KEY PROCESS GOALS:

• Strengthening the coherence, timeliness, ownership, participation and quality in the formulation of social policy.
• Strengthening the integration and effectiveness of planning and budget processes.
• Promoting the development of a more responsive, people-oriented and innovative culture in social policy institutions.
• Promoting the effectiveness of social information systems.

THE SOCIAL ACTION PLAN

The Social Policy Action Plan is designed to instigate changes to support a programme of long-term institutional reforms in the public sector. The plan sets out recommendations for the strengthening of social policy information systems and managing the social policy making process. It seeks also to establish a strategy for ensuring effective execution of policies and addresses the "agenda for change" in the systems and procedures of government, which will need to occur if social policy is to be more effectively managed and delivered.

CHANGING THE WAY WE WORK (IMPLEMENTING THE PLAN)

As citizens become more aware and more demanding, the government has to be constantly re-evaluating its policies to ensure that it is delivering the outcomes which people want while at the same time producing policies that deal with the real problem, are based on evidence rather than responding to short-term pressures, and that address causes and not symptoms.

Traditionally, our public services have been designed for the people who work in them rather than for those being served. Successful implementation of the Social Action Plan demands a genuine partnership between those providing services and those using them and would remove the barriers to effective and convenient services that stem primarily from the way government is organised.

The delivery of social development outcomes requires organisations that are flexible, responsive to the needs of users and partners and capable of continual learning from both successes and failures. JASPEV seeks to ensure that these are in place by introducing a set of "action prototypes" with each prototype addressing a specific area of desired social policy outcome identified as a felt need at different levels of the society.

JASPEV employs a participatory process to identify the possible policy and strategic goals for each prototype. The prototype design involves the creation of three levels of network or nodes. At the local level, community groups will deconstruct policy goals and strategies and specify their own priorities. At the centre, there is a group of personnel ­ experts drawn from government ministries, local government, voluntary groups and the private sector ­ who will develop the strategic agenda and will revise and select strategic objectives bearing in mind the goals selected by the political directorate (as outlined in the Social Policy Framework) and discussions held at the local level. The political directorate will assess and support the work at the strategic level and is collectively responsible for the achievement of results.

An integrated information system forms the critical link in the promotion of mutual action and learning. It provides for independent flow of information through the several nodes, progressive benchmarking of periodic changes at each location, benchmarking of outcomes and benchmarking of outputs and processes.

Through the information system, government can listen to the concerns of people and involve them in the decision making process. It affords the government the opportunity to give attention to the particular needs of particular communities of citizens and allows policies and solutions to problems to reflect the real lives of people. Finally, it includes a process of feedback to those who are consulted to let them know the eventual outcome and to allow them to assess the actual results towards achievement of social goals.

STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

In as much as social problems are inter-related, the government realises that solutions to these problems must be integrated or "joined-up". One of the barriers to effective service delivery has been the separation between policymakers, those who deliver services on the ground and the recipients of services/beneficiaries of policies. JASPEV will forge strategic linkages between the political directorate and communities, among government agencies, among the public and private sectors and the voluntary sector and among these sectors and the community.

The way information is collected and used will help to forge and reshape the institutional relationships necessary to ensure effectiveness. The process makes use of participatory action research. Not only are policy makers provided with better information, citizens are also empowered to influence policy design and outcomes. What results is a shared understanding of problems and shared responsibility for the solutions.

FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

The project was designed with the understanding that new ways to effectively deliver social services would have to be found against the background of a continuing decline in financial resources. To date, JASPEV has been supported by the Department for International Development (DFID UK) and the Cabinet Office. These arrangements will remain in place until the project is institutionalised within the next three years.

MOVING FORWARD

Over the next five years, the Human Resource Council of Cabinet will provide leadership for the implementation of the Social Action Plan and the arrangements necessary to monitor progress towards the policy goals. The core complement of staff is being recruited and a multi-functional team will be selected from the public, private and voluntary sectors to manage the first prototype ­ Youth Inclusion. Four more prototypes will be selected within the next month to be rolled out over the next three years.

Annual update of the Social Action Plan will be done via a phased three-year advance programme which will include existing social policy initiatives. The first programme will be prepared by June 2003.