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| Let's all do it the Aussie way? |
paraclete |
09/10/06 |
The revolution starts with this man
Michael Duffy
September 9, 2006
Page 1 of 2 | Single page
TODAY a man named Gary Sturgess will tell Peter Debnam and other Liberal state opposition leaders how they might win office. He believes they should catch a huge reform wave that has swept through government in Britain, and to a lesser extent America. It's a wave that has improved public services for millions of people in both those countries, but so far has hardly reached our shores.
In recent years (to mix metaphors) the opposition leaders have been all at sea, grasping at straws. Sturgess is offering them what is potentially a new ocean liner.
Sturgess, who ran the NSW Cabinet Office when Nick Greiner was premier, was one of the most innovative public servants this state has seen. He now lives in London and heads the Serco Institute. This develops ideas for Serco Group, a large company that manages public services, such as railways and prisons, in over three dozen countries. It's at the forefront of the opening of the public sector to private organisations that Sturgess will talk about today. He hasn't released his speech, but its description of what he calls the "public service economy" should reflect a talk he gave in Canada this year.
Few Australians are aware of the extraordinary changes that have occurred in Britain's government under Tony Blair. These have involved not new policy goals but improved ways of achieving existing goals. This is because the days when political parties had major differences over policies have ended.
Across Britain's public service, the emphasis has moved from delivering services to ensuring that services are delivered, and delivered to a higher standard than before. Often this involves paying private companies or voluntary organisations to do things once done by a cumbersome public sector.
Much more emphasis is now placed on measuring outcomes. Where once government paid for good intentions, now it increasingly demands results. Often these are monitored by new, independent assessment bodies. Private organisations that deliver well make a profit, and often, thanks to competition, still save the government money. Those that fail are dropped and replaced with new ones. There is a constant process of innovation and change unknown in the traditional public service. |
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