Public sector takes the gold
What an Olympics it turned out to be. Usain Bolt was electrifying, Mo Farah obliterated his opponents and Jessica Ennis showed the world that British sports stars are capable of taking on huge pressure and expectation and still delivering (take note, Wayne Rooney).
My particular highlight was Greg Rutherford winning gold in the long jump. Unlike Bolt, Farah and Ennis, he was an underdog and everybody loves it when an underdog succeeds.
Like Rutherford, the public sector, in the shape of the Ministry of Defence, came out of the 16 days of Games having dwarfed the achievements of private sector ‘rival’ G4S. The military did its job and got a wonderful reception from the games-going public.
And it would appear the services’ exemplary performance has caused defence secretary Phillip Hammond to reassess just to what degree the public sector needs to look to the private sector for guidance. In an interview in The Independent today, he was asked which is better – public or private?
“That’s the thing that I’m learning – that the application of the lean commercial approach model does have relevance in areas of the MoD, but equally you can’t look at a warship and say ‘How can I bring a lean management model to this?’ because it’s doing different things with different levels of resilience that are not generally required in the private sector.
“We don’t ask the military to prepare to maybe be able to do something or to have an 80 per cent chance of delivering. We ask the military to be in a position that, if we ask them to do a task, they are absolutely able to do it for us.”
It’s no surprise the defence secretary is singing the praises of the soldiers and no doubt winning a few brownie points having come to the rescue of Theresa May in her time of need. So it’s hard to gauge the significance of what he said in practical terms, but with the MoD currently examining outsourcing its procurement to the private sector it’s a very interesting thing to hear.
As the Games has come to an end, attention has already turned to what its legacy will be. And for some people, it will be that the public sector can show the private sector how it should be done.
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Unless the government does not regard hosting the Olympics as honour, there’s no harm for the forces to take up the security. The forces should not grumble but be proud of that rather. Else, the government will be paying a great price in case of riots or uprisings, even. Beyond doubt, government forces are better equipped to disperse crowds than the security from the private sector. Moreover, they owe a duty of care for the public.
In my years outside of the public sector, including 11 years at CIPS, I believed and regularly expressed that both the public sector and the private sector could learn a lot from each other. I knew that the job of achieving all the expected success criteria was usually much harder for public sector buyers due to the complexity of the purposes of their organisation, compared with their private sector equivalents.
Whilst it is great that one cabinet minister has grasped this, the trend is still over-influenced by dogma and there is a long way to go before the penny drops completely.
By the way, the public knew that the armed forces would do a fantastic job of Olympics security, even if the decision makers didn’t know that.
I actually have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it’s almost unheard of for a senior politician to be saying the public sector might actually be good at something the private sector couldn’t deliver – but at the same time not every public organisation will be able to count on the army to get them out of trouble when a supplier falls down on the job! Let’s face it, the procurers of that contract got lucky this time. My biggest hope is that those who shape public service delivery will be more realistic and less idealistic when it comes to establishing who is best placed to do what for the benefit of individuals and society.
Most people who have worked in both sectors will tell you that there are plenty of examples of excellence in both….and also plenty of examples of what is bad!
As an ex-Defence logistician and an outsourced procurement provider I can clearly see that there are several considerations that need to be grasped in this particular circumstance
1. Defence must have capability and redundancy to scale up and run warlike activity. This means, in peace there must be excess resources that can be quickly deployed to field activities. This costs money and is not “lean”.
2. Some activities can be run “lean” to free up scarce funds for necessary equipment and training.
The trick is to identify those tasks and goods that can be supplied “lean” and those sevices and goods that are needed as an inefficient excess so Defence can provide the 100% response needed. SOME aspects of procurement will benefit from this, some won’t. of the two points above, Defence needs to identify point 1, then free up all remaining positions and tasks left for point 2 to create savings. Capability, not savings needs to ALWAYS be the primary goal. This is where the politicians always get it wrong.
Treasury must also get used to writing cheques equivalent to the £600m paid to CLM to implement a similar model on the ODA’s Olympics construction programme. This is taking aside the numerous ‘value-engineering’ exercises that were undertaken to drive costs down, pre-Games, for which vast sums of taxpayer’s cash will now have to spend (by Legacy organisations) to make the venues and Park fit-for-purpose for the next 20 years (as opposed to 16 days…).