Policies and standards

Introduction

All government departments and agencies have developed their own policies, procedures, standards and best practice to help improve operational effectiveness and organisational learning in areas related to their field of operation or service delivery. In addition, there have always been central policies and standards covering the whole of government, and in an era of increasingly "joined-up" government there is a growing requirement to ensure that common policies and standards are implemented across government where possible, and that departments join to provide seamless service delivery to the public. This module of the Toolkit provides references to policies, standards, guidance and descriptions of best practice, published by the centre of government, which apply to the work of all central government departments and agencies. Management, operational and policy staff, and programme/project teams will all need to be familiar with relevant parts of this material in developing policies, delivering services or implementing business change.

OGC supports, co-ordinates and monitors the public sector in delivering the Government's target of achieving £21.5 billion efficiency gains a year by 2007/08, see the main OGC website for further details.

See also the Strategic Management workbook (PDF) for a step-by-step approach to managing these issues.

The topics covered in this module are based largely on the contents of the rest of the Toolkit, but some additional areas are also addressed. This briefing primarily provides external sources to supplement the individual briefings in the rest of the Toolkit. The topics are: