning programme which will form part of a new approach to Civil service skills and training which we will publish by Budget 2010. Alongside this work we will also review the value for money of Civil service training by the national school of government and other providers. We will launch a Social Venture Capital Fund to support third party organisations to generate innovative new ideas for using government data to create useful tools for the public.Arm's Length BodiesRationalising and reforming arm’s-length bodies (ALBs) to create a simpler, cheaper delivery structure, and improve the services ALBs are responsible for delivering_72daf9e1-022f-41d0-b9fb-a076c571df4e3.2Arm’s-length bodies: facts and figures -- There are currently around 750 ALBs sponsored by the UK Government.16 They have different legal classifications, depending on their organisational form. However, the majority can often more adequately be described according to their function. Using this categorisation, the Government’s ALBs include the following: • 43 grant-giving organisations which essentially channel funding to frontline organisations or individuals. Examples include the Higher Education Funding Council and the regional development agencies • 145 service delivery bodies including Jobcentre Plus and the National Offender Management Service • 54 regulators, for example Ofsted and the Pensions Regulator • 438 advisory bodies which provide expert advice across a range of topics, for example the Low Pay Commission • 35 tribunals, which provide an appeal system against administrative acts or decisions. Examples include the Pensions Ombudsman and the Police Arbitration Tribunal Funding by the UK Government is approximately £80 billion per year. ALBs employ over 300,000 people, with the largest (by staff numbers) being Jobcentre Plus (around 80,000) and HM Prison Service (50,000). Actions: rationalising and reforming arm’s-length bodies -- We will, as a first step, rationalise the ALB landscape, reducing the overall number of bodies by over 120, through: • Reducing the number of bodies that perform advisory or related functions by 25%, subject to the necessary legislation and consultation. this will include: abolishing 16 regional advisory committees relating to agricultural workers in england and the 15 regional committees in england that appoint each of them consulting on rationalising the 101 Advisory Committees on Justice of the Peace to 49 reducing the number of Court Boards from 23 to 19 in line with new organisational boundaries reducing the number of separate publicly funded bodies in the skills sector by 30 over the next three years merging the sentencing guidelines Council and sentencing Advisory Panel into a single sentencing Council, in line with the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 • Reducing the number of bodies whose primary function is service delivery, merging four existing military museums into the new national Museum of the royal navy • Reducing the number of regulators, merging the Postgraduate Medical education and training Board with the general Medical Council and abolishing hM inspectorate of Courts Administration. We will publish proposals in early 2010 to provide a much stricter governance framework for ALBs and their sponsor departments. this will identify opportunities to save at least £500 million by reducing duplication between organisations and streamlining the AlB landscape where appropriate. in addition this framework will: • Establish a more rigorous process for setting up ALBs, for example by requiring any minister proposing a new body to publish a full assessment of why the body is needed and set out why an AlB is the most effective delivery mechanism • Introduce sunset clauses, requiring all new bodies to have a check-by date, when they will be subject to a fundamental review that explores whether the organisation is still needed in its current form • Ensure greater transparency and scrutiny of ALBs, for example by ensuring they publish more data on their performance and value for money We will extend the Capability Review approach to key ALBs to ensure that we can systematically assess their capability to meet future delivery challenges.Back Office Processesimproving back office processes to the standard of the best to ensure that back office operations and procurement processes are as efficient as possible_152c46d1-5f12-4177-bc26-8ce15c8300d63.3Commitments: the operational efficiency Programme -- Led by five external advisers, the Operational Efficiency Programme identified scope to save an additional £9 billion on top of current value for money targets. These savings will be achieved in five cross-cutting areas, each led by an external adviser: • Back office operations and IT, led by Martin Read, former CEO of Logica • Collaborative Procurement, led by Martin Jay, Chairman of Invensys • Assets, led by Gerry Grimstone, Chairman of Standard Life • Property, led by Lord Carter • Local Incentives and Empowerment, led by Sir Michael Bichard, Director of the Institute for Government. Actions: improving back office operations -- We are publishing back office cost benchmarking data for all central government departments and most agencies and non-departmental public bodies with more than 250 staff. these data clearly set out departments’ performance on a range of back office benchmarks. All departments have set out plans to improve which are published alongside this document. We will publish wider public sector benchmarking data from Budget 2010 showing the cost of hr, finance and other back office functions. Also by Budget 2010 we will require back office consolidation plans from all AlBs to set out plans to reduce back office costs and strengthen the drive towards shared services. We have agreed stretching new comparators informed by private sector median performance to support improvement in public sector back offices. these include improving the ratio of hr staff to non-hr staff to 1:77, reducing the cost of finance functions to 1% of organisational spend and reducing occupancy to 10 square metres per full-time member of staff. We will release further resources for frontline services, by reducing spend on consultancy by 50% and spend on marketing and communications by 25% saving £650 million. We will also reduce spend on it projects by making greater use of existing systems rather than creating new ones. We will look to expand the most successful shared services centres with a view to potentially creating the first public-sector shared-service company. A specialist company of this kind could then offer services across the public sector, providing a platform for public organisations to transform their back offices more easily to reach private-sector benchmarking levels. We will also merge international back office operations to ensure that all overseas staff are supported by a single shared platform that delivers value for money to all departments overseas.Asset ManagementManaging assets more effectively, to release value from public sector assets and state-owned property with a more strategic approach to office location_a93657af-4b21-497d-9c2d-907dc7d2702c3.4Actions: improving collaborative procurement -- We are publishing procurement data for the biggest spending departments, showing the level of compliance with approved collaborative deals. By Budget 2010, we will publish data showing the uptake of approved collaborative deals in the wider public sector, and we will publish updated data for the use of approved collaborative deals in central government. We will use technology to improve procurement and lower costs by: • Publishing plans for the use of e-auctions by the end of 2010, building on the work of the office of government Commerce (ogC). e-auctions can result in savings of up to 30% in some categories of spend21 • Establishing a new single online portal,22 which will house all government contracts worth more than £20,000 and go live in 2010/11. this will be free for businesses through the Business link website We will strengthen procurement capability, by building on the ogC’s work and publishing a second wave of procurement Capability reviews. We will also ensure that each department has a Director responsible for service delivery, accountable for making the improvements in contract development and management outlined in the Julius report. Actions: managing the public sector estate and working practices more effectively -- We will explore different management and ownership options for the public sector estate, including the feasibility of creating one or more property companies that could own and manage portfolios of public sector properties, for example grouped by geographical location, asset class or department. the development of new public property and service companies will broaden the range of asset types that the government plans to assess, which in due course is expected to provide opportunities for value realisation and for private sector participation. Ian Smith will lead a review on the scope for further Civil Service relocations, analysing the service delivery and value for money arguments for moving further posts, to report by Budget 2010. the review will set out what specific efficiencies this might bring and outline how at least 10% of all Civil service posts currently based in london and the south east can be relocated in the medium term. We will also require ALBs, including regulators, to demonstrate they are located in the most efficient and effective part of the country. We will also develop regional strategies for the government estate, building on the successful pilot in the West Midlands. Actions: managing asset ownership more effectively -- We are publishing an OEP asset portfolio alongside today’s report. this portfolio sets out those state-owned assets which government might seek to commercialise over the medium term. the oeP asset portfolio includes a new framework to govern which government activities should be managed as a business and which should be sold. For those activities which are best managed as businesses in the public sector, we will separate the ownership role from the customer and policy role, with a presumption that they should be incorporated. We will publish initial conclusions on which government activities should be managed as businesses, by Budget 2010, using the framework described above. We will also report on progress on the commercialisation of assets that are included in the oeP asset portfolio.2009-12-012010-02-08http://www.hmg.gov.uk/media/52788/smarter-government-final.pdfArthurColman (www.drybridge.com)colman@drybridge.com