Making the Connections Action Plan

I am pleased to draw the attention of all Members to the publication of our action plan that takes forward the proposals published last October in ‘Making the Connections’. The action plan, entitled ‘Delivering the Connections’, sets out how we will take forward our agenda over the next five years to make public services more responsive, more accessible, more joined up, more efficient and more effective.

Improving public services is an absolute priority for the Assembly Government, and ‘Delivering the Connections’ represents a far-reaching programme for change and reform. It builds on the record investment that has gone into public services in Wales under a Labour Government. Services are now better funded and better staffed, and indicators show that they are improving as a result. We have to use the momentum to ensure that Wales has the services it needs for the twenty-first century.

Members will recall that we publicly consulted on ‘Making the Connections’. The response endorsed our approach and the principles on which it was based. These include the need to place citizens at the centre, equality and social justice, working together as the Welsh public service, and value for money. We received a number of constructive points and suggestions through the consultation process, which we have taken on board, and I am grateful to everyone who responded.

I want to emphasise three strands in our thinking. The first is that we have to deliver services with people. In order to ensure better health or education, it is our view that people have to be fully involved. In the action plan, we have identified the need for better and consistently high standards of customer care, and more one-stop shops and first points of contact, such as the successful Consumer Direct Wales and NHS Direct, which is now expanding its role in parts of Wales. We need more accessible advice and support, such as the help provided for young people by Careers Wales and Funky Dragon. We need to reach out more effectively to the vulnerable and disadvantaged, through programmes such as direct payments to older and disabled people. Our commitments on the Welsh language and equal opportunities must be mainstreamed across public services.

Delivering services with people also means that we have to give them—young and old—a stronger voice in the way services are designed and delivered. People and communities must have the opportunity to help shape the services that they receive. For example, our guidance, ‘Shaping Health Services Locally’, is about involving communities in changes to the way that local healthcare services are delivered. To underpin this citizen-centred approach, we are developing core standards for customer service and participation. We want each major service delivery body to apply these in producing clear service statements so that people know what they have a right to expect. We will develop the core standards in consultation.

The second strand is that public bodies and partners have to work much more closely together to provide services that meet the public’s expectations and achieve results for them. We strongly believe that collaboration rather than competition is the way forward in Wales. We already have many good examples on which we can build, from regional transport consortia to partnerships between local authorities and NHS bodies to support patients in their own homes. However, we have to take this much further. The action plan indicates a number of actual and potential areas for fresh collaboration across the NHS, local government, national bodies and sectors, from services for children needing special care to new approaches to collecting non-domestic rates.

I am particularly grateful for the constructive ideas and commitment that we have received from the leadership of the Welsh Local Government Association. To support further radical thinking, we will be undertaking a review of local service delivery within the parameters of existing local accountability arrangements.

The third strand is that greater efficiency and securing the best value that we can from the budget are crucial to better services. Through the action plan and the target of achieving gains worth £600 million a year by 2010 across the public services, we are challenging service-delivery organisations to get better value and to reallocate resources to the front line. This means action to improve procurement and commissioning, more shared services, reconfiguring services where necessary, and managing capital assets more effectively. We are developing Value Wales as an organisation as a catalyst to help bodies deliver, growing it out of the successful Welsh Procurement Initiative. It will work closely with other established purchasing and estates teams. These principles apply as much to the Assembly Government as a delivery organisation as they do to others.

‘Delivering the Connections’ is an ambitious long-term programme that will require sustained commitment and hard work. We have to work closely with all those involved, including public service leaders and stakeholders. That is why the First Minister has established a public services board, with all sectors represented, to advise us on our approach. The board is already proving its value. In order to achieve the transformation, we will work closely with the workforce. The action plan contains a number of measures, including the development of Public Service Management Wales, to support the workforce through the changes that our approach heralds, with its implications for skills and for the shift towards the front line. Through the Wales TUC, the unions have been constructive in their response, and we will be building on that, working closely with them on implementing the plan.

Commitment to serious change also means that ‘Delivering the Connections’ has to be a living plan, one that is regularly reviewed and revised. As well as listening to service deliverers and staff, we will be actively involving the public and listening to what it says. Finally, we have a unique opportunity in Wales to draw on the best from elsewhere while developing a distinctive agenda that meets our needs and circumstances. ‘Delivering the Connections’ brings all the facets of public service reform into a single, coherent framework. We look forward to the challenge of implementing it.