Rethinking Regulation: A Manifesto
Imprint: Triarchy Press Published: 2024 List Price (print): £6.50 (order now, available mid-November 2024) List Price (ebook): FREE download (available now) Format: Paperback / pdf Extent: 40pp. (A4 pdf: 16pp.) Print ISBN: 978-1-917251-07-5 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-917251-08-2 Tags: Systems Thinking, Vanguard Method, Public Sector, John Seddon, regulation, inspection, productivity Download the pdf free of charge here. No sign-up needed.
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Rethinking Regulation: A Manifesto
Drawing on a lifetime's experience of working in the public sector, John Seddon here condenses what he has learnt about public sector 'improvement', regulation and inspection into a simple and singular Manifesto.
In it he clearly sets out what government needs to do allow the public sector to do its job: meeting the needs of citizens. The narrative will be familiar to anyone who has read his definitive work Systems Thinking in the Public Sector. But it is here updated, condensed and set out in a form that no politician or policy-maker can afford to ignore. Since the 1980s, successive governments have adopted a wide variety of approaches to improve public-sector productivity. These have ranged from New Public Management, consultancy-led service industrialisation and digital transformation at one end of the scale, to benchmarking, leadership development, employee engagement and future planning at the other. All have failed to improve productivity. Productivity improvement is described by politicians as a vexing conundrum.
Few people, perhaps especially those in government, would imagine that the UK’s model of regulation could itself be responsible for damaging productivity. But that is certainly the case. In Rethinking Regulation, John Seddon sets out the evidence for this. He then presents a manifesto for change, arguing that fundamental reform of our regulatory model would have a profound positive impact on public-sector productivity. The evidence is garnered from interactions with ministers, public servants, regulators and the regulated over more than 20 years working with public-sector services. Contents
Introduction What is the problem? Getting knowledge of the problem New Labour’s call centres The Audit Commission: Blair’s bully From call centres to back offices And then came Mark Radford The day I met Bundred Backlog busting? Shared services: the next step in industrialisation Economies of scale are a myth From macro to micro Regulating social care Regulators don’t do evidence The problem of validity The growth of specifications The growth of parasites Reputation governs all Politics and narrative Politicians learning to see Summary: Dynamics of a dysfunctional system MANIFESTO: A better method of regulation I want to hear from you! Praise for John Seddon's previous book
"Systems Thinking in the Public Sector ... is an extraordinary insight into why, at the end of each month, millions of us are left wondering where on earth all the money taken from us in tax has gone." "The argument compellingly made in this book by John Seddon is that the Government has designed failure into almost everything it does on our behalf. It has not done so deliberately; but it is culpable because it has failed to listen to people who know better how to run services on behalf of the customer rather than the producer." Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph "Many public sector managers appreciate that considerable efficiencies could be made by streamlining the many disparate IT systems that remain, sometimes within single government departments and agencies, and it's not surprising that IT suppliers are keen on this agenda. Gary Bettis, director of IT advisory services at Serco Consulting, argues on the Public website that, in theory at least, if 90% of government back-room services could be standardised, it should cut costs by up to 40%. However, he acknowledges that there can be a "huge amount of risk" to service delivery if change on this scale is attempted. Others are cynical about streamlining claims. John Seddon, managing director of Vanguard Consulting and author of Systems Thinking in the Public Sector, is an outspoken critic of the government's attempt to make the public sector share services such as IT and HR." Jane Dudman, The Guardian |
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