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Good practice guide

Public sector efficiencies

Managing resources in a tight financial climate

  • Does the organisation have a clear purpose and objectives setting out, for each main service, the desired outcomes, quality and level of services to be provided for users?
  • What are the most important external factors affecting each service? How has the organisation engaged with users, local communities, partners and other stakeholders to ensure it understands these properly?
  • Do the organisations service priorities take full account of predicted levels of funding and future financial pressures – and help to manage them successfully?
  • For the most important services that the organisation provides, does the strategy explicitly reflect:
    • A clear analysis and understanding of current spending?
    • A cost benefit review of the service to determine strategic priorities for investment and disinvestment?
    • A clear understanding of current and future demand for key services from the citizen’s perspective?
    • How services users’ needs may change?

Supporting innovation and learning

  • Does the organisation have a systematic approach to innovation and learning?
  • Do the organisation’s leaders support effective learning and innovation by
    • Encouraging transparency, openness and a constructive approach about performance, without covering up or ignoring failures?
    • Forming networks outside the organisation, to share information and learn from others?
    • Showing responsiveness to outside ideas and opinions, including seeking to learn from service users, front-line staff and suppliers of services?

Taking a strategic approach to efficiency and improvement

  • Does the organisation have a clearly articulated strategic approach to delivering efficiency, innovation and improvement, with plans that:
    • Are closely linked to its wider objectives for service improvement and organisational development
    • Aim for long term gains and service improvement, alongside short term savings
    • Consider key elements of efficiency within the organisation and across partnerships, such as staff costs, procurement, asset management, ICT and business process redesign
  • Does the organisation have a clear idea of the efficiency and productivity outcomes that it wishes to achieve and how it could engage with partner agencies (including the independent and third sectors) to achieve these?

Ensuring ownership of the efficiency strategy

  • Have the organisation’s leaders helped shape the efficiency, innovation and improvement strategy and how will they ensure it works:
    • Has the strategy been approved at board or council level or equivalent?
    • Has responsibility for promoting and monitoring efficiency and improvement, including reporting progress, been allocated to a specific individual(s)?
    • How often is performance against the strategy reviewed?
    • Do the services and individuals who must deliver the efficiency plans know what is required of them and by when?

Regularly reviewing services

  • Does the organisation require all services to regularly undertake a review of service delivery and performance?
  • Do service reviews report on how services are structured, delivering against key priorities, legislative requirements and the cost and quality of service delivered?
  • Do the reviews seek to identify opportunities to improve core business processes by improving the flow of service for users and by removing unnecessary activity?
  • Do the reviews consider alternative methods for delivering services, such as outsourcing or joint working arrangements?
  • Are those who carry out service reviews sufficiently objective, eg. independent from those who deliver the service?
  • Is there systematic follow-up to make sure the findings of service reviews are addressed and, where appropriate, actioned?

Engaging with staff and workforce planning

  • Does the organisation have a workforce strategy, which sets out plans to ensure staff are deployed according to its strategic priorities?
  • How does the organisation involve staff in identifying potential areas for efficiency savings?
    • Are front-line staff involved in reviewing services?
    • Are there wider incentives (such as internal award events or recognition in staff communications) to encourage staff to propose efficiency ideas and suggestions for innovative approaches to service delivery/improvement?
  • Do directorate business plans and individual staff objectives specifically include objectives linked to the efficiency, innovation and improvement strategy?
  • Does the organisation have a sufficiently flexible approach to its workforce costs to reduce overall expenditure on salaries? Do all business plans have a linked workforce plan which sets out associated costs and timescales? Is the organisation consulting with workforce representatives to agree arrangements for more flexible use of its people?

Engaging with service users

  • Has the organisation communicated its efficiency, innovation and improvement strategy to service users? How do you know users understand and support it?
  • How does the organisation involve service users and customer feedback and suggestions in identifying potential areas for re-designing services and delivering efficiencies? Does it do this with its partners to maximise efficiency?
  • Can you demonstrate that feedback and suggestions from users and customers have been taken into account in pursuing efficiency and productivity improvements?

Looking ahead

  • Are there areas where spending is needed now to deliver significant recurrent savings in the longer term? Has the organisation considered how can this be funded?
  • What are implications of an ageing workforce for the staffing of your front- line services? How does the efficiency strategy reflect this factor?
  • Is the current capital investment programme sustainable in the current economic climate? How has the organisation set investment priorities against the likelihood of future capital spending reductions?

Making best use of collaboration and joint working arrangements

  • Has the organisation assessed opportunities for efficiencies and better outcomes through better collaborative working as part of its strategic approach to efficiencies? For example, pooling of resources, removing duplication, shared services or radical redesign of service delivery?
  • Does the organisation know its own areas of good practice and share this across its sector, and wider, as appropriate?
  • Do all service reviews assess the potential for collaboration to deliver better services across the whole system in a more cost-effective way?
  • For each main service, has the organisation worked with key local partners to identify potential for better outcomes and efficiency through collaboration?
  • Is the work that goes into partnerships delivering clear improvements in the accessibility, quality and efficiency of public services? How can this be demonstrated?
  • Has the organisation faced any difficulties or resistance in establishing partnership working arrangements? Do partnerships need additional support to make any necessary changes? What role should leaders play in providing this support?

Using benchmarking to identify potential efficiencies

  • Does the organisation have a clear strategy for benchmarking each of its main services?
  • For each main service is the organisation clear about:
    • The type of benchmark information required?
    • The potential benefits from sharing benchmark information?
  • Is the organisation able to monitor and benchmark all front-line services?
  • Is the organisation finding any barriers in providing and obtaining benchmarking information? What will it do to overcome any barriers?

Using continuous improvement methods

  • Has the organisation adopted continuous improvement methods to review systems and practices for delivering services? What scope is there for extending this review work?
  • Does the organisation know what models of continuous improvement are being used in other similar public sector bodies? How can it learn from this activity?

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