The Challenge of Change
In the United Kingdom, there was a major stimulus for change which started about five years ago. However, many people did not see it as an opportunity for change. Many public service directors were resentful of the change that was seen to be 'imposed' by the Government sponsored Audit Commission's Best Value Inspection Service. Many political policy makers saw it as an intrusion and rejected it on grounds of cost and inconvenience. Whatever the objections, Best Value and its corresponding follow up programmes have seen many interesting examples of significant improvement in public services. In some cases, service directors may have missed the opportunities for securing internal support from staff and political leadership by producing poor or unhelpful submissions for assessment. More about this later.
The following posts reflect the outcomes of extended interim management assignments and lessons learned from over 15 inspections. Client confidentiality has been protected and no references can be made to specific councils owing to contractual obligations.
