Public Service Agreements and PMDUÂ
The introduction of PSAs was unexpected and unplanned – proposed by the Chancellor’s special adviser just days before the 1998 spending review was announced. An initial set of 600 rapidly assembled PSAs matured and then burst into life when Tony Blair gave Michael Barber his ‘instruction to deliver’ in 2001. The PMDU (2001–2010) became the most notable component of the reform and, together with the later evolution of the PSA regime, is now the UK civil service’s best-selling reform export.
Departments remained responsible for achieving their PSA targets, but PMDU was seen to play a crucial support and challenge function through the deployment of a range of tools and processes. It adopted an evidence-based approach to identifying and tackling barriers to delivery. It used the red-amber-green traffic-light rating system to assess the progress departments had made. The first league table was produced four months into PMDU’s life and was intended to ‘send shockwaves through the system’. After this, the ratings featured regularly in the six-monthly delivery reports.
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Exhibit 1. Timeline of PSAs and PMDU, 1998-2010
Source: Panchamia and Thomas 2014
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When delivery was off track, PMDU worked with departments to identify and tackle specific delivery challenges through the priority review, which was developed off the back of PMDU’s success on the ‘street crime’ target. The priority review was a short, intense period of work (usually six weeks) intended to identify barriers to delivery and develop solutions and recommendations. These reviews culminated in a prioritised action plan. PMDU would then offer departments a dedicated resource in that area to help think through some of the issues.
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The PSA framework was a flexible system that evolved. The targets gradually became smarter in response to challenges, difficulties and unintended consequences. In particular, there was, over time, an explicit limit on target numbers and a shift from inputs to outputs and sometimes even outcomes.
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The performance management machinery of PSAs and PMDU is widely seen as ‘a good thing’ among officials and ministers who worked with it. It offered a framework for setting long-term priorities and aligning organisational resources behind them. As one official explained, it was clear that the government cared about certain issues, such as health waiting times or school standards, which meant that, even if ministers came and went, the priorities remained. The PSA machinery provided a ‘guiding star to the policy direction of the whole government’. As a result, in those areas where PMDU focused, the machinery led to a strong stock of departmental delivery success stories.
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More fundamentally, the approach is seen to have made civil servants and ministers feel directly accountable for delivery. Permanent secretaries began to accept that delivery was a major part of their day job – whether it was reducing crime through the Home Office or raising educational standards through the Department for Education. This would have been unthinkable in the 1970s and 1980s, when most officials thought they were supposed to focus only on policy formulation and legislation.
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Particularly for departments working with PMDU, the whole process embedded a set of positive routines. Some departments put PSAs at the core of their board reporting system, which increasingly focused on the delivery of long-term outcomes regardless of political cycles and day-to-day urgencies.
Other resources
Useful references and links
Useful websites
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/
https://www.civilservant.org.uk/library.html
Selected reading
Barber, M., (2008). Instruction to Deliver: Fighting to transform Britain’s public services, Methuen, 2008.
Barber, M., Kihn, P., & Moffit, A. (2011). Deliverology: From idea to implementation. McKinsey on Government, 6, 32-39.
Barber, M. (2015). How to run a government: So that citizens benefit and taxpayers don’t go crazy. Penguin.
Barber, M., Kihn, P., & Moffit, A. (2011). Deliverology: From idea to implementation. McKinsey on Government.
Bevan, G., & Hood, C. (2006). WHAT’S MEASURED IS WHAT MATTERS: TARGETS AND GAMING IN THE ENGLISH PUBLIC HEALTH CARE SYSTEM. Public Administration, 84(3), 517–538. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2006.00600.x
Gash, T., Hallsworth, M., Ismail, S., & Paun, A. (2008). Performance Art: Enabling better management of public services. Institute for Government,
James, O. (2004). The UK Core Executive’s Use of Public Service Agreements as a Tool of Governance. Public Administration, 82(2), 397–419. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0033-3298.2004.00400.x
Kelman, S. (2006). Improving service delivery performance in the United Kingdom: Organization theory perspectives on central intervention strategies. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 8(4), 393–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/13876980600971375
Richards, D., & Smith, M. (2006). Central control and policy implementation in the UK: A case study of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 8(4), 325–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/13876980600971151