'Many of today's targets fail because they are set by people remote from what customers want,' says Jeremy Cox of Vanguard Consulting in an article in the Guardian's Society section today. He also suggests that there is no correlation between the services that councils provide and their ratings. Cadence Works' research work on innovation in public services would tend to support this view.
Interestingly, the article also argues that there are service improvement gains to be had with reduced costs, which, in the current financial climate is what governments need to hear. This article talks about improving a council's mobility parking scheme and is another example of innovation in an individual service. There are fewer examples of local innovation demonstrating local organisations working together to come up innovative solutions to problems. Cadence have looked at some promising work in South Tyneside and the Design Council's DoTT project, and are working with the Whitehall Innovation Hub to lead thinking about this issue.
The news that the approval of the 113th foundation hospital, leaving only 112 acute and mental health trusts under Whitehall control, happened last week is interesting in this context. One of the ideas behind foundation hospitals was that they would be much more responsive to local need and more able to work in partnership with other agenices. Has this been the case? Has the multitude of joint committees borne fruit?
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Reply #2 on : Fri September 09, 2011, 12:40:49
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Reply #1 on : Thu September 08, 2011, 04:27:24
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