by Paul O'Brien
Tuesday 12 September 2006
Participated in an event in Glasgow today on transforming public services in Scotland. Tom McCabe the Minister for Public Sector Reform opened up the event and gave his view that in Scotland there is a real opportunity to configure services across the public sector in a much more coherent fashion. I agree with him and think this is more achievable in Scotland because there has been less outsourcing to date and therefore you don't need to cut your way through the contractual spaghetti that exists elsewhere.
The workshops were really thought provoking although the institutionalsied snobbery of others in the public sector towards local government was a throwback to bygone days. They view things as a local government problem, when the reality is local government has out performed all other areas of the public sector in the last five years. This is backed up by facts via audit and efficiencies.
