The Workshop on Quality Management in Public Services will make the participants aware of key elements in quality management and will enable the participants to apply these approaches in their daily functions. The workshop will also encourage team work and peer learning across the public organisations in Croatia.
7. Element What was What is needed
Core culture
or paradigm
Outward rather than inward looking.
Intellectually strong but focused on policy
“Large group of staff for whom no change
would be acceptable, whatever its rationale, so
that all changes have tended to be resented
and resisted”
Better communication
More team-working
Stories Senior staff put their own name on others’
work
Ability to write good policy papers more
important than social and personal
competencies
“I don’t like to single people out for praise -
don’t want others to think I’ve got favourites”
Scots against the English!
The new Permanent Secretary
is ‘street-wise’ - used to work in
DfID.
He is more approachable –
even in the lift!
One Management Board
member appointed from outside
because she clearly had better
people management skills than
inside candidates
Case Study: A cultural web for the Department for
International Development in the UK
8. Element What was What is needed
Symbols Different treatment of staff in
London, Scotland and overseas
DfID in Whitehall was “group of
old white men”
Improved treatment of in-country appointed staff
Work/life balance example of Permanent Secretary
Webcast to all staff by Permanent Secretary
Objectives of all top management circulated to all staff
Management Board minutes now published
Open plan offices
Rituals and
routines
Disputatious – the debate is
valued more than the outcome
Staff appraisal is now done very differently, to encourage more
development orientation
Power The Department used to feel it
was a minor player in the FCO
Staff now believe that DfID has significant power on world
stage and could wield more if it works better with governments
overseas.
Within UK, power is still seen to lie within the policy making
process rather than the managerial process – but to a lesser
extent than before.
Structure Very hierarchical, but also very
strongly departmentalist
There is now much more emphasis on teamworking, although
the London office is still seen as more hierarchical than
Scotland
Control Largely through hierarchical
orders to staff, with some
monitoring
Much more cascading down through the organisation of the
targets in the PSA and SDA
Source: Adapted from Tony Bovaird (2007): Triggering change through culture clash,
in: Kuno Schedler & Isabella Proeller (eds.), Organisational culture and the
outcomes of public management reform. London: Taylor and Francis, pp. 323-50.