Public services should think more like technology giant Apple [...], Sir Michael Bichard, told the National Children and Adult Services Conference in London

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Alladultsarepapertigers Posted: 20 Oct 2011 9:50 AM

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Surely he doesn't mean to lock them into expensive contracts, restrict services to what the company wants to provide and not allow personalisation?

Shirley shum mistake?

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/19/10/2011/117629/make-clients-apple-of-your-eye-public-services-urged.htm

*facetious face*

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JoSoPhine replied on 20 Oct 2011 10:20 AM

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Using Apple as a model for social care is a very strange idea, but hey cults do generate odd thinking processes.

What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs
http://gawker.com/5847344

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Alladultsarepapertigers replied on 20 Oct 2011 10:32 AM

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Now I have to resist typo jokes. This is not healthy first thing in the morning.

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Rainbowarch replied on 20 Oct 2011 2:56 PM

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I think he's trying to say that public services are in a marketplace and we all need to wake up to what that means. 

He made a bit of a hash of it though with that statement!

It's a bit like when Tim Loughton said that private childrens placement providers should operate more like Tescos!!!

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AOGT replied on 20 Oct 2011 3:15 PM

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An Apple a day clearly doesn't keep the doctor away.

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Rainbowarch replied on 20 Oct 2011 5:28 PM

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I think I know what he means though...he's possibly talking about leadership and operational culture. Apple have very very few levels between 'top' and 'bottom'. A culture of empowerment, a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence, purpose built environments centred around employee need, lean systems (so removal of duplication) and generally a culture of embracing change

Quite different to the LA's I've worked for to be honest. 

I think it would be interesting to get a copy of his speech ... to make a more informed judgement.

?

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tiptop replied on 20 Oct 2011 11:49 PM

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Steve Jobs once said that he would not have been an innovator if he had not been a user of LSD Not sue this woud be endorsed by teh great and the good though

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JoSoPhine replied on 21 Oct 2011 12:24 AM

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Rainbowarch:

I think I know what he means though...he's possibly talking about leadership and operational culture. Apple have very very few levels between 'top' and 'bottom'. A culture of empowerment, a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence, purpose built environments centred around employee need, lean systems (so removal of duplication) and generally a culture of embracing change

I suggest you may modify your view based upon the actual realities discussed here:

http://gawker.com/5847344

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Rainbowarch replied on 21 Oct 2011 12:53 AM

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OK.. well the only conflict is the culture of empowerment... and there seem to be different reports about that. But I think my comments still stand.

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copperbird replied on 21 Oct 2011 6:10 AM

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Clearly it's a great metaphor, so easy to interpret to mean whatever you want it to :)

I was assuming he meant they should be customer focussed, accessible, and design services people want to use. Oh and phenomenally profitable ...

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redana replied on 21 Oct 2011 8:41 AM

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I am sure the service users would have some very imaginative ideas to turn a profit............

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Rupert M replied on 21 Oct 2011 9:20 AM

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People like Steve Jobs and highly paid chiefs at Apple (and all such huge concerns) rarely get so rich without exploiting others along the way - the Link that JoSoPhine gives above is well worth a read.

The same very much applies throughout both the Public and Private sectors - how do we justify Chief Execs. on £150k+ - or many senior managers salaries in Social Work / Social Care. They earn rich rewards also for abject failures - such as some senior people in Birmingham and CAFCASS. Speaking of CAFCASS many will remember Anthony Douglas making Service Managers and others redundant with associated costs only to see the Posts re-created / re-advertised - but clearly our political masters like him - how else would he have remained in that job as well as BAAF - clear conflict of interests in my opinion.

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Rainbowarch replied on 21 Oct 2011 9:59 AM

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We operate in a market place. It's reality. As much as we may not like it, it won't ever change. So.. rather than campaiging for everything to be brought under LA rule, I think its more productive to learn about how best it is to manage the market we have to our best advantage.

And there is one answer.. competition. Its what raises quality and decreases price. Its not rocket science.. it's the golden rule of every market. 

BUT... the problem we have is that LA's just don't commission properly. They don't encourage true competition. There is too much of a conflict of interest and when you get into the detail, you discover some very alarming things going on... basically people protecting their own jobs and the jobs of their colleagues.

Until Local Authorities have the balls to use a genuine level playing field, the rest of society will just continue to mock their plastic moral highground.

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Bronaghm replied on 21 Oct 2011 11:33 AM

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I

Rainbowarch:

I think I know what he means though...he's possibly talking about leadership and operational culture. Apple have very very few levels between 'top' and 'bottom'. A culture of empowerment, a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence, purpose built environments centred around employee need, lean systems (so removal of duplication) and generally a culture of embracing change

Quite different to the LA's I've worked for to be honest. 

I think it would be interesting to get a copy of his speech ... to make a more informed judgement.

?

I've invited Michael Bichard to write about his ideas in Community Care

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JoSoPhine replied on 21 Oct 2011 11:53 AM

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Rainbowarch:

OK.. well the only conflict is the culture of empowerment... and there seem to be different reports about that. But I think my comments still stand.

The products created by Apple  do not 'empower' the user, they are cult fashion products that funnel users down Apple's one way track, to it's products and services that lock-out others ans restrict users options, this is a very serious retrograde step in the field of personal technology. Comments can stand of course, but it is a question of verifiable validity of the suggestions that matter.

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help2 replied on 21 Oct 2011 1:45 PM

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HaHaha

You cannot compare social welfare and apple they have different drivers and outcomes apple is a gadget and piece of tech... don't get me wrong I  love the products, i have a laptop, ipod and iphone. But that they are inanimate objects, complicated inanimate objects ... but objects all the same.

If you are talking structure and management ....there are probably some bits you could pinch.. but social welfare cannot make a profit because its a bit of a bottomless pit this why big bussiness has never been really interested in it. However state money can now be funneled to the private market.. so there is a cherry going spare now. Co-operation - how do qualitfy that one, Support- and that one, Dignity- that one too!  Does apple give away its products- nope they  I don't recall that.   2 words "big society"

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Rainbowarch replied on 21 Oct 2011 6:35 PM

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I was referring to the organisational culture, not the products

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JoSoPhine replied on 21 Oct 2011 8:50 PM

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More reason to follow the Apple culture:

Jobs: 'I'll spend my dying breath destroying Android'

Threatened $40bn war over rival mobe OS, slated Google

As if it is possible to separate a Company product from it's culture.

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Rainbowarch replied on 21 Oct 2011 11:17 PM

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Sigh... you won't get it.......

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JoSoPhine replied on 21 Oct 2011 11:58 PM

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Rainbowarch:

Sigh... you won't get it.......

Can you point to any online links that discuss this vaunted organisational culture and whether that includes any of the IPhone manufacturing plants (plantations) in China and the evidence of Child labour?

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Rainbowarch replied on 23 Oct 2011 11:37 PM

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Yes, but thats not my point at all!

I'm sorry... I am obviously not just explaining this one well. Its nothing to do with the ethics, is the processes that are used in private companies that he's on about. Look at Gershon... he concluded that there was a huge amount of waste in public services and he was right. For example...

• Highly qualified social workers doing many administrative tasks
• Serious unnecessary duplication (different forms for the same purpose, duplicated information sharing)
• Authorisation processes - decisions having to be authorised through several managers rather than having one person taking accountability
• Panels - there are many different panels and many just have a blanket policy to consider all cases . rather than empower social workers who are confident in their decisions and bring unresolved / difficult cases to panel
• Poor working environments and conditions for staff...leading to reduced productivity, time off, turnover etc

Just a few examples.. From my experience of the private sector... many just don't have 'waste' in their organisation. Everything is streamlined, there are clear systems and no duplication. Its all about efficiency and productivity.

I work in both public and private sector and I just see so much waste in the public sector. Granted, some private sectors do it to increase their 'profit' (which is usually a return on investment for a significant number of years).  So I think Bichard is trying to say that there are lessons to be learnt from large private firms in the way that they deliver goods and services. And that if a local authority used some of the methodologies then they would be far more efficicient.

And of course... the ethical bit is a given. If a LA has a vision to ethically deliver good social care services, this can still be achieved with less waste - using some of the management frameworks set up by companies like Apple.

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tiptop replied on 23 Oct 2011 11:51 PM

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Here is one bit ofprivate sector  waste: those of us who have the misfortune of having to use Virgin trains are bemused to learn that they prefer to run empty train carriages by re-clasiffying peak times, which apparently is until 11.07 am on the off chance that there may be business travellers arriving to purchase tickets on the time of travel. Not efficient and not exactly a battle against waste.

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JoSoPhine replied on 28 Oct 2011 5:54 PM

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Culture wars:

"...the important thing to remember about Jobs is how he directed those who are still alive: the billionaire iPhone baron told Apple staff to "make general purpose computers with digital handcuffs more controlling and unjust than ever before"."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/28/stallman_criticises_steve_jobs_again/

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
http://youtu.be/OYecfV3ubP8

And it's back to the workhouse for you then...

OYecfV3ubP8

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Boxerdog replied on 28 Oct 2011 7:42 PM

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It does appear that Steve Jobs was a man of great contradictions...if Mr Bichard wanted to recommend a business approach to social care he would be advised to look closer to home....at John Timpson for instance....We all know Timpsons High St Shops....keys cut....shoes  soled etc....but read Mr Timpson's book entitled "Upside Down Management"...and he puts his money where his mouth is by applying this throughout his business by trusting his employees and giving them maximum discretion in operating local shops. And like social work... his is a service industry...not a manufacturing one. He also visits his shops on a regular basis...dropping in unnanounced .... not to catch his employees out but to have a genuine dialogue with them.

Also Mr and Mrs Timpson have fostered many children and have even produced a book explaining attachment theory...simply...for the general reader.

I did think of contacting him and asking him if he would apply for the vacant Chair of Cafcass....where he could truly demolish Anthony Douglas and his executive's disastrous command and control paternalistic philosophy...which thrives on mistrust of their practitioners.

If you want to read something I found really chilling..then follow this  link to the P.A. Consultancy report on Cafcass...when these pillocks reduce the social work task to a manufacturing process....and made nearly £500.000 from the public purse for this Chicago Business School tomfoolery.

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/c/cafcass%20issues%20analysis.pdf

John Timpson also has a blog which is well worth reading...

http://www.timpson.co.uk/blog

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Boxerdog replied on 28 Oct 2011 7:49 PM

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P.S....... C.C might like to do an article on Mr and Mrs Timpson

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copperbird replied on 28 Oct 2011 8:35 PM

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I'm always a bit dubious about places that say they have less formal salary structures and only do appraisals when people want them, it implies that whoever shouts loudest gets the most pay. Also a hedge against people realising that there might be some systematic pay discrimination going on.

Company wise, when I was in the engineering line, it was Google not Apple that people wanted to work for. Not sure if they still do this but they used to let the engineers have fridays free to work on their own pet projects, as long as it was vaguely relevant.

I still think Bichard was thinking about the consumers point of view when he said Apple though.

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swstudent replied on 2 Nov 2011 5:12 PM

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As a 1st year social work student, this is an interesting debate.

Although it's plain Bitchard was referring to Apple's business model as a good example, his contrast was certain to be linked all the other connotations that have been discussed above.

I have substantial personal experience running a service as a front line support worker/officer, and I was recently required to collate 2 years worth of outcomes on participating service users in relation housing, employment, neighbourhood relations, self-esteem, pride etc.

Personally, I am resistant to the business-like, outcomes based environment we have created and continue to strengthen within social work/care. My experience is, it lowers morale amongst trained staff who have little interest in number crunching, and strengthens the position of business people with no training who don't belong in our offices.