As some of you may know already, I am about to leave a Business School (MBS) and join a School of Social Sciences (Politics) (both at the University of Manchester, so not a big move in one sense). This may be unduly influencing my thinking, but the question I want to ask in this post is: am I part of a trend? Continue reading “Putting the Politics back into Public Management – are the times a’changing?” →

Su Maddock  @sumaddock

Mid-Staffs Hospital is the tip of an iceberg that has been hiding neglect for many years. It is true poor practice was made worse by the target culture, but lets be honest –  abuse, neglect and poor care have a long history . It is not just the abuse that is horrific but equally worrying is the level of complacency among senior staff and their vilification of whistle-blowers.  Challenging complacency is not easy and those that do are often subject to ridicule themselves, many leave because their promotion prospects decline each time they voice concerns. Continue reading “Hospital Failure – How do you change cultures and improve practice ? by Su Maddock” →

I somewhat mischievously responded to a tweet from Chuka Umuna, the Labour shadow business secretary, that the reason that only 1.2% (7 out of 576) government infrastructure projects was ‘completed’ was because there was no-one left (in the civil service) to implement them.

This was flippant, admittedly, but it is possibly not too far from the truth. Continue reading “A Capital Idea George, shame about the implementation (only 1.2% of infrastructure projects completed)” →