Capability Reviews: Progress and Next Steps - The Civil Service

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ContentsForeword 11. Tranche 1 departments: a year on 5Department for Children, Schools and Families 7Department for Work and Pensions 10Home Office 13Ministry of Justice 172. Common capability gaps: progress and next steps 21Programme-level analysis 21Overarching picture 24Leadership 24Skills, capacity and capability 34Delivery and performance 42Delivery models 503. Take-off or tail-off?: the future of the programme 58Sustaining momentum 58Introducing dynamic capabilities 61Annex A: The model of capability 64Annex B: Assessment categories 68CAPABILITY REVIEWS: PROGRESS AND NEXT STEPS3
1. Tranche 1 departments: a year on‘However, as well as increasing the overall salience and urgency of theneed for change, encouraging more openness at board level, andproviding some common language and frameworks, the CapabilityReviews are also starting to impact on a number of substantive issueswithin departments, especially those in the first two tranches. TheCapability Reviews process has helped create an imperative for actionto tackle genuinely difficult problems.’Take-off or Tail-off? (Sunningdale Institute Evaluation)Four departments were reviewed initially: the Department for Constitutional Affairs(DCA) (as a pilot) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), the HomeOffice and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (as Tranche 1). TheCapability Review reports for this first tranche were published in July 2006. Sincethen, there have been various machinery of government changes affecting thesedepartments: the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has been created, taking on theresponsibilities of the DCA, together with responsibility for prisons and probation fromthe Home Office; responsibility for skills and higher education has transferred fromDfES to the new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS); a newDepartment for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) inherits the remaining DfESresponsibilities within its new wider cross-government remit on children’s matters; theresponsibilities of DWP have remained unchanged.Given the significant differences between the MoJ and DCA, and the uniquechallenges of setting up a new department, the Cabinet Office has been workingwith the MoJ to support it in embedding machinery of government changesthrough the new organisational structure required to deliver its four Public ServiceAgreements (PSAs). During this interim period the Department has reconfigured itsaction plan to reflect the diagnosis of both the DCA and Home Office reviews.Progress will be tested through a re-review provisionally set for spring 2008.The Tranche 1 departments started from very different baselines. DfES was thesecond highest-performing department in the Capability Reviews programme, withfour elements scored ‘strong’ or ‘well placed’ and only one ‘urgent development area’in the element of Build capability. DWP also had four elements scored ‘strong’ or‘well placed’ and two ‘urgent development areas’. The Home Office started withsome significant challenges, with the review team having ‘serious concerns’ abouttwo elements. The DCA had five elements scored ‘strong’ or ‘well placed’ and three‘urgent development areas’. Consequently, the ‘journey’ has been very different foreach department. The Home Office has had more scope for improvement, but alsohas had to embark on a significant internal capability building programme to kickstartthat progress and manage machinery of government changes. DWP hascombined its change programme from the Capability Review with processimprovements and a very challenging agenda of efficiency savings and staff cuts.DCSF has focused on a targeted programme of improvement in strategy, leadershipCAPABILITY REVIEWS: PROGRESS AND NEXT STEPS5
Page 1 and 2: Capability Reviews:Progress and Nex
Page 3: This has been an excellent example
Page 7 and 8: Department for Children, Schools an
Page 9 and 10: This will act as an innovative and
Page 11 and 12: • ‘Managing for improvement’:
Page 13 and 14: Home OfficeStarting from a low base
Page 15 and 16: Department’s wider agenda. Develo
Page 17 and 18: Ministry of JusticeThe MoJ was crea
Page 19 and 20: A number of significant programmes
Page 21 and 22: 2. Common capability gaps: progress
Page 23 and 24: later tranches have not been able t
Page 25 and 26: or hinder it:‘lack of leadership
Page 27 and 28: All of these aspects came together
Page 29 and 30: Case study: Collective leadership i
Page 31 and 32: • Engaging the wider SCS. This is
Page 33 and 34: Participants’ comments included:
Page 35 and 36: Consequently, the areas of focus su
Page 37 and 38: Building up the supply and demand s
Page 39 and 40: Case study: Development work with d
Page 41 and 42: Case study: A skills strategy for g
Page 43 and 44: The recent CSR has emphasised the i
Page 45 and 46: At six months after the review:•
Page 47 and 48: Our challenge now is to ensure that
Page 49 and 50: • a more comprehensive approach t
Page 51 and 52: The Tranche 3 report identified the
Page 53 and 54: Case study: The Home Office Strateg
Page 55 and 56:
The group is expanding to include l
Page 57 and 58:
• The Sunningdale Institute facil
Page 59 and 60:
Exhibit 3: Change trajectoriesCapab
Page 61 and 62:
original reviews. The re-review wil
Page 63 and 64:
Departments increasingly have to wo
Page 65 and 66:
LeadershipKey questions that test c
Page 67 and 68:
DeliveryKey questions that test cur
Page 69:
Capability Reviews TeamCabinet Offi
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Capability Reviews: Progress and Next Steps - The Civil Service

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