Why does UK Government require rigour for emergency work for everywhere EXCEPT the UK?
The UK Government demands a high degree of rigour for all UK public money spent to alleviate emergencies. I know this well from conversations with Department for International Development people across the table in Kenya, in Ethiopia, in Sierra Leone during recovery from Ebola, in Jordan in preparing education work in rebel-held Syria territory - as also elsewhere with other funders.
.Or. to be more precise - the UK Government demands a high degree of rigour in all countries where our Government spends such money, with ONE exception. That exception is money spent in the UK, where Government Ministers are blatantly allowed to mark their own homework without independent evaluation of the plan and the results, Yes, even in an emergency, even in the toughest times with Ebola in Sierra Leone, we were required to be rigorous. And if we had not we would not have succeeded in eradicating Ebola from Sierra Leone with less than 4000 deaths.
If I had said to DFID people "the test is in the post" as a plan or a result I would have been laughed out of court.
If I had said to DFID people "the test is in the post" as a plan or a result I would have been laughed out of court.
To be a little technical for a moment, saving lives is an Outcome (what you want to happen)
A test result is an Output (something you deliver, not for its own sake but because it is supposed to help towards an Outcome).
A test in the post is not an Output. You haven't delivered anything useful, the test kit could reasonably viewed as in Input.
A Theory of Change shows how you reckon your Inputs will help you achieve Outputs that result in Outcomes.
A test result is an Output (something you deliver, not for its own sake but because it is supposed to help towards an Outcome).
A test in the post is not an Output. You haven't delivered anything useful, the test kit could reasonably viewed as in Input.
A Theory of Change shows how you reckon your Inputs will help you achieve Outputs that result in Outcomes.
Matt Hancock's fundamental error is to treat test results (or even posted tests) as an Outcome - as something worth doing for its own sake, hence the 100,000 target and the talk of a 200,000 target WITHOUT Outcome targets as to what those tests were for.
Of course some of the tests will have been useful; but I would liken this to driving without a map, very fast at times, burning fuel at maximum rate, not always going in the right direction, but with a target of getting as many miles on the milometer er as possible; if that was the target then the car would be driven fast, burning maximum fuel, but not necessarily to good effect. that's what Matt Hancock is doing. And the co-ordination is lacking. The Sunday Times reports Boris Johnson asking who was in charge of all this and being told that he, Boris Johnson, was supposed to be.
Of course some of the tests will have been useful; but I would liken this to driving without a map, very fast at times, burning fuel at maximum rate, not always going in the right direction, but with a target of getting as many miles on the milometer er as possible; if that was the target then the car would be driven fast, burning maximum fuel, but not necessarily to good effect. that's what Matt Hancock is doing. And the co-ordination is lacking. The Sunday Times reports Boris Johnson asking who was in charge of all this and being told that he, Boris Johnson, was supposed to be.
The UK Government has all the expertise it needs to apply this rigour. I am tempted to say that if Priti Patel had had her mind on the job when she was International Development Secretary (in the way that Justine Greening had, and Rory Stewart in his brief time on the job, and Alistair Burt who we live-linked to the teacher teaching in Syria) then she would know this.
More in the "MissCellarKnee" channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JMDZu2cN_4&t=2s
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FURTHER NOTE ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE (optional).
I spent many years in the field particularly of project and programme management. In the early 1990s I sat on the Technical Committee fro the PRINCE project management method, having worked for the company that owned the private sector equivalent method (PROMPT) in the late 1980s. I proposed that the method should have a clearer focus on "benefits" (in effect, "Outcomes" as above), not just Outputs. In the end that suggestion was adopted by the Government, but as part of the Government Programme Management Method (where a Programme can include a group of possibly co-ordinated projects, maybe as part of an overall drive towards some common Outcomes).
When, towards the end of my career, I stepped fully into the world of international development in 2012, I was ready to see the project management being less rigorous. And there certainly was possible cross-fertilisation. I was able to introduce some project assurance principles into World Vision UK's grant assessment process - not called "project assurance", but it was a more "Softly softly" approach - literally, with a check of
Strategic Alignment
Operational Capability
Financial Viability
Technical Soundness
Likelihood of being awarded... all leading to a
Yes/No decision as to whether to bid for the grant
(Initial letters spelling "SOFTLY" so that everyone could remember the headline factors).
The approach was adopted across World Vision UK, and later was a strong influencer in the design of World Viison's world wide approach,.
So there was indeed cross-fertilisation from private sector & public sector practice (I'll just call this "commercial") into international development.
But one area where I viewed international development as being way ahead of commercial practice was in the rigour of outcomes (and that's why I emphasised this so much above the line).
Because the difference I think was this.
In the commercial sphere, work on "benefits" (outcomes) such as I referred to in the 1990s had become commonly accepted good practice. But many commercial Programme & Project Managers were still inclined to treat analysis of benefits as an add-on or afterthought - they knew they had to think about this, but preferred the safer ground of the Outputs they were producing. (I trained hundreds of them, so I have to take some accountability if some hadn't fully embedded these concepts!) I am generalising to an enormous extent here - of course some learned, lived and breathed the benefit-focused approach.
But I mention this for a reason. When I immersed myself in international development, i found that funders and providers were immersed in "starting from Outcomes". No debate, no patchwork. Everyone knew that your "action" (your project, e.g. grant-funded) HAD to be absolutely founded on what Outcomes you were aiming for. "Begin with the End in Mind" as in Stephen Covey's maxim. And it was great to see that this was always the start-point.
Which is why - to conclude this personal reflection - I think it is such a shame - hey, let's look forward, such an opportunity ... - this is why there is such an opportunity for the coronavirus work in the UK to be done so much more effectively - if we Begin with the End in Mind.
More in the "MissCellarKnee" channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JMDZu2cN_4&t=2s
________________________
FURTHER NOTE ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE (optional).
I spent many years in the field particularly of project and programme management. In the early 1990s I sat on the Technical Committee fro the PRINCE project management method, having worked for the company that owned the private sector equivalent method (PROMPT) in the late 1980s. I proposed that the method should have a clearer focus on "benefits" (in effect, "Outcomes" as above), not just Outputs. In the end that suggestion was adopted by the Government, but as part of the Government Programme Management Method (where a Programme can include a group of possibly co-ordinated projects, maybe as part of an overall drive towards some common Outcomes).
When, towards the end of my career, I stepped fully into the world of international development in 2012, I was ready to see the project management being less rigorous. And there certainly was possible cross-fertilisation. I was able to introduce some project assurance principles into World Vision UK's grant assessment process - not called "project assurance", but it was a more "Softly softly" approach - literally, with a check of
Strategic Alignment
Operational Capability
Financial Viability
Technical Soundness
Likelihood of being awarded... all leading to a
Yes/No decision as to whether to bid for the grant
(Initial letters spelling "SOFTLY" so that everyone could remember the headline factors).
The approach was adopted across World Vision UK, and later was a strong influencer in the design of World Viison's world wide approach,.
So there was indeed cross-fertilisation from private sector & public sector practice (I'll just call this "commercial") into international development.
But one area where I viewed international development as being way ahead of commercial practice was in the rigour of outcomes (and that's why I emphasised this so much above the line).
Because the difference I think was this.
In the commercial sphere, work on "benefits" (outcomes) such as I referred to in the 1990s had become commonly accepted good practice. But many commercial Programme & Project Managers were still inclined to treat analysis of benefits as an add-on or afterthought - they knew they had to think about this, but preferred the safer ground of the Outputs they were producing. (I trained hundreds of them, so I have to take some accountability if some hadn't fully embedded these concepts!) I am generalising to an enormous extent here - of course some learned, lived and breathed the benefit-focused approach.
But I mention this for a reason. When I immersed myself in international development, i found that funders and providers were immersed in "starting from Outcomes". No debate, no patchwork. Everyone knew that your "action" (your project, e.g. grant-funded) HAD to be absolutely founded on what Outcomes you were aiming for. "Begin with the End in Mind" as in Stephen Covey's maxim. And it was great to see that this was always the start-point.
Which is why - to conclude this personal reflection - I think it is such a shame - hey, let's look forward, such an opportunity ... - this is why there is such an opportunity for the coronavirus work in the UK to be done so much more effectively - if we Begin with the End in Mind.
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