Lessons from Blair's years of delivery

We have a growing body of evidence in the UK that this counterintuitive but logical and local design is setting economic benchmarks, at the same time as improving community life. One example: your house repaired on the day and at the time you want it, and delivered at half the original cost. If your telephone company could do that I expect you'd cheer.

In spite of such evidence we see an even greater resolve amongst politicians to press on with industrialised shared services projects. The Coalition Government in Britain is speeding up the delivery of shared services through legislation. IT industry spokespeople rationalise the many failures as lacking governance, project management, IT skills or being due to cultural failures. Politicians believe them, because they have an unshakable belief in scale being the route to lower costs. Analysis and understanding remains as thin on the ground as it was in Blair's time.

I would recommend that Gillard does not repeat her year of 'Delivery and Decision' in 2012. Instead, I propose she learns from Blair's fundamental mistake and declares that 2012 should be the year of understanding. It delivers far better results.

John Seddon

John has received numerous academic awards for his contribution to management science. He is the author of "Freedom from Command and Control" and "Systems Thinking in the Public Sector", both available from www.systemsthinking.co.uk

John is speaking in Australia:

August 30th Sydney Dockside, Government Contact Centre Summit

August 31st State Library of New South Wales, Centre for Policy Development

September 2nd, Municipal State of Victoria, Melbourne

For more:

Read: "Managing for the Better" – an account of top leaders' presentations of the outstanding results being achieved and warts and all about what it took.

Read: "Why do we believe in economies of scale?" – what are the arguments for 'scale' and do they stack up?

Read: "Re-thinking lean service" – everything you need to know about why 'lean' is failing.