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Front Office Shared Services Conference

The Front Office Shared Services Conference will take place on  Wednesday 6 and Thursday 7 May 2009 at the Victoria Park Plaza Hotel, London

The focus of the conference is on joined-up delivery and better integrated services at 'the sharp end'.

Key features of the conference include:

Keynote addresses from central and local government, third sector, police and primary care trusts (PCTs) (ACC Steve Mortimore, Director of Citizen Focus & Neighbourhood Policing at the NPIA will be speaking and taking part)
Interactive round table session to discuss the challenges and barriers to transforming services and how to overcome them
'This House’ panel debate, including audience voting, on whether local government should lead on service transformation
Lively speed briefing sessions to introduce case studies
Choice of workshops led by local authorities and their partners to showcase innovation and next practice
Drinks reception and networking conference dinner.

FYI. Mike

'Public information does not belong to Government, it belongs to the public on whose behalf government is conducted’

If you are interested in the development of digital services and the potential that it has to affect the delivery of service in the public sector, you ought to take a quick look at the beta report that the Power of Information Taskforce has recently released.

The Taskforce, which recently ran the ‘show us a better way’ competition (previous post refers) brought together a group from government, industry and the third sector, to enable better public service delivery.

Their report, which follows, Lord Carter’s interim report on Digital Britain, is about improving Digital Britons’ online experience by providing expert help from the public sector online, where people seek it, and by freeing up the UK’s public sector information for innovative new services.  The report seeks to move into the mainstream activities that are currently minority best practice.

The report makes 25 recommendations, a number of which have a direct bearing on the provision of policing information and the accessibility of that information.

The recommendations most certainly speak directly to the need for a cultural shift in staff access to the internet and a much broader understanding and use of the collaborative tools that are shaping our world.

The report makes recommendations to help this culture shift and make more transparent the public sector’s attempts to engage online, which, the authors believe, ‘public servants should do as a matter of course’.

A selective flavour of the recommendations:

Public servants should be active in online peer support forums concerned with their areas of work, be it education specialists in parenting forums or doctors in health forums

Public servants will require adequate internet access to take part in social media as part of their job

Unlock innovation in leading public sector sites using a ‘backstage model‘, a standing open online innovation space allowing the general public and staff to co-create information-based public services.  This capability should be a standard element of public information service design.

Invest in innovation that directly benefits the public by ensuring that public sector websites spend about as much on innovation as leading knowledge businesses. 

The public services can break out of the traditional challenge/response model of consultation by using the latest online tools.

Public bodies are often required to publish notices and other information in newspapers, by physical notices or by other means.  The same information should now also be published directly to the internet.

‘Usability’ critieria should be published with an implementation plan to central government websites.  The criteria and guidance should be published as soon as possible with an implementation plan by June 2009.  The approach should be extended to the websites of the wider public sector including local government, health and police.

The Permanent Secretary Government Communications should bring forward a plan to train communications staff in the basics of social media and a modern web presence by Q3 2009

A new external high level advisory panel should replace the Taskforce, reporting to the Minister for Digital Engagement.  The Panel should advise Ministers and public servants on the latest developments in the area in the UK and overseas, scrutinise departmental plans and capabilities, set priorities for the Cabinet Office’s R&D fund, and drive and monitor progress in implementing the recommendations set out above. It should publish regular reports on the internet about developments and the government’s progress. The panel should be established by June 2009.

The timing outlined in the recommendations does provide a sense of momentum, possibly fueled in some part by the Obama effect and the rapid 2.0 changes in United States governmental web services.  It is definitely a fast moving agenda, and one well worth contributing to and keeping an eye on.

Kudos to...

The reality is that there is a lot of very good, practical citizen focus work taking place in forces around the country each and every day. 'Stuff' that is making a real difference to the quality of service provided.

So I have decided it's about time that I started to recognise that great work in this blog.  I am therefore introducing an occasional 'kudos to...' spot to acknowledge all the good things that are going on.

I know that the people who are making a difference and getting on with making things better, aren't doing it for any particular personal glory. However, sometimes it's just nice to be able to recognise the good work that is being done and give kudos where they are deserved.

So. My first 'kudos' goes to Mark Chatterton in Hampshire. Mark and his team have grasped the citizen focus concept and are cracking on with some nice practical things that will improve the customer experience in Aldershot. Mark tells me that:

'We are now completing our enquiry office update at Aldershot. There is now a coffee machine installed for our staff to provide drinks for those that have to wait. We have also installed a newspaper and magazine rack. Strangely they are being used and the fear that things will be damaged or stolen have not proved correct!

We are also about to install a TV for use by those waiting and we have got some things for children to keep them occupied if they are at the station. This is the basic things such as colouring materials and give away merchandise.

All of this cost little - but will make a difference'.

Good job Mark. Kudos to you and your team.  

400 times more bacteria than the average office toilet seat

By way of a health service to readers of this blog, I bring you this story from the BBC

Apparently, keyboards can be 'dirtier than a toilet'. That made you look down and check yours out, didn’t it.

Which? have been analysing keyboards and their conclusion is that, as many people eat their lunch at their computers, leaving crumbs, the keyboards can often harbour harmful bacteria.

Microbiologist Dr Peter Wilson told the BBC that a keyboard was often "a reflection of what is in your nose and in your gut". Nice.

And sharing is not always a good thing. Sharing a keyboard could actually be passing on illnesses among office workers. According to Dr Wilson "Should somebody have a cold in your office, or even have gastroenteritis, you're very likely to pick it up from a keyboard."

Poor personal hygiene, such as not washing hands after going to the toilet, could also be to blame. To observe interesting personal habits check out washyourhands.tv

And just in case you were wondering.........

The researchers also found that, compared to men, on average women have three to four times the amount of germs in, on and around their work area.

Happy typing...

'No idea your Worship'

And you worried that you may not understand your customer fully. Well, you may rest easy in your beds compared to colleagues thinking about developing a Citizen Focused approach in the courts and tribunals sector.

The Ministry of Justice published a report by Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University, last week, reviewing recent evidence and studies regarding the fundamental issue of what drives public and participant satisfaction with courts and tribunals. Report available here.

The report reviewed evidence from 2000 onwards, on what factors may be related to public and participant (non-professional users, witnesses and jurors) satisfaction with courts and tribunals.

The review reveals that there is a distinct scarcity of robust, well analysed data on what the general public thinks about civil and family courts and tribunals and what underlies those perceptions. Similarly, there is little data on what businesses think of courts and tribunals.

Not only is there a scarcity of data, what data is available on participants, outside of the criminal context in particular, also lacks depth.

Because the data is so weak, the report’s authors conclude that they ‘cannot say with authority whether the public, or indeed those who have participated in civil or family cases, are generally satisfied with those courts and tribunals, and why they are satisfied (or not)’.

Not surprisingly (you may come to the very same conclusion) they believe that ‘lack of such data about a key public institution is concerning’. No kidding Sherlock.

Trying their best to find some good news, the authors believe that the evidence that does  exists suggests that outcomes, and the perceived fairness of those outcomes; attitudes and contextual issues (such as attitudes to crime and the quality of the court environment and support); and participant judgments about the fairness of court or tribunal process all have an independent relationship with (and so may ‘drive’) public and participant satisfaction with courts and tribunals. The evidence on whether demographic characteristics have an independent influence is apparently more mixed.

On the whole, it seems as though it is participant judgments about the fairness of the process not the outcomes that participants receive which are most important in influencing the levels of their satisfaction.

Seems like a fine subject area to start bidding for a Fulbright study programme !

Government 'assembles' community activists

If you wanted evidence of how widely the remit of ‘policing’ is being drawn these days, take a look at the range of key players that comprise the Crime and Communities Review Team Ministerial group.

The recently started Crime and Communities Review is a cross-government exercise looking at how the police and other organisations that share responsibility for tackling crime and anti-social behaviour (including Local Authorities, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Courts, the Probation Service, the Prison Service, and Youth Offending Teams) can best work together with local communities to reduce crime and raise public confidence.

Louise Casey, formerly the head of the Respect Task Force and head of the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit, heads up the Review Team.

The team is expected to report back by June to a Ministerial group comprising the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Justice, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Attorney General and the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

The Review covers four main areas: How the police and other agencies can work with communities to reduce crime; How to raise public confidence in crime fighting organisations; How best to police local neighbourhoods; How to ensure the justice system has the public's full support by being open and responsive.

The questions being asked of people include:

What are the best ways in which the police and others should listen to, and work with, local people so that the public can have their say on how crime is tackled in their area?

What more can be done to help people who have witnessed, or been a victim of, crime to come forward in reporting and giving evidence?

Do you think the public can play a role by both helping to prevent and tackle crime, as individual citizens or on behalf of their local community? If so, what is that role?

What more do you think needs to be done by those responsible for reducing crime and anti-social behaviour so that the public can be confident crime is being tackled in the right way

How do people decide whether crime is going up or down? Do they rely on what they see in the media, what they see around them in their area, or their personal experiences?

What is the best way to provide the public with information about crime nationally and locally? What kind of information are people interested in, both locally and nationally?

What are the kinds of things that local people should expect from a first-rate local police service?

What do you think people want to hear about from their local neighbourhood policing team and how do they want to hear about them?

Do you think the public get told enough about what happens to those who have committed a crime? What do you think the public should be told about?

Do you think the public need to know more about community sentences carried out in their area? What would local people want to know about these punishments?

In some sort of hideous Orwellian vision, the Cabinet Office informs us that ‘As part of the dialogue, the Review team is assembling hundreds of community activists at a series of interactive public events in Sheffield and Birmingham this week and Manchester later in the month’.

As well as the three main events, the Review team are also conducting a series of nationwide visits, police walkabouts and meetings with residents groups. Anyone wishing to contribute can also log on to the Cabinet Office website or send in their views by post.

The Delivery Council gets busy.....delivering.

I have mentioned Sir David Varney in several posts on this site. Sir David, amongst his many other roles, is Chairman of the Delivery Council. The Delivery Council sits within the Cabinet Office and is responsible for co-ordinating cross-government activity to drive citizen and business centred services.

Well, the Delivery Council is now starting to produce some interesting and useful material. The latest offerings are:

• An introduction to customer journey mapping
• A pocket guide to service design principles
• A primer on customer insight in public services
• Establishing an Effective Customer Insight Capability in Public Sector Organisations
• Promoting Customer Satisfaction: Guidance on improving the customer experience in Public Services 
• How to measure customer satisfaction: A tool to improve the experience of customers

All of these really useful things can be found at the bottom of the page here

 

It ain't done till it's communicated

It's that time of year again. The time when the Audit Commission look at some of the lessons learnt from the comprehensive performance assessment and inspection of councils. In this case, from the 2006/07 inspections.

Published last week the ‘Focusing on citizens, users and diverse communities’ document makes for interesting reading, particularly as we move more and more deeply into the emergence of perceptions as a performance measure.

Overall the report finds that there is good evidence that improvements in user focus in councils are widespread. However it is clear that some councils need to make more progress in ensuring that these improvements are consistently and systematically used to inform decision making.

On the diversity front it finds that there is little evidence that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities are adequately engaged with councils and approaches to equalities and diversity do not encompass a broader definition of diverse communities.

Engagement with older people and children and young people tends to be well developed, but does not necessarily take full account of diversity within these groups, for example children and young people with learning disabilities. Engagement with minority communities should be further improved in many councils.

Result: This can result in local priorities and services that may not meet the needs of all communities.

The bad news for councils: overall user satisfaction with local authorities has continued to decline, although the pace of decline has slowed significantly.

There are also staggering variations in the averages for satisfaction with local services. In some cases there can be up to a 75 per cent difference between the best and worst performing areas.

As the agenda around localism and the control of local policing services continues to gather pace ( see the comments by Sir Simon Milton, Chair, Local Government Association on 12 December ‘I am today calling for every local service to be directly accountable to local people through their councils….. I want to make the local police chief and the NHS Trust director accountable to the elected representatives of the community… Neighbourhood policing should be accountable first to local people through their council’), it is interesting to note that the level of crime in 2006/07 was by far the most important issue that makes somewhere a good place to live, identified by an average of 62 per cent of residents. No wonder then that the LGA want to exercise some control over that.

An area of particular challenge going forward will be that of effective communication and looking at the results in this report, you may not want to place too much faith in the effectiveness of current council communications. (Click on the graphs to get a bigger image)

Priority action three in the new PSA 23 (coming to a place near you from April) prioritises ‘Tackling the crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour issues of greatest importance in each locality, increasing public confidence in the local agencies involved in dealing with these issues’. Thereby linking confidence in local agencies delivery with ASB. The recently published new Place Survey asks local residents a number of questions concerning their perceptions of crime, drugs, ASB etc and the Promoting Safety domain of APACS contains several perception measures.

Unfortunately the Audit Commission document shows that only just over a third (36 per cent) of people feel that they know how well the council is performing. Even worse, only 23% have any idea what the council is doing in respect of ASB. Some way to go in improving their communications then.

I keep on saying it, but the service really is going to have to get way, way smarter about the management and influence of perception. This means a distinct move away from a concentration on traditional means of communication through the press and a move to a smart marketing based approach which not only recognises the existence of other platforms, such as social media, but actively embraces and utilises them.

Is FOSSing good for you?

Scanning around I see that the second annual Front Office Shared Services (FOSS) national conference is taking place in London on 7th and 8th May next year.

The event caught my eye because it references a significant number of current key themes from CSR07 and the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act (the enabling legislation for the DCLG Strong and Prosperous Communities agenda), such as citizen involvement in service design, customer insight, partnership approaches to asset management, efficiency and Third Sector involvement in local service delivery.

If that by itself wasn't enough to drive you wild with excitement, a keynote speaker is Sir David Varney, the  Prime Minister’s Advisor on Service Transformation, Chair of the cross government Delivery Council and author of 'A better deal for businesses and citizens, a better deal for the taxpayer' (the report commissioned by Gordon Brown when he was at the Treasury).

The event is apparently specifically designed to showcase excellent practice where local public sector organisations are working together to commission and deliver more effective and efficient services for citizens and businesses, and will apparently move away from the traditional talking head and workshop structure in order to promote more creative solutions for networking, showcasing and knowledge sharing.

So. Seems like an interesting event. Details here.

Cop shop hits the internet

I was in Exeter yesterday doing an input to a course for Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. During the course of the morning we had a discussion about income generation and brand management. How spooky then that this morning my attention was drawn to the launch of an online 'shop' by Kent Police (thanks to Trevor Service from PSNI for the heads up). The shop sells a range of t-shirts, baby clothing, toys and gifts - all with a police theme. Check it out here. The launch was reported by the BBC.