Workers on the front line of Britain’s public services are demoralised and less effective because of a crippling lack of trust in their expertise from middle management and Whitehall, according a report released by the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos today.
Recent reforms have done little to improve services, instead treating front line staff like ‘untrustworthy teenagers’. Self-esteem among front line staff is low with only half feeling proud of their profession. This vicious circle of falling status and low morale means the public sector fails to attract the top graduates it desperately needs.
Leading from the Front argues that much needed improvements – from teaching to social services and the NHS – would come through giving more autonomy to front line staff to manage time and budgets because they know their job better than anyone. It recommends measures to cut bureaucracy and empower front line staff:
Abolish the audit commission and replace it with local control
Quangos such as the Audit Commission, National Audit Office and the Office for National Statistics should be abolished and replaced by a single body that provides information of public service performance. Performance should be judged by outcomes alone, freeing organisations to reach high standards in the way that is specific and sensitive to their needs. Prisons, for example, should be judged solely by the number of past inmates who have not reoffended after four years.
‘Acadamise’ all schools
The freedoms available to academies must be rolled out across the schools system. Government should allow top performing teachers to get on with the job, allowing schools to set their own curricula and performance management systems and to manage their own budgets.
Up-skill the front line
Government must make it tougher to become a teacher, personal advisor or social worker, and continuous training should be introduced for teachers, social workers and Jobcentre Plus staff. PGCE course should be extended to three years and the level of entry onto the course should be raised from a degree pass and two C-grade GCSEs to a 2:1 degree or above. Government should create a national accredited qualification for Jobcentre Plus staff to boost staff quality.
Hand budget control to the frontline
Government must remove tiers of management that sit between frontline professionals and their budgets. In healthcare, budget control must lie with clinicians who understand where money is best spent.
Remove middle management
Social workers and Jobcentre Plus advisors who have a proven track record should be allowed to form self-directed practices and teams in the style of GPs surgeries. Sagging morale in the public sector can only be addressed if Government hands back the reins to those who know what they are doing.
Max Wind-Cowie, one of the authors of the report, said:
“Failure in public service stems from a failure to trust that experienced teams and individuals know best. We will get better services if we put trust back in the professionals. All the talk at the moment is about protecting frontline staff from cuts, but that alone won’t make the difference if we continue to treat them like untrustworthy teenagers.
“Every government has the tendency to centralise. Whoever wins the next election must do everything they can to resist that urge and let go.”
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The report calls for public servants to be trained, and then trusted, to take responsibility for improving the services they deliver. Not only would this improve our services, it would allow us to make cuts in the right places: administrators and managers are costly and many of their functions could be taken on by frontline professionals who are willing and eager to take more control over decisions and service delivery.
Notes to Editors
The recession has led to a 90 per cent increase in people claiming benefits, meaning that more people are receiving back-to-work support from a personal advisor than at any point since the creation of Jobcentre Plus. Yet, only 30 per cent of the Department for Work and Pensions are proud of their organisation.
The past thirty years have seen an “audit explosion” in public life. Operating the six largest audit quangos costs £1bn every year.
In the UK, top graduates claim that they are deterred by the low status of the teaching profession and prefer to take their skills and qualifications to the private sector. Countries where the standard of qualification necessary to teach are higher, such as Finland, have a higher perceived status for teaching professionals and higher quality educational practitioners. Improvement in the selection and training of teachers would have measurable impacts on teaching standards even without improvements to pay.
The number of managers in the NHS has doubled since 1997 and the manager to bed ratio has gone from 12:1 to 5:1. It is estimated that today over £1bn is spent on bureaucratic supervision and management consultancy alone in the in the NHS every year. More than half of NHS staff do not think that patient care is their Trust’s top priority.
A 2005 MORI poll found that the public’s top three words to describe what characterises public servants were (in order) ‘bureaucratic’, ‘infuriating’ and ‘faceless’. A the same time, doctors, teachers and professors remain the most trusted professions in both the private and public sector.
Leading from the Front looks at evidence from behavioural psychology, the private sector and international case studies. It assesses the current crisis in public sector morale and the damning lack of public confidence in public sector provision.
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