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Last updated: 08 December 2009
1. Over many years the Australian state of Victoria’s government has developed a high-performing school system.80 By 2003, however, the impact of programmes introduced by the state government had diminished. If education standards were to continue to improve, top-down approaches were not likely to be sufficient; rather, schools would have to drive culture change themselves.81
2. To encourage this, the State Minister of Education challenged each individual school to develop a performance and development culture. Accreditation required the schools to demonstrate that five criteria were being met, including: effective induction and mentoring for new teachers; multiple sources of feedback for all teachers; and, significantly, that teachers themselves endorsed the presence of a performance and development culture in their school. To reinforce local ‘buy in’ each school was able to develop the measures and the approaches that were used to demonstrate that the five elements were in place. By 2008, professional development and innovation was up and 94% of schools had been accredited as having a performance and development culture.
The vast majority of schools in Victoria, Australia, have seen improvements in professional development in recent years. Teachers themselves have led much of the change.
In Victoria, by the mid 2000s many schools had developed a reputation for resisting change, especially when it came to programmes introduced from the centre. In response to this, the state government encouraged schools to drive culture change themselves, according to five high level principles/values of a performance and development culture. The criteria were: effective induction and mentoring for new teachers; use of multiple sources of feedback on individual teachers’ effectiveness; customised teacher-development plans; and individualised professional development. The fifth criterion was especially significant as it required teachers themselves to endorse the presence of a performance and development culture.
Schools were able to develop their own measures by which to assess teachers’ performance - increasing local ‘buy in’to improve performance against these measures. The process of accreditation was validated by Melbourne University to keep the process as objective and separate from government as possible.
The project fostered leadership and ownership of school improvement among 40,000 teachers in 1,600 schools - 94% of which had achieved accreditation by the end of 2008. Accredited schools saw sharp increases in professional development, interactive working and levels of school morale. Indications suggest that local level innovation has also increased. Evidence also indicates that as part of the process the ‘goals’ of classroom teachers and service leaders became increasingly aligned. The effects were most marked in the schools which had lower scores on these dimensions of professional life. These schools were often slower to seek accreditation - nevertheless, many of them went from below average levels of interactive working and school morale to significantly above average within three years.
Source: Driving culture change, Boston Consulting Group, 2009
3. Professionals leading the development of performance and development cultures in Victoria’s schools exemplify how world-class public services unlock the creativity and ambition of professionals delivering services, fostering a new professionalism to that ensure that services are responsive, innovative and of a consistently high quality.
4. The performance of public services cannot exceed the quality of the professionals working in those services.82 No matter how empowered the citizens, transparent the performance management system, personalised the service or collaborative the culture, poor-quality staff cannot be compensated for. The standards, innovative capacity and leadership of professionals is therefore the fifth important component of a strong, empowered relationship between citizens and services.
5. An essential step to achieving world-class professionalism is to ensure that the best people are recruited to work in public services. In recent years in the UK there has been some considerable success in recruiting and then holding on to the best people in public services. This has primarily been achieved in England through the development of new career routes, such as ‘fast-track’ routes into the police and teaching, improved career opportunities such as the new Nurse Practitioner role, and a broader drive to raise the status of careers in public service professions through high-profile initiatives such as ‘Teach First’, and more generally, through reinforcing the importance of public services for society as a whole.83
6. Evidence from around the world indicates that making public service professions more appealing, for example by raising the profile and status of these jobs, is an important step to recruiting the best people.84 In world-class systems this is reinforced by the use of rigorous selection and induction processes. Ensuring that only the best are selected and therefore increasing the status of and competition for jobs attracts ever more committed and talented individuals. In the coming years the use of rigorous selection processes will be even more important as it becomes necessary to recruit a new generation of public servant. For example, in the USA nearly 50% of the career Federal public sector workforce are eligible to retire within the next seven years.85
7. The best selection processes around the world use one-off and more longitudinal procedures, for example the use of highly competitive one-off public examinations to recruit teachers in France,86 more longitudinal induction and training for teachers, as in Shanghai, and the use of Master’s qualifications to recruit and train highly skilled social workers in Sweden (see case study box on page 62).
8. Our analysis has found, however, that the best systems are characterised by more than just attracting and selecting the best people. As in the case of the performance and development culture in Victoria’s schools, the creativity and ambition of professionals must also be unlocked, for example through professional ownership of the quality improvement agenda. Our survey indicates services which achieve this are characterised by the following:
In Sweden specialist social workers are trained and recruited through two-year Master’s degree courses which follow an initial three-and-a-half-year social studies higher education programme. Entry to the Master’s courses is only open to those who have already completed the initial social work training.
Individuals only gain formal social work authorisation following three years of relevant work experience and after providing evidence of external tutoring and their suitability to do the job (this is completed by two people who have been working with the applicant).
Entry to the initial higher education programme for aspiring social workers is highly competitive - in autumn 2008 there were nearly 7,000 applicants for social studies courses and just over 2,000 students were admitted.
9. Traditionally, professionals have combined a focus on learning specialist knowledge with relative isolation and autonomy once that knowledge is gained. In Singapore, a radically different approach to teacher training and professional practice exists: individual professionals are regularly and robustly assessed against a range of broad performance criteria. Individuals know how they perform compared with their colleagues and how they need to improve. This is combined with excellent professional and career development opportunities; for example, top performers often work in designated schools which have far more autonomy to innovate and lead the way for all schools to improve (see case study box opposite).
10. Our survey highlights the essential role of professional benchmarking so that professionals and organisations know how good they are and know how to improve.87 For example, Quality and Efficiency Reports in Sweden empower citizens and professionals to compare health care across counties, indicating how far each county varies from those that offer the highest levels of quality and the most efficient services. They detail, for example, the cost savings each county could have made if they had equalled the performance of the most efficient counties,88 while in Singapore, benchmarking in schools takes place at the level of the individual professional.
11. The best performance management systems do not just use benchmarking as a stick to beat poor performers. Rather, benchmarking is used as a way of reinforcing the development of professional practice and knowledge, as well as to prompt consideration of how services can help those they are there to serve. It reinforces professional motivations.89
12. Professional ownership of performance management is strengthened by extensive use of peer review and feedback, and by bringing together professionals with similar motivations to inspire, encourage and lead one another. For example, in Shanghai, teachers in their first year are assigned a professional mentor and junior teachers are regularly observed and provided with feedback to identify areas for professional development. Professional mentors have a very high status in schools - they are selected from among the best teachers in each school and are considered to have a highly prestigious role.
In Singapore top graduates are recruited to work in schools and high performance is rewarded professionally and financially.
The performance management system for teachers ensures that each individual professional knows how well they are doing in comparison to their peers and how to improve.
Each teacher is assessed annually against their professional peers, based on their contributions to the school and classroom, through four broad clusters of teaching competencies measured against a hierarchical scale from level 1 to level 5.
The criteria are broad, including aspects of teaching quality and the teacher’s wider contribution to the school. An overall grade (between A and E) is then confidentially awarded to each teacher. A very small proportion of the teachers who have performed outstandingly can be awarded an A grade and will receive a significant bonus, up to the equivalent of around four months’ salary. Smaller bonuses are also awarded to very good and good performers.
The performance management system works in tandem with a significant commitment to professional development: aspiring school leaders take a four-to-six-month full-time leadership programme and all teachers are entitled to 100 hours of training each year.
Evidence indicates that the fairness of the performance appraisal system and clarity of the criteria used lead to higher job satisfaction and motivation among teachers. The appraisal system reinforces a culture of high performance and professional commitment that is firmly in place.
Sources: Whelan, F. Lessons learned: How good policies produce better schools, 2009; ‘Teacher appraisal and its outcomes in Singapore primary schools’, Journal of Educational Administration, 2008
‘Australia is realising that building a shared knowledge base between professionals - across public/private divides and across different states - is the key to spreading innovation and delivering better services.’ Peter Allen, Deputy Dean, Australia and New Zealand School of Government
13. World-class services go beyond ensuring that professionals are engaged in their individual development. They also inspire and motivate professionals to engage in processes for improving organisational and system performance.90
14. Healthcare Quality Registries in Sweden have been instrumental in improving the quality of specific health care procedures and processes. Professionals are responsible for managing and contributing to the Registries, which contain relatively detailed information on patient treatment, interventions and outcomes. Aggregated data is then used by clinicians to inform and improve their medical practice.91 Similarly, the Alberta School Improvement Initiative involves professionals undertaking and evaluating discrete innovative research projects in a systematic way.
15. More radically, in some countries professional ownership of improvement has involved not just the development of new networks, but also the actual transfer of ownership of delivery organisations.92 In England, for example, Central Surrey Nurses is a social enterprise formed by staff to provide health care services. In other countries developments have gone further. For example, childcare in Sweden is provided through private, third sector and public provision, with a significant role for staff cooperatives - 27 organisations offering childcare services in Stockholm are staff cooperatives.
‘Where professionals are encouraged to lead and share innovation and research the results are impressive - all those in the system start to invest in service improvement.’ Sharon Friesen, President, Galileo Educational Network and Associate Professor, University of Calgary
In Sweden it is recognised that traditional patient record systems do not provide adequate data for professionals to drive and own quality improvement, so National Healthcare Quality Registries are used to systematically inform professional practice and research.
The Registries are owned and managed by medical practitioners - they use the data and have responsibility for their content and development, leading to very strong peer pressure to participate.
Participating clinicians provide detailed, frequently updated information on individual patients’ problems, interventions and outcomes of interventions in a way that makes it possible to compare data across individuals, groups of patients and across providers.
As such, the data can be used to benchmark providers and thereby drive improvements in standards within medical departments and hospital units. However, the Registries are not set up for the purposes of external quality control or the exercise of authority, but rather to inform professional learning and continuous improvement.
Registry data have led to many improvements over time in a number of medical procedures, for example the quality of hip replacements - the incidence of one major complication after surgery has dropped by about 400%. Over seven years the Registries contributed to achieving over £500 million in savings as a result of driving the improvement of hip replacement operations. They have also helped to demonstrate that a host of medical procedures do improve the prospects of long-term survival for patients.
Sources: National Healthcare Quality Registries in Sweden, Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, 2007; Improving the performance of health care systems: From measures to action, OECD, 2002
16. Professional quality and motivation can only be realised in an organisational environment which values the expertise and aspirations of users. Our survey found that achieving both is a significant challenge. In the private sector the franchise model has been used for decades to rapidly disseminate standard operating procedures, while each outlet maintains some link with and responsiveness to local contexts. Organisational arrangements are starting to develop in public services which go some way to achieving this.
17. For example, the Geisinger integrated health care system in the USA has strong central systems for identifying and rolling out best practice in diagnosis, treatment and aftercare across the organisation’s health care facilities in Pennsylvania. Unacceptable variations in medical procedures and quality across the system are not tolerated. The proportion of cardiac surgery patients receiving all 40 components of best practice identified by Geisinger increased from 59% in 2005 to, in effect, 100% in 2007. Simultaneously, links to the local community have been forged through community practice sites which in turn have strong links with specialty hospitals in a ‘hub and spoke’ design.
Through this innovative initiative in Alberta teachers are given considerable scope to conduct research projects on issues relevant to their individual schools and districts. The projects adhere to the broad goal and principles of the initiative; these have been updated recently to include a focus on ‘parental and community collaboration with schools’ (reflecting the increasing recognition internationally that involving parents in schooling is essential to improve performance; for further discussion see chapter 4).
All projects (over 1,700 to date) report their progress online to parents and fellow professionals. As part of the initiative, professionals also make links with projects across the state researching similar issues in a drive to help ensure findings are shared and disseminated.
Two areas of focus for research projects have been assessment for learning and student-led enquiry - professionals working in these areas have come together to share their project findings and best practice and are now leading the discussion on how to improve practice across schools through an online forum and professional events.
Independent research has shown statistically significant improvements in student performance across socio-economic groups, arising specifically from these projects on collaborative discipline-based enquiry along with assessment for learning.
Sources: Alberta Initiative for School Improvement; University of Calgary
18. Similarly, the best chains of schools in the USA are developing leading-edge practice and are using this as a foundation to set up community schools across the country where there is strong local support. They do this while maintaining very high quality thresholds in terms of the staff who are recruited and in terms of membership of governing bodies - the pressure for high standards arises, in part, through the possibility that schools will be disassociated from the chain if they fall below expectations. The starting point is an excellent model of professional practice which is put into practice in numerous communities.93
19. Germany offers further insights into how such chains can be embedded in their local communities. Wohlfahrtsverbände are large third-sector associations in Germany delivering public services nationwide; they combine professional expertise with high levels of community responsiveness. The associations have nationwide organisational structures but operate through decentralised local bases, bringing professionals together with volunteers, families and peers to deliver better outcomes. Significant innovation, such as better approaches to meeting the needs of vulnerable children, has arisen from the model.
20. Alongside introducing volunteers into professional networks and chains, we have also found that being embedded in communities can be enhanced if services are fused together or co-located in a local place. For example, Neighborhood Place partnerships in Louisville, USA have brought together public sector agencies to create community-based one-stop service centres to provide health, social care, welfare and education services all in one place for some of the most vulnerable and socially-excluded families in the city. Similarly, in Saskatchewan, Canada, the School Plus Program has brought about the co-location of health, education and social services in a school, making joining up between services much easier and convenient for both professionals and citizens and creating ‘a new social institution’.
The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a chain of 82 schools through which innovations are quickly and easily rolled out. Quickly sharing best practice within the chain network, means continuous improvement.
Recent research indicates that schools in the USA that are part of chains perform especially strongly compared both with isolated schools and the public school system as a whole. More than 85% of students go on to college from schools run by KIPP. This compares with a national rate, among low-income students of the kind many KIPP schools serve, of 20%.
KIPP schools spend more on staff costs and finance a longer school day than most schools; however, KIPP schools in New York spend less per pupil than the average New York middle school. One way this is achieved is by keeping administrative costs very low. KIPP schools maintain very high quality thresholds for the recruitment of staff - only accepting 4% of applicants for its school principal programme.
Sources: www.kipp.org; Whelan, F., Lessons learned: How good policies produce better schools, 2009; Edwards, B. and Crane, E., California’s charter schools: How are they performing?, 2008
The Deacon Association in Kassel has developed an innovative approach to meeting the needs of vulnerable children in the community. The local association recognised that an increased number of vulnerable children (partly arising from an increase in immigration) would require a professional response. Rather than operating through professional silos, it was decided a better approach to meeting the mild to highly complex needs of children in the town would be through a new meeting point called Harbour 17.
At this community centre, volunteers provide services such as language training and other activities, while in the same context professionals work with individual children to assess and treat their needs.
The centre is a local response to a community need, but it was possible to fund and develop because of national-level support, and because professionals, volunteers and the wider community worked together within the same organisation.
Sources: The Deacon Association; University of Kassel
The Neighborhood Place partnership in Louisville has brought public services together into one-stop shops.
Neighborhood Place is a partnership of public sector agencies that have come together to create a network of 10
community-based one-stop service centres, usually near a school, providing health,
social care, welfare and education services all in one place.
Providers all work together in the 10 sites to deliver immunisation and substance abuse services, childcare assistance, child protection, nutrition advice and social services. The services are provided to some of the most vulnerable and socially-excluded families in the city.
Citizens find the service useful - every day, approximately 1,000 families seek services at Neighborhood Places and 88% of clients rated their overall experience as ‘Excellent’ or ‘Good’. Importantly, 95% of service users said they would recommend the programme to someone who needed help.
The programme has meant many more children have been able to stay with their families rather than move into and then out of short-term foster care. This has obvious advantages for the children and families concerned and in addition has led to services saving an estimated $890,000 a year.
Additional savings have come from the streamlining of services - paperwork within the Housing Authority was streamlined through the programme, leading to savings of around $73,000 a year.
Source: Neighborhood Place, Louisville
‘The more space you give for flexibility and innovation, the more important it is to set expectations and standards.’ Alastair Levy, McKinsey and Company
21. In the same way as empowering citizens requires government to play a new role, rather than stepping back, new professionalism relies on a shift in the way central governments operate. Government will increasingly need to act as a strategic leader by giving high-performing professionals and organisations the freedom and flexibility they need to deliver excellent community services. Central departments and national organisations will increasingly need to be builders of capacity and connectors of delivery organisations. They will need to invest in excellent recruitment, form partnerships with professionals to benchmark and raise performance and enable organisations to come together in networks and chains.
22. In many of the dimensions of new professionalism public services in Britain are well developed. However, some services are not as far advanced as in some other countries in ensuring that all professionals take leading roles in defining excellence and driving forward the quality agenda, or in moving away from traditional organisational forms.94 Looking around the world, these appear to be the most important next steps.