Public Sector Focus

Continuous improvement

Debbie Simpson, a former senior civil servant who three years ago founded the Institute for Continuous Improvement in Public Services charity, has been recognised with a European-level award for her work. PSE caught up with her.

ICiPS, the Institute for Continuous Improvement in Public Services, was founded in 2012 to help public authorities become more efficient through developing their staff. 

It was launched by Debbie Simpson, a former senior civil servant who was deputy director of shared services at Defra, and who had also held senior jobs in the private sector. 

Her work and that of the Institute has recently been recognised by the Lean Management Journal in its annual European awards. Simpson was voted one of the most influential people in her field in Europe at the awards, held in Amsterdam in July. 

She told PSE: “The vision we set off with, and that we still have, is to embed continuous improvement in the delivery of public services. That has very much been our focus. We started off very much with a central government view, but since then we’ve had such wide interest in what we’re doing that we’ve amended our articles so now anyone who is interested or involved in public service delivery – whether that be voluntary or any part of the public sector, or indeed public-private partnerships – can now become a part of what we’re doing.” 

Bridging the gap 

Simpson, whose professional background is in transformation and change management, says that continuous improvement, applied in its truest form, can help bridge the gap between delivering for today and having services that are fit for the future. 

ICiPS does its own research, accredits continuous improvement training providers, offers a number of courses itself, and runs a networking site to bring together people working in public services to discuss continuous improvement. It offers practical guidance and support to anyone who needs it.

Simpson said: “We also run networking events around the country, where people can get together, get to know each other and share their experiences, and start to build support networks. To enable that to continue between those meetings, we’ve got our online support networks as well where people can talk to each other.” 

Asked about the quality of continuous improvement capability across public services generally, Simpson said: “I would say it’s a very mixed bag. This is one of the reasons why we introduced standards of professional practice. 

“What you find in the marketplace in terms of training is that there’s a huge difference between one training provider and another. They have very widely differing skill sets, even though they may be classified as being of the same standard. 

“There are some really excellent people in the public sector who are doing some incredibly good work; they are very highly skilled but their professionalism has never really been recognised. But now, obviously, if they become a professional member with us they can get that recognition. 

“There are some people out there who have done basic training, and are tweaking public sector services with very little experience – that’s the other side of the coin, and it’s very worrying. 

“The people I’ve seen who do change well in the public sector are every bit as good as people in the private sector.” 

Pressures 

Some in the public sector may feel they’re so busy firefighting the effects of unprecedented cuts that devoting time to continuous improvement is a luxury they cannot afford. 

Simpson said people’s first reaction is often a lack of time. But she said: “One of the big things we’re looking to do now, and to understand and promote, is that change may be time-consuming, because you’re trying to move fundamentally from one place to another. But continuous improvement really should be integral to everybody’s job: it’s more about the small incremental changes that combined can make a big difference. 

“People should not be thinking of it as a bolt-on. They should be thinking of it as ‘just the way we do things’. In our personal lives at home, we all do that: we find cheaper, faster ways to do things. That should be taken into the workplace.” 

Greater good 

Simpson said she took the decision right from the start to launch as a charity, saying: “We are not in this to make a profit. We’re in this for the greater good, and that always has been the ethos behind what we’ve done. If we can embed continuous improvement in public services, it should help to sustain them and to meet their objectives way into the future. So, there’s benefit in it for everybody – it’s not something we thought we should make a profit at.” 

ICiPS is self-funding, relying on membership fees, income from consulting plus some grants and donations, though nothing from the government. 

It is currently in the middle of a big research project looking into joined-up thinking across public services to ensure they are deliverable for the future – PSE readers who want to contribute can do so via the link below.

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