Now, two years since the first Public Service Reform Plan was published, the Government has decided that a new wave of reform should be developed to build on progress to-date and to refresh the current Reform Plan.
This has been done for a number of reasons:
- a significant number of actions in the 2011 Reform Plan are now complete, as set out in the Progress Report;
- in certain areas, a new set of actions have been agreed by Government e.g. in public procurement, following an external review;
- in other areas, the original Reform Plan set out some initial steps to determine the best course of action and the programme of work in these areas is now clearer, e.g. external service delivery; and
- reform of our public services should be considered as a dynamic process and consideration needs to be given on a regular basis to other areas that should be included.
The reforms committed to in this plan will impact on a broad range of stakeholders. This includes, for example, all service users, both citizens and business customers, as well as the public servants who plan and deliver those services and the political and legislative system. For this reason, this Reform Plan will be of interest to multiple stakeholders both inside and outside the Public Service.