In his acclaimed 2008 book "Systems Thinking in the Public Sector", John Seddon blew the whistle on public sector 'reform' and the flawed gospel of quasi-markets, competition, targets and inspection. He showed how thousands of people in the UK and elsewhere had been engaged at a cost of millions of pounds, to impose and enforce targets that simply made things worse...Those people are still there - from the Audit Commission down - and the quasi-market model is still creating waste, driving up costs, damaging services and destroying morale. Now a new book spells out the alternative. "Delivering Public Services that Work" brings together case studies from 6 different public sector organisations, in the UK and New Zealand, that are using "Systems Thinking" to bring about rapid and extraordinary change. These Case Studies show: how they did it, step by step; how they overcame initial resistance and hostility from staff; how they rolled-in (rather than rolled-out) the programme across other departments/services; the astonishing results that have been achieved; and, the unexpected benefits that can accrue (a 44 per cent drop in staff illness in one case).
