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Joined Up

'The process takes a holistic view; looking beyond institutional boundaries to the government's strategic objectives and seeks to establish the ethical, moral and legal base for policy. There is consideration of the appropriate management and organisational structures needed to deliver cross-cutting objectives.'

• Cross-cutting approaches
• Joined-up management
• Delivery

Cross-cutting approaches

A joined up approach to policy making clearly defines cross-cutting objectives at the outset

Policy Action Team Approach

The Policy Action Teams (PATS) were set up by the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) to help the Government tackle the intractable problems faced by people living in deprived neighbourhoods. By bringing together Government officials from a range of departments with outside experts, including residents who lived and worked in deprived neighbourhoods, they represented the biggest exercise to date in joined-up government.

Follow this link to view the report that looks at the experiences and perceptions of some of the individuals at the heart of the PAT process.

A pdf (75.1kb) version of the report is also available here for downloading and printing.

Cross-cutting Reviews.

Lessons From the Development of Cross Cutting Units. This is a working paper commissioned by the CMPS as part of the Better Policy Making programme which seeks to address problems and capture achievements in policy development and delivery, and to identify and encourage good practice.

HM Treasury

On 25 June 2001, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Smith, announced seven initial cross-cutting reviews to contribute to the Spending Review 2002. Terms of reference were developed for the following:

• Children at Risk. This review sought to establish key targets for children's services, identify obstacles to meeting those targets and test departmental baselines against those findings.
• Improving the Public Space. This review looked at how Government policies, funding and targets can produce improvements in the safety and attractiveness of the public space - the local environment where people lead their lives.
• Public Sector Labour Market. The review identified the main trends affecting the size and composition of the public sector workforce over the period 2002 to 2007, and the skills required for the successful delivery of public services, in particular in relation to the NHS, education, the criminal justice system, defence and social services. The report (455kb) of the review has been published.
• Review of Science and Research. This review considered how to maximise the benefits provided by public spending on science and research to the UK's economy and quality of life.
• Role of the Voluntary Sector in Public Sector Delivery. This review examined the potential for public services to be delivered by voluntary and community groups. It identified the obstacles which inhibited the involvement of VCOs in service delivery. The report (531kb) of the review has been published.
• Services for Small Business. This review evaluated the support provided by Government at all levels to small and medium sized enterprises. It also examined the principal interfaces between Government and small businesses, to identify ways in which these could be managed more effectively to help achieve the goals above
• Tackling the Causes of Health Inequalities. This review aimed to advance the Government's objective of narrowing the health gap in childhood and throughout life between socio-economic groups and between the most deprived areas and the rest of the country; and in particular to help ensure that the Government delivers its national health inequalities
  PSA targets for life expectancy and mortality of children under one year. The summary (178kb) of the cross-cutting review has been published.
• Users Must Come First. This review examined how public services must start from a better understanding of users and their needs, expectations and behaviours.

Cross-cutting Units

• The Strategy Unit provides the Prime Minister and Government departments with a capacity to analyse major policy issues and design strategic solutions. Most of the topics are long-term strategic issues that cut across departmental boundaries.
• The Social Exclusion Unit exists to help improve Government action to reduce social exclusion by producing 'joined up solutions to joined up problems and typically works on issues that affect a range of Government departments, and does not duplicate work being done elsewhere.
• The Women and Equality Unit exists to ensure that women's priorities tie in closely with the Government's overall agenda. It has overall responsibility for policy on gender equality and co-ordinates policy on sexual orientattion.
• The Every child matters website has the task of supporting Ministers, including the Minister for Young People John Denham, as they develop, refine and communicate the Government's overarching strategy for children and young people. They are tasked with joining up policy-making across Departments and removing barriers to effective working.
• Sure Start aims to promote the physical, intellectual and social development of babies and young children - particularly those who are disadvantaged - so that they can flourish at home and when they get to school, and thereby break the cycle of disadvantage for the current generation of young children.
• The Neighbourhood Renewal Unit works across Government and other organisational boundaries to deliver the Government strategy for narrowing the gap between deprived neighbourhoods and the rest of the country, so that within 10 to 20 years, no-one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live.
• The Rough Sleepers Unit was established within DETR in April 1999 and is responsible for national rough sleeping policy It is responsible for implementing a radical new approach to help vulnerable rough sleepers off the streets, rebuilding the lives of former rough sleepers and preventing new rough sleepers of tomorrow.
• The Teenage Pregnancy Unit was set up in 1999 within Department of Health to develop a cross-cutting strategy with the aim of reducing teenage pregnancy.
• The Regional Co-ordination Unit was established as a result of the PIU report 'Reaching Out - The Role of Central Government at Regional and Local Level'. It exists to consider Government initiatives with a regional or local dimension (Area Based Initiatives - ABIs) and to promote closer links between Government activity in the regions and the Centre.

Joined-up management

A joined up approach to policy making ensures that joint working arrangements within the departments are clearly defined and well understood.

Joined-up policy making - how to make it work: learning points

This joint CMPS/National Audit Office seminar took place on June 6 2002. It formed part of the NAO's study on developing effective services for older people, which examines joined-up policy making for older people. The seminar examines key lessons in joined-up working that emerged from the study and their relevance to other areas of policy making. View learning points.

Better Regulation Task Force

• Local Delivery of Central Policy (190kb) - Cabinet Office, 2002. This report carried out by the independent red tape watchdog contends that the effective local delivery of services is impeded by too much control and rigidity at the centre. It sets out a series a recommendations to achieve the alignment of strategies, objectives and geographic areas between agencies. The report proposes that other key policy areas of cross-cutting delivery should be addressed as a rolling programme, to be carried out by the Treasury and the Regional Co-ordination Unit of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, in order to improve the effectiveness of delivery.

National Audit Office

• Joining up to improve public services (202kb) This report examines the progress that has been made towards creating joined up government; provides a snapshot of the impact of joined up government on the quality of services available to some key groups in society; and provides practical advice on how to make joint working and partnership arrangements work well.
• Developing effective services for older people (733kb) This report published on 26 March 2003 examines whether the development of services relevant to older people is joined up. The report also recommends that there needs to be a 'better co-ordination of research requirements' into issues affecting older people and better communication of research to policy makers.

House of Commons Public Accounts Committee

• Better Public Services through Joint Working: the 28th report of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Session 2001-2002. This report examined the action which the Cabinet Office and the Treasury are taking to promote joint working to deliver better public services.
• Improving services through e-government: the 34th report of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Session 2001-2002. This report examines the progress which the Office of the e-Envoy as part of the Cabinet Office and the Office of Government Commerce have achieved in encouraging departments to make services available electronically.
• Progress in achieving Government on the Web. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee published a report on 13 December 2002 which assessed the progress of Departments in introducing e-services. The report expressed the view that 'websites need to be designed around specific services that cut across organisational boundaries so people can access all the information they need on services such as transport, housing and education from a single source'

Logica CMG

• Details of a survey by Logica CMG - summary, released on 18 September 2003 under the heading 'Barriers to joined up government ...' indicate that most public sector professionals feel positive about the move to joined-up government. However, the survey identifies lack of communication between local and central government, fear of cultural differences and middle management bottlenecks as inhibiting the process.

New Local Government Network

• The New Local Government Network published a report on 14 May 2003 which highlights the benefits gained from joint working by local authorities (Crossing Boundaries: New Ways of Working)
  
  The report provides examples of 20 'cross-border' collaborations among councils in Britain and explores the benefits (better use of expertise, shared learning, economies of scale).

Strategy Unit

• Adding it up, Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU), 2000 - The report is about improving analysis in government, consequently it looks at innovation and the policy making process generally.
• Better policy design and delivery: a discussion paper - March 2001. This discussion paper
  looks at what can be done, particularly at the centre, to help those on the frontline achieve better results and draws on a series of brief case studies examining recent experiences of policy delivery.
• Lending support: Modernising the Government's use of loans - April 2002. This paper sets out some background information and seeks views on a PIU project to explore the scope for modernising the way that Government provides loans for individuals and business.
• Wiring it up: Whitehall's management of cross-cutting policies and services, PIU, TSO, 2000.

Scottish Executive

Joined up working in the Scottish Executive. - Scottish Executive, Office of the Chief Researcher, 2005 (Research findings no.17) [link to ] - a qualitative study based on six Scottish Executive policy teams and their experience of joining up. The study aimed to identify the factors that had contributed to their success in this challenging area. Findings include the fact that policy teams faced common challenges when attempting to become more joined up. These challenges fell into three areas:

1. The need to overcome structural challenges.
2. The need to build effective working relationships with other teams.
3. The need to develop shared policy objectives

The Local Government National Training Organisation has developed the Smarter Partnerships Toolkit. This aims to encourage joined up working through the promotion of learning and skills which result in more effective collaborative working with partners.

Survey of Local government e-readiness
The Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) in conjunction with the Society of IT Managers (Socitm) have carried out an international survey of local government e-readiness. The report features a number of case studies examining targets, strategies and key drivers. A summary of the report (Local e-government now: a worldwide view) is available from the IDeA web-site.

Delivery

A joined up approach to policy making ensures that implementation is considered part of the policy process.

The role of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit (PMDU) is to ensure that the Government achieves its delivery priorities during this Parliament across the key areas of public service: health, education, crime and asylum, and transport. The Unit's work is carried out by a team of staff with practical experience of delivery, drawn from the public and private sectors.

Identifying Good Practice in the Use of Programme and Project Management in Policy Making

A cross-departmental project led by the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit and the Improving Programme and Project Delivery (IPPD) team within the Prime Minister's Office of Public Services Reform have examined good practice in Programme and Project Management (PPM) in the policy process. The final Improving programme and project delivery report was published in February 2003

Better service, better working lives: how health and education services are delivering for women (1.08MB) - this report published by the Cabinet Office's Women and Equality Unit in December 2001 reports on research into the experiences of women in both using and working in health and education services and provides examples of best practice in the delivery of better services in these spheres.

House of Commons Public Accounts Committee

Ensuring that policies deliver value for money: Forty-Ninth report of the Committee of Public Accounts, Session 2001 - 2002 - This report, published on 31 July 2002, examines the progress made in encouraging departments to improve their policy making so that risks to value for money are better managed.

National Audit Office

Using call centres to deliver public services. (1.5MB) This report examined the public's views on receiving services by telephone from departments, presented a detailed survey of departmental call centres to benchmark their performance, and provided an in depth analysis of four call centres to assess how they provided services to the public.

The National Audit published a report on 28 March 2003 (Improving service delivery: the role of Executive Agencies) (717kb) which explores how effectively administrative agencies have used targets to achieve 'continuous improvement in service delivery'.

The NAO also published three linked reports which focussed on the actions that particular agencies were taking to improve service delivery (the Veterans Agency, (115kb) the Forensic Science Service (115kb) and the Food Standards Agency (966kb) )

Improving Programme and Project Delivery (IPPD)
IPPD is a cross-departmental project, led by the Office of Public Service Reform (OPSR), which was set up in September 2001 to improve the Civil Service's capability and capacity to deliver programmes and projects.

Identifying good practice in the use of programme and project management in policy making: practitioners' perspectives (613kb) is a report commissioned by the Policy Studies Directorate (CMPS) now part of the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit) and the IPPD team within the OPSR.

The report:

• presents a distillation of the views and experiences of Civil Servants with policy and PPM backgrounds who have successfully applied PPM to policy
• sets out some of their 'wisdom'

A summary version (79kb) of the report is also available. A web-friendly version will be published later this year.

Successful Delivery Skills Programme (SDSP)

The Office of Government Commerce has announced a new initiative to raise the level of project delivery skills in Central Government. The Successful Delivery Skills Programme (SDSP) aims to provide those involved in the delivery of major, novel or complex projects with the opportunity to widen and improve their skill in a more organised manner than has been previously available.

National School of Government offers a wide range of courses on various aspects of policy making