Newcastle – Why we recommend a visit

Newcastle story is told in the book ‘Public Service Reform…..but not as you know it’ by Hilary Wainwright & Matthew Little.  The reason the Trade Unions have raised Newcastle with our Employer and staff is to look at how they approached engagement with

  • Residents
  • Staff
  • Trade Unions

Here are a few quotes from the book.

We put in unprecedented hours – 80 hours a week – and I remember sitting propped up in bed at midnight proof reading. When the document came together, it showed that if it could be made to work the council would be achieving far greater levels of savings than with BT – more than double in fact.”

Deputy Director of IT

 “My core belief – is that the public sector can be as good as – and in some ways better than – the private sector [in the management of public services] because of its social values.”

Development and Transformation team manager

The private sector has a very simple bottom line……If it doesn’t add value for shareholders, don’t do it. But there is no reason why this sense of focus can ‘t be applied to an organisation that has the complexity of local government, and where the bottom line is quality of service.”

Manager for Exchequer Services

In setting up City Service, we ensured that local people weren’t just consulted but were kept involved throughout the process to monitor the development of the design and the workings of each customer service centre”

Senior Officer Leading council’s community engagement strategy

It’s people’s capability and commitment that needs to be released. These are assets not costs…Managing people is a matter of….true strategic importance. It’s too important to be left solely to OD (organisation development)

Head of City Service 

A lot of the blocks to change that we identified at those workshops were about management culture and the way managers were used to manage. The idea of culture change and transforming the way the services were organised became a key part of the in-house bid.”

Newcastle Branch Secretary

In Newcastle they were just dealing with Back Office services putting together an in house bid against BT.  Future Shape is a far bigger challenge and it involves working with our public Sector partners and improving our ability to get better value from our private sector partners.

If consolidation is to yield positive results we need to ensure we ‘unlock the skills, expertise and experiences of our staff’.

Breaking news!

I have been invited to visit Newcastle 21 September to meet the Chief Executve and senior officers to listen to what they did and see what lessons we could learn.