Means and Ends, Means and Modes

"That means we need to reform not just recruitment, but training. We need to ensure more policy makers and decision makers feel comfortable discussing the Monte Carlo method or Bayesian statistics, more of those in Government are equipped to read a balance sheet and discuss what constitutes an appropriate return on investment, more are conversant with the commercial practices of those from whom we procure services and can negotiate the right contracts and enforce them appropriately."

Michael Gove is a weird guy.  His early life sounds a bit like the first chapter of a Dickens novel. But he ended up studying English at Oxford and after a brief stint as a stand up comedian, settled into a pretty standard political elite career as a pro-establishment journalist followed by back room wonkery for prominent Conservative politicians and then becoming a Conservative politician himself.  As is typical for such folk, he was at no point troubled to produce a product that someone needed to buy, provide a service that anyone needed to use or organise any activity more troublesome than operating a photocopier.

But as an Oxbridge arts graduate he does at least have the advantage of understanding the mindset of the Oxbridge arts graduates that populate the Civil Service.  So he will understand their thinking, which is always a good thing if you want to get good things out of a team.  There isn't much to be said for the way the UK selects its governing class, but by picking the executive and the management from the same pool at least there is accord at the top of the state machine.

So it is a bit surprising to see the current setup being attacked in a wide ranging and frankly rather good speech by Mr Gove - one that I think may well reflect the thinking of ultrawonk Dominic Cummings.   It is well researched and sets out a clear goal to revolutionise the way Britain is governed.  Or at least that is how it comes across at first reading.  With a bit more reflection it is notable that Gove finds the fault rather close to home.  It turns out that the Civil Service are not just from a narrow social strata, they are also lacking in the skills they need.  They need to know more about maths, stats and accounting.  

So we need more people in there who can do hard sums.  

As a physical scientist who has made a particular study of statistics and experimental design, and who has literally applied those techniques to building my business, I naturally find this extremely interesting.   Science certainly does provide powerful tools that can be used to good effect.  I am enjoying hearing them getting name checked.

But I have some bad news for Mr Gove.  The many many trained scientists, engineers and statisticians that are capable of using numerical approaches certainly do have useful skills.  But we don't live our lives by them.  In reality the tools we have in our heads are just the same as the tools we have in our sheds.  Analysis of Variance is useful when you want to know what factors are affecting the spread of a virus.  A lawnmower is useful when you want a tidy lawn.  In both cases, they don't really affect the goal you are aiming for.

Of course the Civil Service should work in the best way that can be contrived and if that means using a bit more rigour in its analysis from time to time that isn't a bad thing.  But it's a pretty small thing compared to defining a vision of what kind of country we should live in.   That's the real challenge that the current government is manifestly failing on, and there is no mathematical technique that will help with that.

But that doesn't mean that making the Civil Service as effective as it can possibly be shouldn't be a major objective.  And in fact there is already a very good framework available off the shelf that could do the job very well.  There is an international standard for quality management systems.  Its number is ISO9001 and it was most recently revised in 2015, and hence is referred to as ISO9001:2015 to distinguish it from earlier versions.  ISO standards are issued by the International Standards Organisation, based in Switzerland.  But British nationalists will probably be pleased to learn that this particular one originated as a British standard, when it was known as BS5750.  They'll be even more pleased to hear that it was based on the experience of manufacturing aeroplanes during the second world war.  It's the Vera Lynn of international standards.

I am actually just as obsessed about the second world war as the stereotypical gammon Brexiter, but I tend to draw different conclusions from it.  Standardisation was one of the big winners from the conflict.  The International Standards Organisation was founded in 1947, and has subsequently been a huge benefit in modernising the world.  Quality Assurance grew out of standardisation.  This was the systematic application of scientific measurement practices to manufacturing.  Engineering led the way and other industries followed the lead, including electronics.  The technological marvels we all carry in pockets nowadays rely on minute and meticulous attention to the details of the specifications of the individual components and tolerances with margins so fine that everyday language does not have words adequate to describing them.  

But there is more to creating wonder products than highly precise tools.  The system that runs the process is just as important.  There are various quality systems around, but ISO9001 is the archetype on which they are all based, and is a pretty decent offering in that space. 

The journalist Philip Ingram asked if the civil service had any use for ISO9001 in 2016, and the reply was that some departments might - he was referred to google to find out - but that the Cabinet Office didn't.  Nothing about the reply betrayed any awareness of what a quality system was or why it might be important.

To be fair, the history of the development of quality systems has given them a nomenclature that belies their importance.  They started off as ways of managing engineering data in factories, and someone who has never come across them might well have little idea what they entail just be reading the name.  So what does having a quality system mean, and why would it be helpful for the civil service? 

I think the answer is very clear very quickly when you look at the standard.  After the normal preambles you get in any international standard, the principles are laid down in section 2.  The first is customer focus - which for the Civil Service would be ensuring it is serving the needs of the nation and its inhabitants.  This is followed by leadership -somebody has to establish what the goals are.  People need to be engaged and processes set up.  These need to be continually improved, in accordance with the evidence of how well they are working.  The results of this feed back into the leadership to continue the process of improvement.

It's basically common sense.

The standard lays out some details of how this process is to be managed, but it is far from monolithic. A system doesn't have to be constricting.  In fact in order to work well it has to be the opposite.  It is all about feedback, and if the system isn't giving the feedback you want you change it so it does.   This might involve heavy statistical analysis.  There are certainly some techniques that not everybody knows about that can give great insight.  I am guessing that the average Oxbridge arts graduate has never even heard of ANOVA for example.  

But powerful as number crunching can be, it isn't the only powerful technique.  One that I have used again and again and got great results from takes no specialist knowledge at all and can be learnt in a few minutes.  It's called the five whys.  If something goes wrong you ask why five successive times, each time probing closer to the root cause.

For example - 

Why did I start work late this morning?

I had to to go to the shop for some teabags on the way and there was a queue.

Why didn't you get them on the way home last night when its quiet?

I left late and didn't take my to do list.

Why did you leave late?

I have too many jobs on at the moment.

Why do you have too many jobs on?

I don't like saying no to people.

Why don't you let someone else screen your calls, so you don't agree to things before you've had time to think through the implications?

Errr......


That's a bit of a simplistic example - but it illustrates how you relate performance feedback to modifications to your ways of working.  It might seem banal a lot of the time.  But that is how a good quality system works.  It takes a while to set up but once going it is both efficient and self correcting.  It's basically an iterative process of creating the right tools for the job.  And anyone can use it.  It might lead to the conclusion that say Monte Carlo simulations could be the thing you need. I have an idea what they are about and there might be applications in the civil service.  But I wouldn't prejudge that - there are usually more ways than one to crack a problem and you should judge solutions on their effectiveness not on their cleverness. 

What doesn't create a good quality system is someone on high laying down all the details for people lower down the food chain to implement.  Ask any First World War general how that works out.  The key is adaptability and flexibility.   And that rule applies whether you wear a suit or a hoodie with the remains of last night's alphabetty spaghetti.  


https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-privilege-of-public-service-given-as-the-ditchley-annual-lecture