A new report casts doubt on the government's much-cherished central targets, the Public Service Agreements, despite concluding that Whitehall departments are more efficient than ever.
Whitehall departments are getting better, and have outperformed efficiency goals, but are still finding it hard to work together, according to the report from the Institute for Government thinktank, which assesses civil service performance over the past three years, looking in particular at the departmental capability reviews and the Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets set by the government.
The authors conclude that although the UK is one of the world's highest performing governments, Whitehall's performance record is "patchy". While the departmental capability reviews show improvement in almost all areas measured, under half of the three-year PSA targets from 2005-08 were met, with joint departmental targets proving particularly elusive: of the 20 jointly-owned PSA targets, only seven (35%) were met.
That may reflect difficulty in working across departmental boundaries, or the complexity of the issues being addressed, which included high-profile pledges on child poverty, carbon emissions and teenage pregnancy, says the report.
Goals may have been poorly framed or over-ambitious and the low success rate casts doubt on the effectiveness of the PSA system as a way to deliver government goals, the report concludes.
A handful of departments have become "junction boxes" for the new PSA-based system, with the Home Office, the communities and local government department and the Department for Children, Schools and Families at the heart of a complex new web of linkages between Whitehall departments.
Any future progress on new shared PSA targets will require the civil service to develop further its ability to collaborate across such boundaries - and despite some signs of progress, this approach remains "counter cultural".
Another theme that emerges from this report, as from several other recent reports on government performance, is the lack of good financial information within central government.
The authors say that while central departments have exceeded efficiency targets set by the Gershon report, putting them in a strong position to manage any future cuts, "the push for savings may be hampered by poor data". This follows a similar conclusion on poor information management in local government from the Audit Commission.
There is, however, a surprising finding in the report from those who maintain that Whitehall is dedicated to top-down management of public services, with Downing Street firmly in command and control mode. The authors conclude that the UK's model of government provides departments with "significant freedom to manage" compared to other countries.
Central government in Canada and France, for instance, are twice as big, in proportion, to the UK's civil service.
But there's a clue here as to the failure of those PSA targets: while central government has taken on a major role in setting targets, the report says "there are few consequences if these targets are not met". It appears that, for once, government is not being commanding, nor controlling, enough.
So where should civil service leaders look to for guidance on how to improve further? The report suggests that within Whitehall itself, the board of the children's department is the best-performing, while for best practice overseas, it commends cross-government operations in the Netherlands, cross-departmental initiatives in Canada, performance evaluation in France and the work of the corporate strategic board in the Scottish government.
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
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