Building transformative capability through civil service reform

This article explores the importance of capability building to the success of public service reforms. It draws on the neglected literature on capability to explore how capability is a product (or not) of the interaction between the skills, experience and methods of an individual – and the culture, structures, processes of the organisation they work in. The analysis identifies four key features of successful capability-building reforms in the UK, which are also found in the early successes of the Goal Programme for Public Service Reform and Innovation: an iterative and permissive approach to project identification and scoping; projects on high-priority, cross-cutting outcomes that demand new ways of working; projects that are connected with conducive elements of the organisational and leadership context; projects that are designed to create or adapt ‘enabling routines’ which civil servants ‘learn by doing’. Such reforms have acted as capability factories. And as the early adopters of new routines rise through the organisation and take on new roles, they become advocates and teachers of the routines and practice they have acquired. This is how organisations learn and build the capability they need to succeed.