HR Green ASD for Local Governments Handbook - Executive Summary - Manual (Page 13)

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a neighboring municipality and also considering service consolidation to further improve delivery outcomes.
 Both elected officials and appointed managers agreed that developing an ASD orientation is an
opportunity to create a culture of accountability in a performance driven organization.
 Managers noted that “cooperation dwindles as more and more cuts occur.” The challenge for
managers and elected officials is to create a culture that tends to re-appropriate staff to higher
priorities rather than to lay-offs when a service is delivered externally.
 This type of culture promotes risk taking and innovation in service delivery (internal and external)
because the penalty for failure is not lost jobs; the response to a failed attempt to improve service is
trying another solution.
 Successful managers in our focus groups repeatedly note that their organizational cultures embrace
employee participation in redesigning processes and service delivery, including performance
benchmarks and evaluations.
 Managers also report that staff members are often more willing to accept service consolidation than
elected officials. Politicians are seen as much more concerned with retaining identity of the
community than professional managers.
We can summarize the key aspects for each ASD option as follows:
 Contracting: requires organizational culture emphasizing performance measurement and
accountability, with performance measures “baked in” to RFPs and contracts.
 Managed Competition: reshapes the internal organizational culture to competitive, innovated
orientation of employees who can successfully compete against external providers for service delivery
contracts.
 Interlocal Agreements: requires a culture of shared services that emphasizes networking, and thrives
on inter-organizational trust, interpersonal trust, and mutual accountability
 Service Consolidation: requires a blending of organizational cultures with respect to the consolidated
services
 Public-Private-Partnership (P3): is based on a culture of long-term strategic investments with both
economic and political returns on investment important, yet higher level of uncertainty in long-term
framework also incurs higher risks—for both public and private partners.
Strategic Decisions for Community Services
Changing organizational culture is not an easy task, and attempting change will need to be part of a strategic
decision of the elected officials and top management. The complexity of implementing an alternative service
delivery rises with the length of the time horizon and the strategic orientation of the local government.
Contracting for another organization to deliver the service is a relatively straightforward, short-term, and
tactical decision. This contrasts with a public-private-partnership (3P) that requires a long-term horizon, a
strategic orientation, and the ability to manage a host of complex, inter-related decisions.
 ASD initiatives require political support.
o
In some communities, newly elected officials felt a mandate to change the organizational
culture
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In other communities, the city manager led the organizational culture shift.
o
Contracting for ad hoc services evolved into strategic plans to systematically review how
services were delivered to citizens, and how resources could be freed and reallocated by
choosing an alternative service delivery modality.
 Local governments have to think about demand driven services.
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Managers and elected officials agreed data are essential to making the case for change.
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The facts in demand at this juncture are the financial calculations of benefit-cost analysis,
cost effectiveness analysis, and return on investments.
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The skills in demand are those required to develop and manage contracts with vendors,
regardless of sector.