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

Behind the doom-laden headlines, a quiet revolution is taking place in the public sector. In the police...hospitals...local government...social welfare...costs have been significantly reduced, services have improved exponentially, and there is a real 'danger' of improving morale. There is now no politician or executive in any branch of local government or any area of the public sector who can say: "It won't work here". The evidence is clear: it does work here, and right across the board. 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. 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 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. Taken together, the briefings and case studies offer compelling evidence for anyone in the public sector (anywhere in the world) trying to transform service delivery on a falling budget.