public services

Radical Thinking on Public Services

by Editor 2

John Seddon launches new book on 'Systems Thinking in the Public Sector' at ResPublica

Acclaimed thinker and ResPublica fellow John Seddon's sustained campaign to get rid of the 'dangerous nonsense' of targets, benchmarks, quangos and assessments in the public sector has alarmed central government officials and civil servants but delighted chief executives and managers in local government, the NHS, police and elsewhere. ResPublica hosted the launch of his new book, 'Delivering Public Services That Work/Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: Case Studies’ on 9th March, to a packed house of innovators across management, academia and government.

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The Engagement Ethic

by The Innovation Unit 0

The potential for co-operative and mutual governance for public services

Ideas from The Ownership State are discussed in Chapter 4 of The Innovation Unit's December 2009 report "The Engagement Ethic": In his recent publication trumpeting the potential of shared ownership for public services, Philip Blond quotes research that links this kind of meaningful work to performance. The research showed that 'the most successful councils share a common set of characteristics… excellent and good authorities 'value and recognise their employees, by allowing them greater input into the decision making processes of the authority, and perhaps, as a consequence, providing more room for individual creativity to flourish''...

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It is time for Britain’s real progressives to unite

by Leader 0

We would welcome a left-liberal coalition

There is much good thinking being done at present outside the Labour Party - by the Compass group, by Richard Reeves and James Purnell at Demos, by Phillip Blond at ResPublica and by some Liberal Democrats, as well as in the left-liberal blogosphere, notably by Will Straw of Left Foot Forward and Sunder Katwala of Next Left. So, as we enter an election year, we shall continue to encourage progressive politicians of all parties, and none, to unite around a common programme of protecting public services, democratising parliament, bolstering civil liberties and reining in financial excess.

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The Ownership State

by Phillip Blond 10

Read the report that started the mutualism debate

"The Ownership State" has started a battle between Labour and the Tories over mutualism, with both parties announcing policies to remake the public sector along the lines of the employee-owned John Lewis Partnership.