Presentation by Horace Mitchell

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New Ways of Working in The Public Sector and
Public Services

• Presentation by Horace Mitchell
• Programme Director
• European Telework Development (ETD)

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New Ways of WorkinginThe Public Sector and
Public Services

• Where are we coming from . . . .
• . . . and going to
• Strategic considerations for new ways of working
• The UK experience
• (We are all different!)
• Working together in Europe - and beyond

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Where are we coming from . . . .

• The past
• Clear boundaries and differences between public
  sector/services and private sector/services
• Private sector based on profit motive,
  productivity, cost reduction, risk, innovation,
  marketing, payment by results . . .
• Public sector based on policies, public benefit,
  budgets and cost constraints vs proven need,
  official status, tenure, planning . . .

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Where are we now . . .

• Today
• Reducing differences and lower boundaries between
  public and private sector practices and
  behaviours
• Private sector expanding and innovating in
  traditional public services, eg health,
  education
• Privatisation/liberalisation, eg
  telecommunications, transport infrastructure
• Competition between administrations - to
  attract investment, generate employment, retain
  enterprises, re-regulate . . .
• Competition with private sector to attract and
  retain staff
• Consumerism making private enterprise more
  service oriented

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Where are we going . . .

• The Information Society
• Virtualisation of services
• Location-independence of business functions and
  individuals
• Customerisation of services, personalisation of
  communications
• The Networked Economy
• Reduced significance of geographic boundaries
• Economic growth increasingly immaterial
• Public services increasingly open to
  commercialisation

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Strategic Considerations

• What are the real goals of your public operation
• to make sure that the necessary service is
  delivered at the right level of quality/cost?
• to grow the organisation and enhance its
  prestige?
• to employ a lot of people?
• to improve the local economy and prosperity, jobs
  etc?
• Public services usually have very mixed
  objectives
• The Information Society/Networked Economy makes
  it essential to re-think strategic objectives
• Unless you think the unthinkable, someone else
  will do it for you!

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Telework an inclusive view

• Telework can mean
• working at home instead of commuting
• working in the most convenient (to the worker)
  locations
• bringing services to the most convenient (to the
  customer) locations
• removing work to the most cost-effective place
• distributing work to the most competent people
  wherever they may be
• bringing work to unemployed or underemployed

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The UK Experience

• We are all different!
• UK characteristics and influences
• Permissiveness, informality and variety
• Telework becomes invisible
• Some (UK) public sector models
• The future

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We are all different
Equivalent variations occur at the regional and
local level within Italy as within the UK . . .
. . and within sectors, and between organisations
within sectors
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We are all different
Source European Telework Status Report 1998
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Regional differences
Source UK Information Society Initiative
benchmarking 1999
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• New ways to work is about human activity as
  much as it is about business
• How telework evolves is strongly dependent on
• local (national, regional) culture and tradition
• local status of ICT take up and use
• local pace of acceptance of ICTs by individuals
  and organisations generally
• Public sector organisations can set the pace or
  can lag behind, but their approach needs to
  reflect the general preparedness of their local
  environment
• Public services should consider external impact
  of their investments as well as internal needs

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UK characteristics and influences

• UK tradition of freedom of the individual
• No identity cards (and strong opposition to the
  idea!)
• An Englishmans home is his castle
• Public service as an amateur activity (done for
  love rather than money)
• Civil service clearly distinct from government
• Yes, Minister paints a true picture
• Tradition of voluntary organisations competing
  with official services
• Early privatisation and liberalisation
• Strong private sector health services alongside
  public service private schools independent
  universities
• Thatcher privatisation sustained by New Labour
• BT liberalised and competition actively encouraged

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Permissiveness, informality and variety

• Until recently most telework in UK was based on
  private agreement between manager and employee
• As early as 1991, HM Treasury guidelines said
  local management should decide on a case by
  case basis
• Mixed results from formal schemes (wrong reasons,
  wrong timing, inappropriate use of technology,
  unprepared managers, suspicion about management
  motives . . . )
• Strong grass roots movement (Telecottages
  Association, Special Interest Groups, self
  employed etc)

National Government authority for public
service pay and conditions
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Some UK public sector models

• County council using telework to
• move the work closer to the homes of the workers
• distribute council staff and premises more widely
  to be close to more of the citizens
• open up council premises for mixed use
• (and allow some home-based working)
• Government departments relocated to areas of high
  unemployment, with ICT/video links to Whitehall
• Police presence in small villages via video
  kiosks
• City Council reduces premises costs by 20
• Open University distributed campus university
  (Highlands)
• Online access from home/office for (part time)
  councillors
• London Borough recruits 60 home-based workers to
  handle new information task (1994)
• Provide school teachers with home PCs for
  learning and preparation

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Benefits of informal telework

• When you just let it happen informally,
  problems can be fixed informally, or it can
  simply be stopped
• When a programme is evaluated, planned, promoted,
  negotiated, committed, invested
• there is a tendency to stick to the plan too
  long
• there is organisational and personal investment
  and commitment - de-commitment becomes painful
• formal agreements are costly and slow to amend or
  untangle
• it is more difficult to respond to the unforeseen
  (which may well be an external change)
• Consider the problems of managed economies

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Lessons from UK experience

• Consider having a framework rather than a plan
• Consider having guidelines for managers rather
  than rules
• Push decisions and responsibility to the lowest
  levels (closest to the opportunities and to the
  problems)
• Keep corporate intervention to the strategy -
  avoid becoming embroiled in detail
• Use the technology first and let applications
  emerge
• In budgeting, treat technologies the same as
  desks and chairs - part of the basics of work

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Telecommuting becomes invisible

• When a practice becomes normal we no longer
  talk about it
• Telecommuting is becoming normal in the UK -
  working at home is no longer cause for comment -
  so many people do it at least part time
• One-per-desk PCs and rapid growth of Internet
  makes the technology more normal and telework
  more obvious
• E-mail address and web url now quoted in all
  TV/radio programmes, home computers are
  commonplace
• Appropriate informal telework becomes a natural
  consequence
• Interest shifts to different uses of telework as
  an element in business re-engineering

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By September 1994, the authority had 42
employees teleworking from home, with a further
200 or so engaged in other flexible working
arrangements, including job shares and term time
working.
Since then, Hampshire has ceased monitoring
these take-up figures the policy is in place,
and it is simply up to managers of individual
departments to decide if flexible working
arrangements are appropriate for their own staff.
(Report by Andrew Bibby, UK author and journalist)
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Telework as an element in re-engineering for the
global networked economy
E-business
The Organisation
Telework
Telecooperation
Government, EC, regulators etc
Talented individuals
Other organisations
An effective strategy includes all three aspects
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(new ways of) Working together in Europe

• ETD and European Telework Online - linking
  experience and know how across 29 countries
• c. 2,000 resources in the hubsite database
• Discussion and questions online (including in
  Italian)
• Support to Information Society initiatives,
  partnerships, research
• New proposal (KATalyst) linking New Ways of
  Working and New Ways of Doing Business
• Developing Europes strength through difference

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• Horace Mitchell
• horace_at_mta.i-way.co.uk
• European Telework Online
• http//www.eto.org.uk
• eto-info_at_eto.org.uk
• KATalyst consortium
• http//www.eto.org.uk/katalyst
• katalyst_at_eto.org.uk
• New Methods of Work projects (IST Programme)
• http//www.eto.org.uk/ist-nmw

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