By Phil Copestake, OPM principal.
The Deputy Prime Minister’s speech yesterday highlighted a paradox at the heart of the employee ownership business model. You can’t have a mutual without actual shared ownership, and yet owning shares does not in and of itself guarantee the benefits of being a mutual. As Mr Clegg said: sharing ownership means sharing power. But to really maximise the potential of mutual models the staff who own the business need guaranteed influence too. Continue reading
By Ewan King, OPM director.
There are signals emanating from Government that we will shortly see the long awaited strategy on community integration and cohesion. This is good news, as there was a creeping sense of despair amongst some working in this field that the Government was going to abandon the commitment to this strategy completely.
Initial reports are sketchy but there is talk of a new cross-government strategy that will concentrate on four main areas:
How these aims are governed, managed, delivered and measured locally is not yet known. However, if previous policies arising from this Government are anything to go by, we should not expect a detailed blueprint prescribed from the centre on how each and every element of this agenda will be delivered locally. Certainly, it is very unlikely that significant funding will be attached to this strategy. Continue reading
By Phil Copestake, OPM’s head of communications.
For some time now we’ve been writing on this blog and elsewhere about the importance for new public sector mutuals of knowledge sharing, peer support and joining up access to relevant expertise. Yesterday there was really good news on this front, with the Government’s re-launch of the Mutuals Information Service (MIS).
The MIS brings together information, advice and guidance, including a new website to support individuals and teams who are looking to begin the journey, a new national hotline, and – perhaps most significantly – potential access to funding for bespoke professional support (the long-promised £10m Mutuals Support Programme). Continue reading
By Linda Jackson, OPM associate fellow.
I recently attended a great event held by the Transition Institute to launch their publication on public service spin outs called, Towards a Social Value Ethos. The lively and challenging debate focused on the different things that need to happen in order to spin out public services into a different form of ownership. Whilst the paths, processes and duration of each transition are likely to vary from organisation to organisation, there are some commonalities that need to be in place for the journey to effectively take place. Continue reading
By Ayesha Janjua, OPM fellow.
Integration is a key part of the current health reforms; greater integration of health and social care features strongly in the Health and Social Care Bill. Last year’s health white paper argues that greater integration between these two spheres (and thus between the NHS and local authorities) will facilitate improved outcomes for service users and communities, contribute to efficient and sustainable services, enhance clinical leadership and support choice, control and self directed planning for individual service users, their carers and families.
That’s the theory, but how to make integration work in practice? OPM has recently been supporting local partners to think about integrated commissioning. This is linked to but different from integrated provision or service delivery – but in practice integrated commissioning is likely to naturally lead to integrated service delivery. Our work has thrown up some interesting lessons about how to get started and make integration sustainable. Continue reading
By Sue Goss, OPM principal.
Local authorities – like many other public services – often struggle to move beyond the rhetoric when it comes to taking a common sense approach to managing risk. OPM’s recent work with the London Borough of Ealing provides an example of how turning the traditional ‘top down’ view of management upside down can help to identify practical steps to empower frontline staff.
Last week I was working with the Council’s Senior Leaders Forum – their top 80 or so managers – to think about the transition ‘From Compliance to Judgement’, or how a council like Ealing can shake off the sheer weight of bureaucracy and procedure that slows us down. The Munro Report has brought the issue back on the agenda – arguing that we have created compliance cultures that get in the way of good professional practice (Munro focused on children’s services, but the lessons hold across the piece). Ealing had a particularly good story to tell – about their ‘riot recovery’ work.
By Deborah Rozansky, OPM principal.
The findings from the Commonwealth Fund’s 2011 International Health Survey demonstrate yet again the falsity of the notion that the NHS provides poor quality care and costs too much. While our system obviously isn’t perfect, the overall picture does beg a handful of questions, not least of which: what are we really trying to fix with the current set of NHS reforms?
Released last week, the Fund’s survey results compared the care received by patients with complex needs (‘sicker adults’) in eleven countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.
Patients were questioned about their experiences accessing health services and specialist care; out-of-pocket costs; coordination of care across different settings; and communication and engagement by their doctors.
There is clearly a mis-match between how we view the NHS and the picture emerging from the Commonwealth Fund’s findings. When compared to other countries, the UK’s health system has distinct advantages. Continue reading
By Diane Beddoes, OPM’s head of engagement.
As the bill containing controversial changes to the legal aid system moves to the House of Lords for further scrutiny, one set of provisions in particular urgently requires a second look.
Earlier this month there was a debate in Parliament on amendments to access to legal aid for victims of domestic abuse, as part of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Under the bill only domestic violence victims who can prove ‘a high risk of violence’ will qualify for assistance. The BBC’s comment on the debate says that ‘[i]n practice, that is likely to require them to have reported the abuse to police’. Continue reading
Last week OPM hosted the latest in our public interest seminar series, which was a great success: excellent speakers and a really lively debate about vitally important issues. The conversation has continued outside of the debating hall, and one of the participants has already posted his view of the key points. Below is our short report – of course it’s impossible to convey every single contribution, so please do have your say via the comments box! If you’re interested in being put on the mailing list for future seminars, then please contact us at seminars@opm.co.uk.
Personalisation seminar report
By Phil Copestake, OPM’s head of communications.
Last week saw OPM’s Spinning Out Mutuals fringe event at the National Children and Adult Services (NCAS) conference. The session was really successful, with a packed room at the cavernous ExCel centre, excellent speakers (well, apart from yours truly) and a lively debate. For those who couldn’t make it, I thought I’d post a few of the best practical tips mentioned for overcoming the genuine challenges facing those wishing to ‘spin out’ public sector mutuals. The important contribution that events like this make to raising awareness of mutuals was underlined by Jesse Norman MP:
The short inquiry report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Employee Ownership, which I chair, emphasised how important it is that the Government’s mutuals programme is better understood and viewed as a means to drive real improvements in our communities. Organisations like OPM play an important role in building awareness about mutuals and helping to create the capacity for change. Only by understanding the real life experiences of people who have already started down this route – such as the speakers and participants at this NCAS event – can we capitalise on the tantalizing possibility of public sector mutuals.
