Managing improvement in the public sector

Abstract

Roads Service is an Executive Agency within the Department for Regional Development. The Department is the sole road authority in Northern Ireland. In recent years there has been a variety of improvement initiatives within the public sector in the UK and the purpose of this paper is to highlight the key determinants of how to successfully introduce, manage and measure such initiatives. The paper will include a brief introduction giving a description of the organization and the service that Roads Service provides to its customers. This will be followed by details of how the use of the Excellence Model in Roads Service has evolved over 4 years. The main part of the paper will look at how Roads Service has integrated the use of European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) self-assessment into its business planning process and will include details of the action planning process including the use of champions. The results of the most recent self-assessment will be discussed. Of particular interest will be the effects of organizational change. Roads Service has recently undergone an organizational restructuring. The paper will conclude with details of how the EFQM Excellence Model has been promoted within Roads Service to encourage ‘buy-in’ to the process at all levels throughout the organization. The lessons learned from the individual organizational context will be shown to be equally applicable in the wider public sector context.