Sustaining organisational change

[This section is adapted from Whole system development by David Wilkinson, Margaret Attwood and Mike Pedler (1999: forthcoming) to be published by Lemos & Crane and from ‘Whole system development: rethinking public service management’ by David Wilkinson, published in the International Journal of Public Sector Management.]

If we wish to tackle the obdurate ‘wicked issues’, to address the essential requirement to rebuild social cohesion, to place more emphasis on prevention rather than just on cure, then this has deep transformational implications for how the delivery agencies in particular define their roles in service delivery. It also has significant ramifications for how all stakeholders work together and apart. But the emphasis here will be on the public service bodies and local government in particular because their impacts are clearly so significant.

The current domination of vertical, silo-based cultures in most of the public services has been discussed in Chapter 2. The focus on improving service efficiency and effectiveness has been predominantly within these ‘tower blocks’ and directed around functional and ‘easily counted’ output measures. The guiding rationale can be described as managerialist and consumerist (see notes in Chapter 2). In general there has been a far greater requirement to seek customer satisfaction, which is of course a step in the right direction. But there are also severe limitations with this approach. For instance, it is likely that many local authorities will approach Best Value from this position and submit an increasing proportion of silo-based services to best value scrutiny. But this is unlikely to help the holistic requirement of the community agenda. Worse, it is likely to focus staff attention in entirely the wrong direction.

A community focused agenda clearly requires local integration of service professionals around community-based agendas. It is, for the most part, a radically different way of working across professional boundaries with a radically different working relationship with service users in the community.