We have heard it repeatedly in recent years: the publication of a major public inquiry report; devastating criticism of a public sector body by an inquiry chair saying, ‘lessons must be learned’.
Carefully uncovering what happened and why is an important part of holding leaders to account when things go wrong in the public sector. Those most affected by failures often say that the one thing they want is for the same thing never to happen again.
But how much better would it have been if it hadn’t happened in the first place? If leaders had picked up the signals and responded to the early warning signs? What if an employee’s concerns had been taken seriously? Or a complaint had been escalated to the right person and preventative action had been taken? Or if lessons had been learnt from past similar incidents or failures? How much pain and suffering could have been prevented – and how much resource could have been redeployed across the public sector?
Public life has never been more complex, with a multitude of public bodies involved in the delivery of public services, as well as contracted private providers. But that is not a reason not to encourage public sector organisations to get better at identifying problems and preventing them from escalating. Our review – launched last year – looks at how this can be done. As well as a public consultation, we have been hearing first hand from leaders and practitioners with a wide range of views and experiences about how the public sector can get better at acting on early warning signs.
We recognise there can be no ‘one size fits all’ in this complex landscape. Our findings – based on the wide range of evidence we heard – are intended to support leaders to work through what improvements can be made to their own organisation’s processes and culture and can be used by staff to encourage attention in these areas.
We hope our report – out on 25 March – will be a useful tool to help those in public life respond appropriately when things start to go wrong and, in doing so, live up to the Principles of Public Life.
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