Public Services Productivity (Hansard, 31 October 2000)

§ Mr. Andrew Smith

I have been asked to reply.

To date, 13 reports have been published by the Public Services Productivity Panel. They are available on the Panel's website: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/pspp/

A brief description of the published reports follows:

1. "Meeting the challenge: a joint report by the Public Services Productivity Panel"—brings together the main findings from the Productivity Panel's first 12 studies. High quality performance management is identified as an essential feature of any high-performing organisation. The report outlines a simple, integrated framework that managers can use to engineer a step-change in their organisation's productivity.
2. "Variations in outpatient performance"—sets out a comprehensive strategy for improving waiting times for consultant appointments through a combination of improved management, long-term planning and new booking systems.
3. "Customers in the driving seat?"—reviews the quality of customer services in three of the large transport agencies. It sets out a number of practical recommendations that would be of interest to all public sector organisations that want to improve their front-line services to customers.
4. "Incentives for change"—examines performance incentives for the 150,000 front-line staff who work in the Benefits Agency, HM Customs and Excise, the Employment Service and the Inland Revenue. The report contains a wealth of comparative data on how performance is rewarded and incentivised across both the public and private sectors.
5. "Targeting improved performance"—reviews the performance management systems of the Defence Logistics Organisation against a model developed by the Productivity Panel. This model has since been adopted by the Civil Service Management Board for use throughout the civil service.
6. "Improving police performance"—identifies a new way to measure the efficiency of the police using information that is already collected by the police service. The report outlines a means by which police forces can better understand their relative strengths and weaknesses and thus fits within the framework of the Best Value initiative.
7. "Refocusing performance management"—reports on work with staff in the Energy Group of the DTI to refresh its performance management system by demonstrating how a model developed by the Productivity Panel can be applied in a complex public sector organisation.
8. "Sold on health"—sets out a new national framework for the management of the NHS estate that is designed to root out surplus estate, accelerate sales and cut red tape. The approach can generate additional finance and free up resources to increase the focus on patient care.
9. "Working in partnership"—tackles the issue of achieving joined-up working at a local level, particularly through developing joint IT systems, by highlighting the key issues that organisations need to address as they plan across organisational boundaries. The report includes a simple self-assessment tool which other public services can apply.
10. "Out in the open"—proposes improvements to the commissioning of services for older people. It demonstrates how efficiency gains can be achieved by developing care services that move away from reliance on expensive, and often inappropriate, residential and nursing care.
11. "Putting your house in order"—looks at how to get best value for tenants from the £4 billion invested each year in improvements to social housing stock. It recommends engaging tenants in setting priorities, ensuring structural improvements are linked to social objectives and creating partnerships between tenants, landlords and contractors.
12. "Maximising value for money"—examines the role of the Strategic Outline Case as an important element of planning for information systems and change management initiatives that involve a large number of stakeholders, are novel, risky and complex, or where the objectives and scope may be ill-defined.
13. "Effective reporting in education"—looks at how performance reporting arrangements in schools and further education colleges could be further developed to support the Government's radical agenda for raising standards in education and training. It recommends focusing performance reporting on key targets, reporting on planned improvement in those key areas, and identifying patterns of good practice.