Pete Murphy Nottingham Business School September 2013

 The initially post election period was characterised by theoretical and practical confusion which generated a very fragmented approach dominated by the fiscal cuts.  More recently the public service has seen the re-emergence of a more strategic approach in circumstances where the coalition government has engaged in consultation and discourse with the public and key stakeholders  It is not clear whether the latter is the result of political pressure or expediency – or part of the realisation of the potential of the Strategic State

 Performance Management Regimes where assessing and assuring increasingly joined up policy and delivery for continuous improvement in public services.  The regimes were continually becoming better integrated and mutually supporting across the various parts of the public sector.  Central and Local government acted as a proactive ‘entrepreneurial’ state – taking risks, and creating a highly networked policy and delivery system  State also acted as lead investor and catalyst for both improvement and innovation – not simply as safety net for failure. Two fields - performance management regimes and creating strategic collaborations and networks

Improving Performance Management Regimes  Best Value  Comprehensive Performance Assessments  Standards for Better Health  Police assessments  CPA 2 The Harder Test  World Class Commissioning  Comprehensive Area Assessments Creating and Improving Networks Partnerships and Agreements  Comprehensive Spending Reviews and Public Service Agreements ( )  Local Public Service Agreements (Rounds 1 and 2)  Local Area Agreements – pilots 2004/05 – rolled out across country by March 2007  2nd round 2007/08 – 2010/11  Multiple Area Agreements and Total Place

Improvement Assessment and Intervention Regimes  From Service Assessments to Corporate Assessments to Area Assessments.  Tools techniques and agents converged as they individually and collectively learnt from their collective and increasingly shared experiences. Improvement and Intervention Infrastructure  The evidence bases developed from data poor to data rich to intelligent data  Post 2005 (in particular) the infrastructure became more economic, efficient and effective with increasing returns on investment. What about outputs and outcomes?  Each version of PSAs/LPSAs/LAA/MAA became more strategic in terms of scope, content and objectives.  Each version or generation of PSAs/LPSAs/LAAs/MAAs and the Performance Assessment Regimes required less resources to establish, operationalize and maintain.

 Local Government – Intervention by LGA and local government peers rather than central government  Health – CQC and MONITOR regimes have been strengthened, and government has been more disposed to using them  Police – HMIC lead system retained but PCC imposed with little public support  Fire and Rescue – old system reaffirmed despite it being demonstrably inferior to later models

The example of Public Health and Health and Wellbeing Boards under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act

Short Term  Fiscal reduction as the overriding policy towards public services  Policy based evidence making  Abolition and dismantling of improvement infrastructure  Jeffersonian/Thatcherite state rhetoric – government that governs least governs best Long Term  Optimizing useful production in public, private and third sectors  Evidence based policy making  Promoting and developing systemic and organisational innovation and improvement  Re-emergence of the strategic and entrepreneurial state