CIPFA: Think ‘Lean’ to improve public services

Lean’ processes can do for public services what lean manufacturing has achieved for the private sector, a group of senior public policy academics and practitioners claimed today. The same techniques that revolutionised automotive production in the 1980s could be used to aid public service reform, the panel explained in a special edition of the policy journal Public Money & Management.

Setting out evidence that lean thinking can address some of the inefficiencies found around public sector processes and practices, Zoe Radnor of Warwick Business School and Ruth Boaden of Manchester Business School, argued that the health sector in particular was already benefiting from lean ideas.

“There is little doubt of the applicability of Lean to the public sector. We are not suggesting it is a complete panacea, but in terms of organisational change, many of the processes and services in the public sector can gain greater efficiency by considering and implementing aspects of Lean,” the authors said.

Whilst acknowledging that certain challenges still existed in the implementation of lean systems in the public sector, the editors pointed out that the returns could be significant. Tangible benefits include a reduction in time, space and cost with improved quality and dependability impacting on both efficiency and effectiveness. Intangible benefits include a better understanding of customers, cross-team synergies, and a rise in employee motivation and morale.

Classic Lean principles include:

• Specifying the value desired by the customer.
• Identifying the value stream for each product providing that value and challenge all of the wasted steps.
• Making the product flow continuously.
• Introducing pull between all steps where continuous flow is impossible.
• Manage towards perfection so that the number of steps and the amount of time and information needed to serve the customer continually falls.

Other areas where there have already been a few reported applications of lean processes include universities, local government, government agencies and the military.

The editors summed up:

“We hope that policy-makers and stakeholders will join us in debating the potential of lean thinking as a tool of public service reform. We set out here our case for adapting, rather than adopting, ‘lean’ to fit public service reform.”

Ends

Contact: Richard Taylor

CIPFA Press Office, tel: 020 7543 5687

email: richard.taylor@cipfa.org

Notes to Editors:

For a full copy of the latest issue of Public Money & Management, Does Lean Enhance Public Services? please contact Richard Taylor on 020 7543 5687.

Contributors to the publication include Prof Ruth Boaden, Manchester Business School; Zoe Radnor, Warwick Business School; Peter Hines, Cardiff Business School; Eric Scorsone, Michigan State University.

The CIPFA Performance Improvement Network has a programme of events and papers on the application and impact of lean/systems ideas in local government and the wider public sector, contact Brendan.McCarron@ipf.co.uk 01249 783 489

Public Money & Management is owned and managed by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), www.cipfa.org.uk. The journal is published on behalf of CIPFA by Blackwell Publishing. It has a multidisciplinary and international audience. It publishes articles which contribute new knowledge as a basis for policy or management improvements, or which reflect on evidence from public service management and finance in order to suggest topics for research. Readers include: officials in all types of public service organizations; academics; consultants and advisers working with the public services; politicians

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) is one of the leading professional accountancy bodies in the UK and the only one which specialises in the public services. It is responsible for the education and training of professional accountants and for their regulation through the setting and monitoring of professional standards. Uniquely among the professional accountancy bodies in the UK, CIPFA has responsibility for setting accounting standards for a significant part of the economy, namely local government. CIPFA’s members work (often at the most senior level) in the public service bodies, in the national audit agencies and major accountancy firms. They are respected throughout for their high technical and ethical standards and professional integrity. CIPFA also provides a range of high quality advisory, information and training and consultancy services to public service organisations. As such, CIPFA is the leading independent commentator on managing and accounting for public money.