Civil Service Live
Operational Delivery
This content is provided by Whitehall and Westminster World
Delivering '21st century public services' comes down to three core objectives, according to Lesley Strathie, the chief executive of Jobcentre Plus.
“It is about building trust, developing relationships and putting the citizen at the heart of the service,“ she explained
Strathie, who is also head of profession for operational delivery and second permanent secretary of DWP, told an audience of delegates at Civil Service Live that her experiences of transforming the structure and performance of a huge delivery organisation like Jobcentre Plus can help strengthen public services across Whitehall.
“The first thing I would say is that no matter where you work in the organisation, from strategy through to delivery, if you have the basic understanding of good project and programme management, then this can help deliver good progress,“ she said.
“But the real drive for me is the customer. My understanding is that for most people they just need a little bit of support for whether it is filling in a form or telling them where to go next or a little bit of time explaining the process and telling them what happens next.
“I think that as long as you are ambitious both for your customer and the service you want to deliver, and are clear about the standards and the milestones, then you won't really go far wrong.“
Strathie went on to say that Whitehall must upgrade performance in order to match increasing demand.
“I think that as long as you are ambitious both for your customer and the service you want to deliver, and are clear about the standards and the milestones, then you won't really go far wrong.“
Lesley Strathie
Chief executive - Jobcentre Plus
“We all live in a world of ever shrinking resources and an ever greater expectation of the citizen, none more so than in public services,“ she said.
“So you have to be pretty demanding of yourself, and pretty demanding of the people who work with you and for you. Quite often you have to be quite demanding of the customer in terms of what they need to do while you help navigate them.
“When I look back to when I was first in public services and think about the things I work I have to think of them in a 21st century world and how you still deliver that and more but you don't have to do it all with face to face intervention.“
Strathie, who started her Civil Service career as a temporary clerical officer in what was the DHSS, went on to say that Civil Servants must always seek to stretch and improve their own performances.
“I set targets pretty high but once they are achieved you ought to raise the bar yourself.
“Somebody else will always raise the bar for you, no matter where you sit in the organisation, but it's so much better if the people delivering can do that for themselves.
“Never accept the status quo. No matter how good a policy or service seems to be, never be complacent and accept it because that's the way it has always been done, because even if you are really good the guy down the road will be getting better.
“So if you are not constantly raising that bar and stretching yourself, the great customer service that you used to be giving will soon become ordinary, mediocre and even poor as demand increases.“
Jobcentre Plus supports people of working age from welfare into work, and helping employers to fill their vacancies. To help fulfill these twin objectives and the philosophy that work is the best form of welfare, the organisation has spent the last few years rolling out a brand new network of jobcentres and contact centres across the country.
The project, which merged jobcentres and social security offices in England, Wales and Scotland, was completed recently and came in £314m under budget.
Most of the Jobcentre Plus offices were rolled out within four years as planned, while 80 were delayed because of factors outside the control of the project team. The merger of offices has resulted in annual savings of about £135m, although disposing of buildings has so far cost £42m.
Strathie, though, said she is never satisfied.
“It's not perfect yet in my world and I doubt whether it will ever be perfect but I am absolutely clear that we are passionate about the pursuit of perfection and that pursuit of excellent customer service.
“This is what we will all continue to do and I hope that much of what we can be done can be taken and applied more broadly in operational delivery.
“To do this we have to have a skilled, motivated and engaged workforce in the Civil Service at every level. If we have faith in our people and their capacity to make effective decisions and execute them as strategic objectives change then I think the Civil Service will be a richer place.“