The Problem and Auditable Quality Standards as a Solution

Government is unique in that the economic reality that confronts almost every other kind of economic entity does not confront government. Government will never go out of business as a consequence of a lack of delivered quality or competition. The problem is that there is no "invisible hand" that guides government services naturally to meet the demands of its customers. Only elected representatives can shutter those that do not work, and the record of such shut-downs is almost non-existent

Government must provide essential public services and it must ensure that public obligations are met. Municipal bankruptcy notwithstanding, there is not one poorly operated city (or more specifically a municipal corporation) that will be closed and cease to exist. When cities are so badly managed that they cannot pay all their bills, a court may appoint a receiver to remove the discretionary powers of the city council, or to restructure its operations, but the city structure will remain in some form, as if it has eternal life. The taxpayers will be required to continue to pay for its operations through taxes.

Even poorly operated government services will continue to operate, because its revenue stream, through taxes, is automatically collected each year on a formula basis. It does not depend on individual taxpayers approving its service level and agreeing to "buy" a set of government services for the year. Those taxpayers do not have a choice of providers. It is structured as a monopoly to a captive consumer base. It is the pre-eminent bundled package of services.

Government is missing the most important input for the practice of "quality science"—it is missing the Voice of the Customer. There is no one direct "customer" of government services that determines the value of what is received—nor could there be. Voice of the customer is often based on a presumption that in the production of goods and services there is a series of individual transactions that shape and deliver each product, and that at each step there is a producer and a customer. In such an environment it is easy to demonstrate that the services were or were-not effectively and efficiently provided according to the single set of requirements important to the person receiving them. This is often not true in government, and the least appropriate "fit" for this model is in regulatory services, where the person being regulated does not want the service—a speeding ticket for example.

A singular "voice of the customer" concept in government is confounded by the principle of equity. Equity in government means that fairness and other attributes of public purpose often enter into each transaction. So for example, in matters of justice, the decision reached is based on principles of fairness and consistency with law, and not on any "user" needs. In issues of providing monetary support, government must consider whether eligibility requirements are met, and must review whether funds are used for authorized purposes. Principles of equity require that corollary issues serving other purposes are as important as the transaction initially desired by a distinct individual. In addition, even individual agencies perform multiple services, so a description of what each agency does, for whom, and to what effect or outcome, is arguable. This does not mean that voice of the customer cannot be achieved, but it must be based on a carefully constructed model that starts out with a clear definition of what outcome is desired, and that in turn will define the product or service "users" and stakeholders with whom we must communicate to negotiate requirements, and performance standards.

Unlike with private enterprise, individual citizens and taxpayers cannot input a marketplace decision about the government services they now receive, with the collective result of those decisions resulting in changes to the next years' operating budget of those specific government offices. Instead, taxes are "automatically" levied on behalf of the group of departments and offices that are included within the jurisdiction. In addition, the division of taxes between the various agencies that spend the money is also by formula—through legislative and budgeting action—and none of the individual agencies depend on a positive marketplace decision—they each get a legislatively determined "piece of the pie". There is no self-correcting economic motivation as there would be for the divisions of a single company that would show the products and services of one Division were very widely accepted by consumers while those of another were rejected. Government is a package deal, with funding provided through an annual budget, and there is no "invisible hand" that encourages agencies to grow and improve in the areas of customer satisfaction, or efficiency. It sounds like a hopeless mess, that will never sort itself out, but it does not have to be.

Some may argue that those who hold political office must serve in the place of customers, as primary stakeholders, and that through their collective political actions they must provide the correct economic motivation and leadership direction in order for quality to result. However, while having legislators as surrogate customers might work in theory, the actual experience has been different. Our elected leaders are not at all like corporate directors in that they do not have a vested interest in the overall positive performance of the governments for whom they are supposedly "accountable". Their most direct line of responsibility is to the small group of special interests on which they depend for the preponderance of their campaign re-election funding, and secondarily to the members of the majority political party within the geographic area in which they are elected—which could be as little as one-third to one-fourth of the total adult population in that district. Within some reasonable bounds of behavior, a long tenure in office can often be achieved by any politician who can deliver only those votes that are viewed favorably by his or her special interest supporters, through obtaining "key" partisan votes and through obtaining a generous amount of funding for local projects.

A further problem is that elected officials do not get good information to know where to cut even if they have the highest and most noble public interests. For example, how can your Congressman determine whether the Federal Department of Education is doing as good a job as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or if either or both are unnecessary or in need of improvement? How can Congress get early warning that three of the major programs within the Departments are very poorly run, while the remainder are doing exemplary work?

Lately it has been observed that the major political parties fail to assume responsibility for reaching consensus decisions and even restrain their members from discussing consensus solutions unless they are shared in by party leadership. This has resulted in leaving government in the chaos of "no decision", due to the inability to reach agreement. This latest phenomenon is also quite dissimilar from the management of private business, where corporate directors would be dismissed or sued if they did not make necessary decisions to ensure the quality functioning of their organization.

Corporate directors realize that they cannot always "get their way." They cannot refuse to agree to any other approach to make a necessary decision. They cannot allow the corporation for which they are responsible to perish for lack of direction. Congressmen, however, in our present partisan democracy, are not held to this standard.

It is also impossible to rely solely on hired civil servants and their management team to independently implement an efficient and effective government structure. Government workers and managers are constrained because of their understandable desire for a stable and secure job, with an opportunity to advance and grow their career in the future. Government managers who point out that their programs (or even singular components of programs) are not good value can often draw strong attack from the special interests who put the programs there in the first place, and who can influence their key legislative supporters to trade votes with colleagues to keep them in place. At the same time managers can lose support of their own workforce, who see their own jobs being threatened and who now see their senior managers as "dis-loyal" to the organization. Lastly, managers who take action to reduce the size of their organization can activate fear among their own managers and supervisors, who can see that if the size of their workforce is diminished, or the number of program offices reduced, that the "complexity" and "scope" of their own civil service job classifications could be reduced, and their positions could be downgraded or eliminated. This would be the equivalent of willingly working for your own demotion or termination.

This conflict of interest between what is good for the careers of individual government workers and what is in the best interest of the public is the root cause of the continuing failure to find a way to cut waste from government without resort to across-the-board cuts. Even though it is widely agreed that when there is "fat in government" it should be removed precisely within the pockets and veins where it exists, and without resort to a "meat axe," that almost never happens. It almost never happens because those who know where fat exists have absolutely no incentive to report it. They also have a great deal of fear about coming forward with that information.

At the same time, the voting public only sees the end result of mismanaged government, a series of sub-optimized systems that seem perennially unable to achieve efficiency, effectiveness, and common sense. There is no way to insist on quality management in government, or to remove elected officials who do not achieve quality, when its presence is invisible.

Auditable Standards for Government will make the presence of quality in government measureable and auditable, so the existence of competent management in government braches, programs, bureaus, and departments is completely transparent. These guidelines make this possible through an objective, defined, and auditable Process Management Standard as its base.

Because key processes are fundamental to every office and bureau, no matter how small, auditable Process Management Standards are necessary so each manager and supervisor can develop a report card on their management practice. Uniform audits using the standard can be performed across all types of government, and at all levels.

A classic management book of the past identified a fundamental problem of meetings called to discuss public sector issues that it called "the multi-headed animal syndrome." It was described as a tendency of groups gathered for discussion of a single issue to "go off in all directions at once," so that the participants even forget why they first gathered. A political discourse suffering from the multi-headed animal syndrome can easily proceed from a single initial issue—such as whether to establish a cross walk at a particular location—to a variety of related issues, such as speed limits, whether police adequately patrol the area, whether the city can afford it, and who might be hired to do the work. Without an agreed-to purpose for a meeting, a solution to any problem will do, and debate can go in circles for hours without agreement on anything.

This explains why the past discussions of cutting waste in government go in circles. It is because there is no shared agenda on which to base discussion, with no consensus objective supporting a review.

Decision making in the public sector is choice work that must be undertaken by elected leadership because everything is possible if cost and time are not issues. Choice work is the process of weighing the pros and cons of alternatives, including the methods, costs, and trade-offs. For most people going to Disneyland does not mean that you can ride all the rides and eat all the food. That's because their money, time, and waistline have limits! The same is true for government and without prioritized goals, it's impossible to balance competing goals—all of which may haves some merit.

Implementation of an auditable standard will provide a beginning point for change because it will (ultimately) provide an agreed-upon list of priorities for that government jurisdiction, a scorecard to show how well each priority is addressed, and an efficiency and effectiveness score for each agency charged with accomplishment of that scorecard. With this information the areas for action will be clear. It will then allow hired public sector managers to apply proven methods of quality science and process management to deliver value and achieve the intended purpose of government.

Auditable Quality Standards provide a means for government at all levels to focus on what is most important, and to provide value, efficiency and effectiveness. Society is currently witness to a clash of parties and institutions on a broad scale, that has spawned a chaotic mélange of criticism, litigation, and advocacy that trumps leadership and spurns good management in many ways, like the multi-headed animal syndrome. It threatens the core of good that is at the heart of our democracy.

If the reader is persuaded by the political view that elimination of government may be the solution, it must also be remembered that government brings a unique value to society that no other entity can provide. For example, we would all suffocate in pollution but for the agency of government. And for those persuaded by a larger role for government everywhere, it must be remembered that there are valid reasons to limit the overall spending on in the public sector—including the ability to pay for it.

However, in the debate of less versus more, the focus on unleashing the potential value of our government may be at risk. It would seem that the debate over limiting government has been much more successful at diverting the public attention away from obtaining best value from government, and towards a singular focus on either a perceived problem or its total cost. In many circles people are only able to discuss what government should not do, rather than what it can do or what can be accomplished.