Research

Review of the Effectiveness of Communication in relation to the Implementation of the Review of Public Administration (RPA); the Views, Attitudes and Experiences of Health and Social Care Staff Affected by the RPA; and Other Associated Issues

The research assesses how RPA implementation has been perceived by staff within the health and social care sector, examines levels of communication about the RPA and assesses staff’s understanding of the PSC and their guiding principles.  The review centred on the perceptions of staff and their experience of the change process as distinct from a critique of the actual processes of change.

The research identifies phases of capacity building relevant to the implementation of the RPA as: Creating the Conditions; Preparing for Implementation; Implementation; and Operationalisation.  The research also ackowledges that the implementation of such a programme is a large-scale, complex and sensitive task for which considerable capacity will need to be built. The overall effectiveness of the RPA will ultimately be contingent on the performance of new teams and hence building such capacity is mission-critical.

The research suggests that the scale of the change in Northern Ireland, across so many parts of a public administration system, in such a compressed timescale, is relatively unprecedented.  In addition, the research shows that moving to common boundaries will not, of itself, produce the kind of joined up, citizen-centred service provision that the RPA is seeking.  A variety of inter-related factors have to work together to achieve this end goal.  This research identifies a significant number of these critical factors and discussses their inter-dependent nature.