{"id":2254,"date":"2019-01-30T11:19:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T11:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2254"},"modified":"2019-02-06T15:08:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T15:08:21","slug":"the-productivity-puzzle-in-public-service-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2254","title":{"rendered":"The productivity puzzle in public service reform"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You may remember a news\nstory<\/a> about a sex offender treatment programme in prisons being\ndisbanded. The decision was taken not just because the programme was ineffective,\nbut because it was actually counterproductive \u2013 it seemed to be increasing\noffending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there was\na bit more to it than that. Over the previous decade, senior clinical\npsychologists had designed and delivered a similar programme. It comprised intensive\ngroup therapy and was built around the importance of empathy, support networks,\nand acknowledgement of wrongdoing. It was evaluated\nas successful<\/a> in improving control over impulses, maintaining\npositive relationships, making good choices, and reducing the likelihood of\noffending. However, Her Majesty\u2019s Prison Service attempted to roll out the\nprogramme at speed, without the involvement of senior clinical psychologists or\nthe sustained investment in resources required to make it succeed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps predictably,\nwhen it came to evaluation, the positive results of the original were nowhere\nto be seen. But from this failure, we learnt the wrong lesson and decided the\nblame the programme itself. It\u2019s a great shame that no intensive group therapy for\nsex offenders will now be commissioned at scale for a generation, especially\nwhen on- and offline sex offenders are growing at the highest rate in UK\nprisons.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this\nhave to with our national productivity puzzle? <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Before I discuss GDP and our productivity puzzle<\/a> further, some caveats are required. First, I am with Senator Bobby Kennedy when it comes to GDP<\/a>. It measures everything apart from the important things: love, wisdom, compassion, and beauty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, it\u2019s notoriously hard to measure productivity and\nparticularly hard to compare service economies with manufacturing economies. Moreover,\ndeliberate macroeconomic policy since the 2008 crash has contributed to low\nproductivity, keeping borrowing cheap, employment high, and wages low. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, the UK does appear to be less efficient and effective\nthan its neighbours. Despite the recent realisation that the UK has been using\nthe wrong\nmeasures<\/a> for productivity, sluggish growth across all OECD countries\nremains a problem. The UK lags well behind Germany, Belgium, Denmark and\nSwitzerland, achieving less in relation to how much\nwork we do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Striking similarities between productivity and public service reform\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

One explanation given by central bankers is\nas follows. The UK has some of the most impressive and innovative companies,\nworking in tandem with the best universities, leading the world in life\nsciences, engineering, and artificial intelligence. The breakthroughs they make\n\u2013 in speeding up processes to convert heat to power, or to automate high\nvolume, predictable, processes \u2013 are taking decades to trickle down and become\nthe norm. We have a long tail of \u2018zombie\u2019 companies, slow to adopt improved\npractices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who has worked in public policy and\npublic service reform will immediately recognise a comparable context. In the\nUK we have some of the most astounding\nschools<\/a>, effective programmes to reduce crime and reoffending,\nfantastic family interventions to change children\u2019s life chances. Social work,\nchild welfare, and criminology in the UK are vibrant and respected disciplines.\nOur academics promote a strong \u2018what works\u2019 knowledge base around the world,\nand in pockets we have impressive results and institutions (such as Grendon\ntherapeutic prison and Leeds children\u2019s services, to name just two). Our\nvoluntary sector, trusts and foundations are well-funded and active in\ncomparison to many other countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet we also have massive policy failure.\nMany institutions have been deemed inadequate by independent inspectors year\nafter year. Sandwell is a\nnotorious children\u2019s service, and HMP\nBedford<\/a> is in the news this month. Why are the\nprivate and public sectors so slow to share best practice? The resources are\noften there, but online repositories of evidence are not being used. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are prioritising research over\ndevelopment, and it isn\u2019t working <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, a constant emphasis on\ninnovation and creativity may be having a detrimental impact.  The phrase \u2018R&D\u2019 (research and development)\nis always conjoined, but perhaps the UK\u2019s problem is that we prioritise the R over\nthe D. We can invent new processes, practices and products, but we stop at\nunderstanding what it is about them that needs to be replicated in order to\nadopt them across a whole system. Ministers don\u2019t give speeches or publish\nstrategy papers detailing the careful and methodical\ninvestment<\/a> in training or retraining workforces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are interesting lessons from the\ncommercial sector here, as much of their research<\/a>\ninto the correlation between innovation, R&D and productivity is applicable\nto public service improvement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To summarise, productivity is associated\nwith:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. A focus on process\ninnovation not product\ninnovation<\/strong>. Helping people do their jobs better,\nand work better with others is more successful than changing the job or\nrestructuring the team.  <\/li>
  2. Any participation in R&D or innovation<\/strong>. Where public service leaders and managers place a value on\nlearning from the best and rewarding those who do this, a culture of ambition\nand high expectations is set which is correlated with measurable improvement. <\/li>
  3. Sustained investment<\/strong>.\nProductivity through innovation is mutually reninforcing and improves over\ntime. For example Invisible\nWalls<\/a> at Parc prison in Bridgend is successful for many reasons, not\nleast its sustained, high quality, leadership over eight years. Success breeds\nsuccess. <\/li>
  4. Fixed R&D or innovation costs,<\/strong> which are smaller than repeated \u2018sunk costs\u2019<\/a>\n(necessary and irrecoverable upfront\nspend). <\/li>
  5. Once you\nhave set up your outward-facing, self-improving, innovating team, maintaining\nit is cheaper than a series of discrete initiatives. <\/li>
  6. Partnerships<\/strong>. Large and\ncomplex entities seem to get more productivity return from innovation and R&D\nthan small ones.  <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    This last finding on \u2018partnerships\u2019 is a call\nto action to local or regional leaders to join forces and pool resources in\norder to focus on the \u2018how\u2019 and not the \u2018what\u2019. When\npolicymaking fails, it\u2019s usually because it has tried to solve a complex social\nproblem using a positive, evidence-based innovation as a \u2018what\u2019, instead of a\n\u2018how\u2019. Innovations are not miracle vaccines to be administered without paying\nclose attention to developing processes to ensure they work at scale. <\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    You may remember a news story about a sex offender treatment programme in prisons being disbanded. The decision was taken not just because the programme was ineffective, but because it was actually counterproductive \u2013 it seemed to be increasing offending. However, there was a bit more to it than that. Over the previous decade, senior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":2256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1395,1396,1403],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1582],"class_list":["post-2254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-comment","category-uk","category-inequality"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/The-productivity-puzzle-in-public-service-reform-hans-peter-gauster-252751-unsplash-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2254"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=2254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}