Delivering Public Services That Work: v. 2 The Vanguard Method in the Public Sector Case Studies

It's four years since John Seddon's first assault on the regime of 'choice', targets, delivery, inspection, incentives, 'free market' reforms and back-office 'economies of scale' that was paralysing UK local authorities. Systems Thinking in the Public Sector explained how it was that so-called 'performance improvement' led to ambulances driving round in circles with ill people on board and benefits claimants having to complete the same form three times. Two years later, in 2010, and in response to calls for evidence that Seddon's Vanguard Method really did offer the kind of dramatic improvements that he claimed for it, a first collection of Case Studies showed Vanguard's Systems Thinking approach at work in (mainly) housing and housing benefits departments. This latest collection of Case Studies spells out the kind of dramatic performance improvements that have been consistently achieved in the NHS, the emergency services and a wide range of local authority departments. It's a handbook for anyone faced with the apparently impossible task of improving service levels and dramatically cutting costs. The Case Studies demonstrate again and again just how much can be achieved in a relatively short time using a Systems Thinking approach - transforming the lives of service users for the better in the process. Part 1 describes the application of the Vanguard Method to eight different systems: *Police forces in the Midlands and Cheshire, *the Fire and Rescue Service in Staffordshire, *Development Control at Rugby Borough Council, *Food Safety in Great Yarmouth, *Legal and Social Welfare Problems (Advice UK), *Health and Social Care (NHS Somerset), the care of Stroke patients at Plymouth Hospital. Part 2 has three topical briefings on the vexed question of 'demand' and why it is that increasing resources to meet increasing demand is so often the wrong answer.

Review :
'This is a breathtaking glimpse of a new kind of 'efficiency' in public services. It is also a celebration of a new way of doing things that challenges prevailing orthodoxy so fundamentally that orthodoxy may not survive it.' David Boyle, New Economics Foundation 'This approach to organisational change fits with my vision of a child protection system where the design of services is shaped by the needs of children and their families, not by the need to comply with government prescription and targets.'Eileen Munro, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics 'Even hardened sceptics will be impressed by these examples of the Vanguard Method in action. There is a beautiful simplicity at the heart of this approach. Businesses and organisations are systems. They operate - or should - to meet the demands of customers or citizens. Grasp that, as they say, and you grasp everything.' Stefan Stern, Management writer and Visiting Professor in management practice, Cass Business School, London