The Whitehall Effect ~ John Seddon - Online Notes
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Introduction 1. Prelude Part 1: The industrialisation of public services 2: Call centres 3. Back Offices 4. Shared Services 5. Outsourcing 6. Information Technology Part 2: Delivering services that work Introduction 7. A better philosophy 8. Effective change starts with ‘study’ 9. Better thinking, better design 10. ‘Locality’ working 11. IT as pull, not push Part 3: Things that make your head hurt 12. Targets and standards make performance worse 13. Inspection can’t improve performance 14. Regulation is a disease 15. It’s the system, not the people 16. Incentives always get you less Part 4: ideology, fashions and fads 17. Choice 18. Personal Budgets 19. Commissioning 20. Managing demand 21. Nudge 22. Procurement 23. Risk management 24. Lean 25. IT: features over benefits Part 5 Change must start in Whitehall 26. Beware economists bearing plausible ideas 27. Whitehall is incapable of doing evidence 28. Getting a focus on purpose |
13. Inspection can’t improve performance
1 See here for details on analysing performance capability, and more on how to construct capability charts. 2 See here for more on mystery shopping, why it is dumb and the problematic behaviour it generates in service organisations. 3 For a discussion about how CSCI (the Commission for Social Care Inspection) was imposing an enormous burden of inspection on council adult social care departments see John Seddon, 2008, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: the failure of the reform regime and a manifesto for a better way, Triarchy Press, pp.141-142. 4 Ibid. pp.82-84. 5 Prior to the Baby P case, Haringey had been inspected by Ofsted and been awarded 3 stars. See The Guardian, 29 April 2010, ‘The Baby P blame game reveals that social work reform has taken a turn for the worse’. Byline: Professor Sue White. View 6 The Healthcare Commission rated the Trust as ‘good’ in its 2006 report. See The Independent, 6 February 2013, ‘Timeline: The Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust scandal’. View 7 The Observer, 6 April 2014, ‘Michael Gove's bid to limit fallout from failing free schools – revealed’. Byline: Daniel Boffey and Warwick Mansell. View 8 John Seddon, 2008, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: the failure of the reform regime and a manifesto for a better way, Triarchy Press. 9 Kate Watts, ‘Food Safety in Great Yarmouth: An Adult Conversation’ in Charlotte Pell, 2012, Delivering Public Services that Work (Volume 2), The Vanguard Method in the Public Sector: Case Studies, Triarchy Press. |