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Case study of a scenario intervention in the public sector 399
the provision of responsive, community-oriented services, more customized
services, while at the same time applying the technologies
to support inclusion and to reduce inequalities.
(4) Northshire Council must use the new technologies in order to
promote itself as the ‘home for sustainable value creation’.
(5) The council must proactively promote and lobby for settlement of
the subsidiarity debate in favor of governance at the local level.
(6) Finally, in developing short-term solutions to immediate problems,
the council must watch out that long-term aspirations remain the
guiding light.
Following the outcomes of the scenario project and the resultant
debate within Northshire Council on the above implications, there
have been strategic decisions taken in support of fostering the concept
of joined-up government and seeking to foster the relationship with
central government, of whatever political persuasion, while promoting
the case of Northshire in the widest political and business arenas. In
addition to these strategic decisions, there has been operational action
in seeking to establish a web-based knowledge and transaction system
that will promote a citizen and business-focused interface between new
integrated service demand and provision by the council and its partners.
Benefits from the scenario interventions were seen to be:
(i) shared insights for participants in the process,
(ii) alternative ways forward tested against scenarios,
(iii) motivation for action from these insights,
(iv) agreement on a well-defined way forward,
(v) agreement on technology choice to support the way forward.
As such, the pre-intervention concerns with call center provision had
been replaced by a focus on developing Internet and intranet capabilities
to provide information and services to citizens – in the form of both (i)
single service transactions and (ii) integrated transactions involving
multiple service delivery.
In short, the scenario workshop invoked an ‘organizational jolt’
to routine, ‘business-as-usual’, thinking. The major insight was that
continuing with business-as-usual was a fragile strategy against the
constructed futures.
The scenario approach to decision making in the face of uncertainty
contrasts with decision-analytic approaches since participants in the
scenario project were able to consider plausible future scenarios prior
to evaluating strategic options. In decision analysis, options for action