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Approaches to Strategic Management in the Office of the Ombudsman (3 April 98)

Approaches to Strategic Management in the Office of the Ombudsman (3 April 98)

Joint Conference with Chief Executives' Forum, Northern Ireland

Approaches to Strategic Management

Pat WhelanDirectorOffice of the OmbudsmanDublinMarine Court Hotel, Bangor, 3 April 1998

Introduction

As one of the member organisations of the Association of Chief Executives of State Agencies I was very pleased to be invited to address this Joint Conference with the Chief Executives' Forum, Northern Ireland on approaches to strategic management in the Office of the Ombudsman. I sometimes feel that the smaller organisations which make up an Association like ours are "left out in the cold" when central Government initiatives are being formulated. Some of you may feel that the Strategic Management Initiative which was launched by the Irish Government in 1994 is a case in point. The same considerations can apply to the drafting of legislation where, generally, the views of civil service departments are taken into account but often, public bodies at one remove from the civil service are not adequately consulted even though they may be equally affected by the proposed legislation. I know that we will be interested to hear the views of our Northern colleagues on this issue.

I hope to share with you some of our experiences in applying the strategic management approach to our Office. I am not here to present solutions to you but rather to outline some of our successes and failures and the challenges which we currently face. Over the years, I have listened to many presentations by public bodies on the subject of organisational change, for example, the introduction of total quality management or new information technology systems. The usual approach adopted is to present a "before and after" scenario under which the organisation moved from total chaos to total efficiency and "lived happily ever after." This is not the approach which I will be taking today. As far as my Office is concerned we are best described in terms of the typical student's school report i.e. "performing well but could do better!".

What is Strategic Management?

All organisations will set priorities to ensure that those tasks which need to be completed are, in fact, completed. If my Office were to find itself with a large backlog of complaints we would take appropriate action such as redeploying staff resources, use of overtime, curtailing publicity or notifying complainants of the anticipated delay in finalising their cases. The questions which arise however, are who decides on the tasks to be completed and who sets the priorities? Is it management or staff or individual line managers? And what about the tasks which are not prioritised and which could assist the organisation to move from a reactive fire-fighting role to a more planned and proactive role? How does the organisation implement its goals? What performance indicators does the organisation have to measure its effectiveness?

Strategic Management can be useful in addressing these issues. As I see it, the main elements of a strategic management process are as follows:

• a time frame (usually 3-5 years) within which the organisation can plan to get from where it is now to where it wants to be;
• management and staff involvement to ensure that the needs of the organisation at all levels are fully addressed;
• market research to measure feedback from the public, clients and other stakeholders;
• appropriate staff/management structures to facilitate implementation of the organisation's goals;
• performance indicators to measure progress towards achievement of goals and
• a regular review of the strategic management plan.

Office of the Ombudsman - some facts and figures

Before describing our approach to strategic management I will outline some background information about my Office.

The Office was established in 1984 and Michael Mills was appointed Ombudsman with a remit which covered the civil service. One year later the local authorities, health boards and postal and telecommunications services were brought within jurisdiction. The Ombudsman is independent of Government and is appointed by the President upon resolution passed by the Dáil and the Seanad. The Ombudsman's staff are civil servants of the State rather than civil servants of the Government. In 1987, in the context of across the board public expenditure reductions, the Office's budget was cut disproportionately and the staffing complement was reduced from 41 to 28. Michael Mills went public on the matter and made a special report to the Oireachtas indicating that, due to the cuts, his Office was unable to fulfil its statutory functions. As a result, the Department of Finance was instructed to carry out a staffing review of the Office and by late 1990 some, but not all, of the staff were restored. In the same year Michael Mills was re-appointed to serve a second term as Ombudsman.

Following Kevin Murphy's appointment as Ombudsman in 1994, the functions of the Office have expanded considerably as follows:

• the Office provides the secretariat to the Public Offices Commission which was established on 1 November 1995. The Ombudsman is a member of the Commission and it has a role in relation to the Ethics in Public Office Act, 1995 which provides for the disclosure of interests by the holders of certain public offices including Ministers and members of the Oireachtas. It also has a role in relation to the Electoral Act, 1997 which provides for the disclosure of political donations and election expenditure and expenses.
• Since 1995 the Office has also provided the secretariat for three Ad hoc Commissions on Referendum Information. These Commissions, of which the Ombudsman was a member, supervised the production and publication of arguments for and against the proposals to amend the Constitution in the referenda on divorce, bail and cabinet confidentiality. Just recently the passing of the Referendum Commission Bill established the Referendum Commission on a statutory footing, the secretariat of which is attached to my Office. The Commission is presently making arrangements for a public information campaign in relation to the forthcoming referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty.

Other imminent developments are as follows:

• On 21 April the Ombudsman will take on the additional function of Information Commissioner under the Freedom of Information Act, 1997. The Act will give the public the right of access to records held by public bodies and the right to reasons for decisions affecting them. A new Office - The Office of the Information Commissioner - will be established with the function of determining appeals on access to information requests.
• a draft Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill is being prepared at present which proposes to extend the Ombudsman's remit to non-commercial state bodies, public voluntary hospitals and vocational education committees.

Finally in this section - some figures. The following table shows the number of valid complaints received by the Office of the Ombudsman in the period 1984 -1997

Table 1: Total number of valid complaints received in 1984 -1997

1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997
1544	4746	4996	4723	2803	2655	2727	2603	2637	2419	2489	2250	2536	3126

Strategic Management - The Process

The first evidence of strategic planning (although we did not call it that at the time) in the Office was in the period 1990 -1992 when we were planning our information technology needs. At that time we had in place a local area network which provided us with a range of statistics for annual report purposes. Apart from this function, the system was of little direct benefit to staff generally. Our objective was to try to develop an I.T. system which would be used as an information tool for all staff and not just used for management statistics.

Staff at all levels were actively involved in compiling a "shopping list" of the Office's IT needs and were strongly encouraged to participate in the shaping of the new system. We haven't got time today to describe the new system in detail but the main features are as follows:

• a complaints examination system which recorded all events associated with the processing of a case as they happened (i.e. meetings with the complainant and the public body concerned, recommendations to the Ombudsman and his decision). This information is accessible to all staff simultaneously;
• other electronic databases containing the Office's legal advice, Dail and Seanad Debates, an index of Irish Statutes, a staff absence log and the Office's examination and investigation procedures.

Keyboard and typing skills were an essential part of the training programme for all staff. Staff were encouraged to spend time acquiring these skills even if it resulted in slower processing times for complaints. Among the benefits of the system have been

• redeployment of typing staff to more interesting work;
• a more open and transparent system of complaints examination. For example staff can see at a glance the Ombudsman's approach to any given case. Reception staff can also advise complainants of developments on their cases without the need to contact the case-worker;
• case-workers now have on-screen access to most of the research tools which they need to process complaints, thus reducing the need to hold information in hard-copy format;
• the system is fully text searchable giving instant access to precedents and significant cases;
• the system facilitates greater communication with and between staff through what are known as discussion databases.

Although the system was introduced in 1992 we are continually updating and improving it. The most recent modification is aimed at giving a range of performance indicators including statistics on the time taken to deal with each stage in the processing of a complaint (i.e. the screening, preliminary examination and investigation procedures).

I have mentioned our I.T. system in the strategic management context because it has been one of the most significant developments in terms of organisation of work within the Office. The I.T. system was in itself a very valuable tool when we started the process of strategic management in the Office.

The Government's Strategic Management Initiative (SMI)

The Government's initial launch of SMI in 1994 posed a dilemma for the Office. On the one hand, as an Office receiving voted monies from the Oireachtas we were anxious to participate in the process along with Departments and other Offices. We also recognised that there was an overlap between the objectives of the Office and those of the SMI in that ultimately both are concerned with improving the quality of service to clients of public bodies. On the other hand, in view of the Office's independence, we could not agree to the requirement placed on departments generally to submit their strategic plans for the approval of the Minister for Finance. A compromise was reached by our agreeing to participate in the process on the condition that our Strategic Plan would not be subject to the approval of the Minister.

The process got under way in Autumn 1994 with two staff conferences in which all staff undertook a "SWOT" (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. This was the first fundamental review of the work of the Office since it was established 10 years previously. It also took place around the time that the first Ombudsman, Michael Mills, was about to retire. There was also an air of expectancy about what lay in store for the Office under the new Ombudsman, Kevin Murphy.

Among the problems identified by staff at that time were

• poor direction and leadership;
• poor public perception and image among complainants and the public bodies within remit;
• inadequate internal communications.

Following further staff meetings and consideration of all the issues raised, the Office produced its Strategic Plan 1994-1997 with the following goals:-

• a better service for our clients;
• improved communications;
• improved public image;
•  improved staff organisation and development;
• exploitation of technology;
• increased efficiency and adequate resources and
•  improved relations with public bodies within remit

Implementation of the Strategic Plan

Having involved all staff in the earlier stages of the SMI process we were anxious to continue to involve them in the implementation phase. We were also anxious that this involvement should not encroach significantly on the day to day work of complaints examination.

A number of workgroups were formed under the chairmanship of members of the Office's Management Committee. The task of the workgroups was to consider a number of strategies to achieve implementation of the goals which I have already outlined above. The groups were to report back to the Office's Strategic Management Steering Group within a 6 month time frame. Some workgroups did better than others. Overall there was a tendency among groups to talk around the issues rather than making concrete proposals for action.

In retrospect, we were probably over ambitious. We took on too many strategies and not all staff were comfortable with being involved in workgroups. While many relished the opportunity to get involved in issues outside of their daily workload, others felt that by pointing out the Office's strengths and weaknesses they had made their contribution. In their view, it was a matter for management to put corrective measures in place. We were not sufficiently sensitive at the time to this point of view. Rather we were over-sensitive to potential criticism that the strategic plan would be ignored by management. Nevertheless, some very useful results emerged from the process. For example:

• a limited complainant satisfaction survey was undertaken which showed that 44% of respondents were happy that their complaint had been examined fairly. However, 44% also felt that letters from the Office were not sufficiently clear and 31% felt that they had not been adequately informed of progress on their cases;
• we started thinking about setting targets for time required to complete each stage of the complaints examination process;
• we became conscious of the need to promote a quality approach to the work; specifically to find ways of recognising and rewarding high quality initiatives;
• we took a number of initiatives to improve internal communications;
• we developed greater links with the National Social Services Board. We now have staff members taking complaints from the public in 5 Citizens Information Centres on one day per month, thereby increasing accessibility to the Office;
• we decided to commission market research on the level of public awareness of the Office;
• we decided to review the presentation and layout of the Office's Annual Report which had remained unchanged for 10 years;
• we explicitly recognised the potential of our IT system to support all aspects of our work under Strategic Management;
• we reviewed the provisions of the Ombudsman Act, 1980 and put forward proposals to the Department of Finance for an increase in the powers of the Office and a wider remit;
• we identified a range of initiatives to improve our working relationships with the bodies within our remit and
• we arranged a training needs analysis.

Among the issues considered but not proceeded with were proposals to seek the Q mark and ISO 9000 standard for the Office. It was felt that the work of the Office could not be readily categorised by reference to such standards.

All of this work overlapped with the arrival of the new Ombudsman, Kevin Murphy. One of the benefits of the SMI process from his point of view was that he arrived at a time when the organisation was questioning itself and was receptive to new ideas.

The Statement of Strategy 1997-1999

In 1996 as part of its initiative on strategic management, the Government launched its policy document "Delivering Better Government". This document set out proposals in relation to issues which impacted on departments generally and other public bodies e.g. policy in relation to delivery of quality service, Human Resource Management, Financial Management and new structures of management.

Departments and Offices were asked to produce a statement of strategy. We had become much more focused when we came to prepare what was, in effect, our second strategic plan. Firstly, we developed a short mission statement as follows:

"We provide an independent, accessible, fair and effective complaints examination service"

The four words independence, accessibility, fairness and effectiveness represented the goals of the Office and from there we developed appropriate strategies and performance indicators. These are described in the attached Appendix. I think it is fair to say that all public service organisations have difficulty in developing performance indicators. We experienced similar problems and we recognise that some of the indicators are extremely "soft" and will require further refinement. I will return later to the subject of performance indicators.

Among the strategies pursued to date under the statement of strategy were:

• market research of 800 adults nation-wide which showed that 34% of respondents were aware that the Ombudsman can deal with complaints from the public and that 81% had heard of the Ombudsman;
• a second complainant survey which showed that 69% of respondents were happy that their complaint had been examined fairly. However, 35% felt that the Office had failed to address all of the points raised in their complaint and 33% felt that the existence of the Office was not sufficiently well publicised;
• a performance assessment system for all staff has been devised and implemented;
• an Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill is being prepared by the Department of Finance which will strengthen the Ombudsman's powers and extend his remit to the public voluntary hospitals, vocational education committees and non-commercial state bodies;
• relations with bodies within remit are being improved by using the Ombudsman's Annual Report as a means to give guidance and assistance to public servants rather than simply using it to criticise them. To date, the Ombudsman's Annual Reports have been used to publish what are known as the "Principles of Good Administration", "The Ombudsman's Guide to Standards of Best Practice for Public Servants" and his 1997 report which will be published shortly will include a handbook entitled "Settling Complaints; the Ombudsman's Guide to Internal Complaints Systems". In addition, staff are being encouraged to promote and develop opportunities to give public talks to officials of public bodies within jurisdiction;
• implementation of our training needs analysis is continuing;
• the Office's investigation procedures are being reviewed with a view to minimising the staff and time resources needed to complete investigations.

Public Service Management Act, 1997

Perhaps the most significant development at central Government level in relation to the strategic management initiative has been the enactment of the Public Service Management Act, 1997. Among other things, the Act will increase the accountability of civil servants while preserving the discretion of the Government in relation to their responsibility to the Dail. It provides for the assignment of cross-departmental functions and for the preparation of strategy statements by Government departments in accordance with Government guidelines and policies.

Given the statutory independence of the Office of the Ombudsman and in accordance with an option in the Act available to this Office and certain other offices, we elected not to be subject to its statutory provisions. The public perception of the independence of the Office is highly important. We could not subscribe to a provision which would subject the Office to Government direction in relation to the preparation of a Statement of Strategy. However, we fully support the spirit and intent of the Act and we are exploring ways of giving effect to its other provisions outside of the legal framework.

Performance Indicators

I mentioned earlier the difficulties which we faced (and still face) in developing adequate performance indicators against which to measure progress in achieving our strategies. However, I want to sound a note of caution because there are pitfalls in proceeding too far with measurement for measurement's sake. Quantity is more easily measured than quality and, accordingly, it is all too easy to inadvertently fall into the trap of ignoring quality. Henry Mintzberg of McGill University has written extensively on this subject. In his view "efficiency" has become a dirty word. He quotes the example of an efficient restaurant which, he says, is seen by most people as a place with fast service and no delays (i.e. easily measurable goals) rather than a place with good quality food (less easily measured).

I was also impressed by a recent paper by Professor Andrew Gray of the University of Durham in which he said that amidst the pressures on the public service to learn the new disciplines of commercial relationships and performance management it was important not to lose sight of the very important traditional public service values of equity and fairness. He also referred to a league table of second level schools in England which are bench marked by reference to a range of performance indicators. The pressures on head masters to maintain or improve their league table position has forced them to concentrate solely on the published range of indicators and to ignore those which might be equally valid indicators of performance but are not actually published.

In the case of my own Office our fear is that if we put too much emphasis on the need for staff to close cases within a designated period we run the risk of sacrificing thoroughness and high quality investigative work. Quality is not as easily measured but what we are seeking to achieve is the right balance between the quantity of cases completed and the quality of the output. The parameters which we are exploring as performance indicators of quality are the number of cases proposed by case-workers for investigation, the number of cases proposed for inclusion in the annual report and the contribution which the outcome of a particular case can make to raising standards of public administration generally. To my mind, one of the greatest challenges we face is to find ways of matching our staff and financial resources more closely to the demands of individual complaints. We need to be more discriminating in order to ensure that we constantly review the merits of our complaints and apply resources commensurate with those merits.

The next strategic plan

Throughout this paper I have concentrated on our complaints examination functions in the Office of the Ombudsman. However, as I said at the outset my Office now embraces additional functions (and will shortly embrace others) which did not exist 4 years ago when we first embarked on the strategic management process. We are moving from being a unifunctional office to a multi-functional one embracing the Ombudsman, the Public Offices Commission, the Referendum Commission and the Information Commissioner and, in time, an expanded remit for the Ombudsman in relation to complaints examination. The Ombudsman himself has a role in relation to all of the above functions. But the challenge for the Office as a whole will be to create a cohesive integrated organisation from these various functions. At first sight the functions appear quite disparate but they have common linkages through their independence and statutory basis and their functions in relation to administrative and political accountability, equity and transparency.

The organisation is now at a new beginning and it is opportune, therefore, to begin a new cycle under the strategic management process which I believe will assist us in formulating and achieving new goals.