Agile Government
Check out this longish, but reasonably interesting read from the Vic Gov State Services Authority titled “Towards Agile Government”.
The report builds on the “Digital Era Governance” agenda that Patrick Dunleavy has been promoting at the LSE as well as the work of Tom Bentley at Demos on the future of government services. The Report advocates the following ‘imperatives’ for agile government:
Whatever this emerging era of reform is called, it is dominated by four key imperatives that are driving governments to become more agile:
• the shift from outputs to outcomes
• the shift from welfare to social investment
• the shift from command and control to innovation and collaboration
• the shift from standardisation to personalisation and customisation.
The Imperative that interested me the most was the need for collaboration.
Governments increasingly recognise that they cannot drive improvements in public services simply by specifying targets from the centre, investing more money and pushing for ever higher standards. Sustainable improvements will only come from enabling public sector agencies to innovate from within, developing their own new approaches in ways that meet the distinctive needs of a wide range of citizens…..
Innovation and collaboration are far more likely to flourish when everyone has a shared understanding of both the problem at hand and the proposed solution. It might take time to develop a common understanding and approach, but the pay-off is likely to be much better coordination and more effective execution once a plan is agreed.
This is easier said than done but seems to me to be the only way to genuinely increase the responsiveness of public service provision.
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