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Policy directors at all Whitehall departments must develop new monitoring systems through which the views of frontline staff will inform future public services reforms. Cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, and Cabinet Office minister, Liam Byrne, announced the move at the annual Civil Service conference in London on 9 July, warning central government must tap into the expertise of staff ‘in the real world', if improvements to public services are to be maintained. It follows the publication of a report by the Sunningdale Institute in March, which urged Sir Gus to draw on the expertise of frontline public sector staff – including town hall employees – to overcome policy delivery problems exposed by Whitehall's Departmental Capability Reviews (DCRs). Responding to the Sunningdale study, co-authored by former permanent secretary Sir David Omand, Sir Gus said: ‘We must ensure we capture the knowledge and experience of frontline staff – nobody knows about what works and what doesn't better than people delivering services themselves, and its vital that Whitehall policy-makers reflect that knowledge when designing government policies.' Some Whitehall departments already draw on the experiences of frontline staff when developing delivery frameworks. The Department for Work and Pensions, for example, runs a ‘Back to the floor' campaign, sending managers to work in local JobcentrePlus offices. Sir Gus said he also envisaged a roll out of plans to place ‘office-less' civil servants in centres providing frontline services, such as GP practices and tax advice centres. ‘That's exactly the sort of place where we want to have a civil servant there, explaining how we can help people,' he said. Chief secretary to the Treasury, Mr Byrne added: ‘Decision making cannot begin and end in Whitehall. We must ensure the people who write the policy know where to turn, to keep frontline experience and the voices of citizens at the heart of their work.'

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Monitoring system 'needed' to channel views of frontline staff

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