Public service for the future: Bernard Le Masson interview

Bernard Le Masson, Accenture’s Global Managing Director of Health and Public Service, met with Owen McQuade during a recent visit to Dublin to discuss how public services are being transformed and the levers for the successful delivery in the future. 

Bernard Le Masson starts by detailing the trends that have permanently transformed the delivery of public services: “A world that is increasingly multi-polarised, the rising of the middle class in the emerging economies and the increasing pace of urbanisation.  As a result, the fundamentals of public service have permanently transformed and this is the new normal but governments are not all starting from the same point.”

Accenture classes countries into three main groups:  Europe collectively has a huge deficit and accounts for 50 per cent of the world’s social security payments despite having less than 10 per cent of the global population.  “We have grouped many of the European deficit countries into a grouping called the ‘cutters’, which includes Ireland and also the UK, Spain [and] France but also includes the US and Japan.”

Elsewhere, the ‘builders’ are less developed countries that are “looking to go directly to state of the art public service delivery” e.g. China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and those in the Middle East.

“In the middle, there are more mature economies with some natural resources which has sheltered them from the crisis and they can implement reform at a different pace,” he adds. These include Canada, Australia, Norway, Germany and Finland.

To take the example of e-health, this technology is being implemented in many ‘builder’ countries at a fast pace and also in countries such as the US where large private sector providers can move at a faster pace than those in the public sector.  e-health is also being introduced in the ‘enhancers’ such as  Singapore but the pace is slow in the mature European countries such as France, the UK and Ireland.

Emerging trends

Published in August, Accenture’s keynote report ‘Delivering Public Service for the Future: Navigating the Shifts’ identifies four major cross-cutting themes that are emerging in how public services are delivered.

In the ‘personalised’ approach, services are “designed with citizens by focusing on the age group of the citizen and taking the right approach for that group … that’s absolutely key.”  This method combines better quality of service and better efficiency as the service can be tailored for each age category.

‘Digital by default’ entails technology-enabled innovation in public services and insight-driven delivery.  Le Masson says that in addition to improving individual services, analytics can be applied directly to direct spending (e.g. social benefit payments) or raising revenue i.e. by analysing the payment of taxes.  The report shows how savings have been achieved by applying analytics in a wide range of systems.  Depending on the degree of development of a country’s savings, between 3 and 10 per cent can be achieved and in some cases this figure can be as high as 15 per cent.  “It’s not just about fraud,” he comments, “but more applying the right regulation by collecting the right data and analysing it properly to identify non-compliance in the payment or collection system.”

‘Diverse delivery models’ constitute the third trend.  Le Masson notes that much of the innovation in public service delivery has come through the public sector collaborating with the private and third sectors and also entrepreneurs.  “The mind-set has got to be about leveraging the right organisation to deliver the service,” he explains.  “It’s not only about the silos of central government.  This is happening to some degree in most countries.”

Fourthly, the Accenture report calls for a ‘new era for mission productivity’ delivered by ‘21st century public servants’ and identifies a gap in the level of expenditure required to deliver public services over the period to 2025.  This gap is based on existing delivery models and shows that all governments, no matter the size of their existing deficit, will face a shortfall in funding in 2025 to meet the socio-demographic driven demand projections.

To close this gap, Le Masson says: “If we were able to apply the same productivity gain as in [what] the private sector has seen over the past 10 years, close to two per cent each year, we would close the gap.  Indeed, our modelling shows that half that gain, that is one per cent each year, would close the funding gap.”

The key issue is the pace of change.  There is a tendency towards ‘analysis and decide’ but the implementation is slow and does not go to its full potential.  In Europe, the targets will deliver the required productivity gains if are implemented.  They typically reduce back office costs by 10 per cent over two to three years and reduce headcount by roughly 2 per cent per annum.

The report included a survey of 5,000 citizens across 10 countries. Although there was variation between countries, overall the citizen in the wake of the global financial crisis has low confidence in government.  In many countries, the citizens believe that their country is heading in the wrong direction but Le Masson is not surprised by these findings: “We behave in three ways which are often conflicting.  As citizens, we see the common good.  However, as tax-payers, we are keen to reduce the cost of government and as users of public services, we want 24-7 access.”

Communication is vital for addressing that lack of confidence in governments:  “In Ireland, the debate is about if government is doing the right thing and at the right pace.  It’s the same elsewhere.  It is key to show government is delivering and to show the citizen the impact of change.”

 
Governments, Le Masson emphasises, need to have more aggressive targets and focus on the pace of change in a way that brings the whole system together.  As part of this, implementation timelines are central to success with a two- to three-year timeframe focusing on actual change. “A cross-cutting approach,” he states, “is key and everyone in government should be part of the transformation story.”