Anecdotally, there would seem to be growing interest across the public sector in benchmarking. At one level this understandable – it is always helpful to know how you are doing compared to others. When done well, benchmarking can be a powerful management tool and can also be of great value to political leaders too.
However, there is a serious risk...
Thierry Henry and Paul Scholes have recently returned to the football clubs they served so well for many years, raising a few eyebrows, but in both cases with immediate impact.
British local government and the capital markets were a team, too, combining to exploit the economic growth triggered by the Industrial Revolution for public benefit through public health and education...
Over the last decade there has been much talk about sharing services across the public sector. One staggers to imagine how much money has been spent on consultancy assignments, management time and aborted projects. It will be the equivalent to a significant public service delivery. And there have been the spectacle projects that have actually resulted in increased costs!
There...
Michael More, chief executive of Westminster City Council, makes a very interesting case for accountants and finance directors to play a greater role in public reform.
Theoretically, this has to be right.
After all, what serious business would not have a powerful finance director on its board?
Many public sector bodies including local authorities have budgets far...
Public expenditure pressures will be as great as ever this year, and for many across the public sector the financial challenges will be even more severe than before.
Any easy tactical cuts have all been made, yet more reductions will be required as the government presses on with its austerity programme. It has signalled that there will be at least...
After the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement and following every other economic forecast, we know that 2012 will be even more challenging for the public sector than 2011 was.
There will be less public expenditure and yet more demand for public services. If, as looks all too likely, the private sector does not grow significantly over the next few months, there will...
If Cameron really means business on the issue of senior business executives’ remuneration, he should start by getting the public sector to flex its procurement muscle.
Listening to David Cameron expressing his concerns about executive remuneration in the business sector, I wondered why he did not make the obvious commitment to drive his agenda through the important mechanism of public...
The government may have dropped the national drive for ‘Total Place’ but increasingly local authorities and their public sector partners are either adopting or exploring the opportunities for what might be seen as Total Place approaches.
The public, of course, tend quite understandably to be less concerned about the powers and spending decisions of individual public agencies and much more...