Mutuals will not deliver service improvements unless there is better people management: CIPD

Simply creating co-operatives or employee-led trusts will not deliver the necessary improvements in public service delivery without a determined effort to improve the overall quality of people management, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) has warned.

In a briefing on the general election, the CIPD said it supports, in principle, the move by all the main parties to allow public sector employees to create co-operatives.

The Institute said: “A co-operative model could in theory help the public sector respond to the challenge of improving efficiency and effectiveness. It could help deliver the kind of shared purpose and front-line autonomy that can generate real employee engagement and innovation.”

But the CIPD claimed that whether such a model would work in practice would depend on the quality of people management.

It said: “One reason behind the success of John Lewis, for example, is the effectiveness of their management, not just the partnership model. CIPD research suggests that, despite pockets of excellence, the quality of line management across much of the public sector needs to improve if there is to be a step change in front-line services.

The Institute called for a freeze in the overall public sector pay bill, which would allow flexibility in reward policies so that skills shortages and pay imbalances in the public sector can be tackled.

It added: “We also believe there needs to be a radical rethink of how we link pay to individual and collective contribution and organisational success if government, post-election, is to have any hope of delivering more with less. The chances of the public sector delivering on political and public expectations would be enhanced by an intelligent and well-targeted approach to performance-related pay and bonuses.”