Aim of my research

The aims of my research are manifold:

• to get me a PhD
• to learn to write - more than writing because communication includes presenting research
• to find how (good?) clients engage with external consultants
• to argue the value of using consultants

What is my research? I chose the public sector, partly because I'd worked in it, partly because I knew there was a good supervisor whose strengths were in the public sector, partly because I know something of the consultancy world and partly because the media is so interested in the public sector and demands it be accountable. One area of public accountability is the use of consultants. They are expensive and perceived to be a waste of public money. So my research is examining, not that perception, but what value consultants do provide the public sector.

The public sector uses consultants in many different areas: IT, management, legal, construction, training. As a large proportion of public spending is on IT, and because I have a background in IT, I chose to focus my research on II projects.

IT projects draw in different types of people: consultants, developers, users, managers, third party suppliers of hardware, software and of contractors. Contractors may come with particular development skills. So a project may be made up of civil servants and consultants who consider the civil servants as their clients, but also made up of contractors, who work alongside the civil servants developing IT projects. Such a plethora of roles implies a variety of relationships and it's the relationships that my research's focusing on. How do these relationships start, grow, get maintained but particularly what are the relationships between client and consultants?

For work to be effective in leading to a finished project, the NAO exhorts clients and consultants to engage. But it is unclear what engagement is - just that it's something expected from both client and consultant doing something together.

Engagement is not the same as collaboration, which is an organisational arrangement.
Engagement is not user participation in IT testing, which might be part of a job role.
Engagement seems to be of hearts and minds: enthusiastic intrinsic motivation to get a job done well, and consultants can oil the wheels to give that flowing engagement between people. That means consultants mediate and it's the mediation that enhances engagement that leads to effective working on a project.

But are all consultants mediators? Some mediate at a strategic level, influence strategy, others mediate between project members (as does a project manager) influencing tactics and relationships. But if they get it wrong, consultants may deter engagement, not encourage it or even prevent it. Which leads to another question: how can the public sector best engage with consultants to engender engagement.

Engagement creates engagement. Yes - there's research evidence from psychology that suggests that recursion and queries it: which comes first, engagement leads good relationships, or good relationships lead to engagement? And what's best? That might be where I need to bring in Habermas to find a spectrum of engagement.

More questions; more research; more questions.

Scoping the literature

Before starting a systematic review you have to scope the field. The areas of interest to me include:

• consultancy
• public sector
• engagement

Then I have to check the literature, not in the whole of the field but in the overlaps (I think). I worked through literature on engagement last summer and have found it quite useful because there's so little written on engagement, but on similar concepts such as participation or cooperation or involvement or collaboration, none of which are quite the same as engagement.

I suspect the tricky bit will be writing about the overlaps. If there's little literature on engagement then there'll be even less on engagement and social capital, let alone engagement AND social capital AND consultancy AND information technology.

Contractors

I wonder just how often public organisations use contractors as opposed to consultants.

Public value

What's the problem that causes these issues:

• iteration,
  
• roles,
  
• motivation,
  
• risk,
  
• silos,
  
• media.

The problem is that government gets variable value from the external advice that it receives. The corollary is that it is accountable for maximising this value, then how is that accountability discharged? Can I ultimately come up with recommendations on how to improve that value?

Lines of enquiry
How do we define public value? Perhaps I look at the value that public receives - and trying to increase the value achieved by using external consultants through the lens of accountability
How can improvement in the management of accountability reap value from external consultancy?

Theoretically there's a framework of accountability. The relevant department has a senior responsible owner (SRO) who understands the business, and his role as a leader to exploit IT. The intelligent client is actively engaged, and clear about what wants.

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) gives advice and guidance. I could correlate the value against that advice to find the public value from consultants turning accountability into a positive thing.

Discharging accountability means getting evidence that a programme is being executed appropriately - easy with something like checking the Olympic building site is growing, but you can't see that with management change, or IT implementation.

What kind of regime could a minister or senior official put in place to discharge their accountability for the success of the programme in terms of knowing that it's going to work. How does a minister get reports about big programmes. What's the equivalent of the walkabout?

My 3rd party monitor suggested finding a plan B and doing a pilot study in summer.. I wonder who would let me in.

Accountability in India

Having just spent two weeks in India, I wonder what public accountability for anything exists in Indian public services. Luce [1] in the chapter on the Indian babudom (bureaucracy) quotes Kautilya's Arthashastra:

"Just as it is impossible to know when a fish swimming in water is drinking water, so it is impossible to find out when a government servant is stealing money."

That might be comment on any current government - and what is 'stealing money'? It could be inefficient or ineffective spending, on management consultants, or even effective spending, but without explaning or justifying.

Kautilya's writing on management (Arthashastra translates as 'economics' or 'science of livelihood), written around 350 BC predates that other management classic, Machiavelli's 'The Prince'. It is apparently more broad-ranging than 'The Prince'.

The Arthashastra covers management fundamentals including:

• leadership skills,
  
• selection of employees,
  
• consultation,
  
• corporate govenance,
  
• information systems.

I'd like to find the chapter from which the above quote comes, to read what Kautilya had to say about public accountability.

On consultation he advises:

"All undertakings should be preceded by consultation. Holding a consultation with only one, he may not be able to reach a decision in difficult matters. With more counsellors it is difficult to reach decisions and maintain secrecy."

(1.15.2, 35, 40)

"Therefore sit and counsel with those who are mature in intellect."

(1.15.20-21)

Not only are UK public servants using external consultants, but I notice also that more bodies, such as county councils, are going to public consultation before making changes. Such an example is Buckinghamshire's need for a new waste recycling centre, which has been much in the local news.

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[1] Luce, E., In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India,