Our experience – Public services
Improving the performance of services funded by the state is a complex business. Most services involve a range of outputs to achieve social and economic outcomes. Whatever the fashion, there are several factors that are critical to success. We help target setters and service providers to focus on these.
Ways in which we work in the sector
- Business and regulatory strategy
- We have advised the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) on the application of utility regulation to the regulation of the social housing sector, a task then undertaken by the Housing Corporation.
- Public and regulatory policy
- On behalf of the DTI we undertook an assessment of the impact of liberalised trading hours on Sundays. The published study investigated how large company trading (supermarkets) would affect the economy and the social environment if there hours were extended on Sundays. The forecasting and modelling involved was reliant on several diverse strings of data.
- Stakeholder engagement
- With Accent, we undertook a stakeholder survey for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2006. The stakeholders included senior civil servants, business representatives and other senior community leaders and stakeholders. This was published and formed the basis of successful changes in the way the FCO relates to its stakeholders.
- Board services
- We provided advice to the Chairman and Board of a UK infrastructure regulator on strategy, planning, organisation, resourcing, external communications and stakeholder engagement. This included facilitation of Board strategy processes. We have also provided advice to a major government agency on its role, regulatory framework, stakeholder communication and engagement. This included facilitation of a Board retreat.
We have provided support to the Training and Development Agency for Schools (formerly the Teacher Training Agency). We worked with the Improvement in Initial Teacher Training (ITT) team and representatives from eight pilot ITT providers to determine what change needed in their institutions to align their training provision to the Children’s Agenda. - Performance and value
- We were asked by the Housing Corporation to analyse the operating costs of the registered social landlords (RSLs) in England. We worked closely with the Corporation and a number of interested stakeholders including representatives from the RSLs, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Audit Commission to discuss data definitions and possible cost drivers. The consequent ‘operating cost index’ has become an effective performance measurement tool that is used in the regulation of the RSLs and we have carried out the exercise on three subsequent occasions. We have also carried out training sessions for the Corporation’s lead regulators in the econometric approach that sits behind the results. Communities Scotland subsequently asked us to carry out a similar analysis with the Scottish RSLs.