Public Services in Contemporary Society

Public Services in Contemporary Society INTRODUCTION 1 TASK 11 P1 Describe the development of public services 1 P2 Outline development of The Bank of England3 M1 The ways in which contemporary practice sits within a tradition of historical practices3 D1 Contemporary issues within development of public services 4 TASK 24 P3 Describe the operational structure of The Bank of England 4 P4 Explain how the public sector is held accountable for its actions and directions both operationally and strategically 6 M2Structureofpublicsector

Public Services in Contemporary
Society

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Describe the development of public services....................................................................1
P2 Outline development of The Bank of England..................................................................3
M1 The ways in which contemporary practice sits within a tradition of historical practices 3
D1 Contemporary issues within development of public services..........................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Describe the operational structure of The Bank of England.............................................4
P4 Explain how the public sector is held accountable for its actions and directions both
operationally and strategically................................................................................................6
M2 Structure of public sector organisation with reference to responsibilities.......................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P5 Explain the types of sources of funding available to the public sector.............................7
P6 Identify how funding is allocated to different public sector organisation.........................9
M3 Impact of funding from different sources and its allocation within public sector...........9
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
P7 Define the strategy, structure and role of public sector organisations..............................9
M4 Impact of proposed changes upon society in which public sector serve.......................11
D2 Analyse the allocation of funding within public sector and impact of funding, structure
and strategy on the sector.....................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Today, every organisation whether deals in service industry, retail sector, manufacturing
or more, are highly influenced by digital technology. It is considered as the prime mover in
industries behind their progress in production, mode of delivering customer services and other
improvement (Lovan, Murray and Shaffer, 2017). The role of digital technology can easily be
measured in terms of amplifying customer services. Present research is a theme based
assignment on concept of -'The influence of digital technology', and its role in context with
delivery of public services in contemporary society. The Bank of England is a chosen
organisation for this research which is a public organisation, that operates as a central bank of
UK. In order to understand how public services of respective organisation are developed and
influenced by digitalisation, main focus is given on some key terms such as – collaborative and
productive ways of working, workforce development, transformation and delivering a vision via
smart technology and more.
TASK 1
P1 Describe the development of public services
Digitalisation today, has impacted almost on every area of modern life, by transforming
manual processes, transactions of business activities and operations into digital services. The
main purpose behind such transformation is only to meet specific needs of customers in entire
innovative manner, via disrupting the existing value chain of enterprises (Smith and Wong,
2016). This would directly aid organisations that deal in public sector, to get highly development
of their services. In context with banking sector, amongst the range of trends and development
which have risen due to ever-growing digitalisation. It can be seen via expansion of mobile
internet that aid banks to offer numerous services with omnipresent connectivity. This would has
enabled people to get financial and commercial services through internet access within any time,
at any place (Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015). Along with this, the most noteworthy trend within public
services is social networking such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and more, that has
transformed the landscape of banks to place their targeted customers in the centre of business
activities, through designing interface as per needs of them. The Bank of England is one of the
oldest bank of UK that established in 1694 as English Government's banker, but became an
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independent public organisation in 1998 in terms of setting its monetary policies (The Bank of
England. 2019).
Development of Public services in UK by digitalisation:-
With emergence of digitalisation, Government of UK has taken my initiatives to
digitalised the public services as shown below:- Streamlines services: Before technological innovations, there were more than 1700
government websites that offered different-different public services like education,
health, banking and more (Smith, Messenger and Soderland, 2017). But now all websites
are streamlined into single website i.e. www.gov.uk. This website is made a purpose i.e.
to meet needs of people like to get information of current inflation rates and more. On
this website, other services that public can get are –finding an apprenticeship; renewing
patents; tax accounts; redundancy payments; land registry; student finance; waste carrier
registration; rural payments; universal credit; claiming personal independent payments;
carer’s allowance; digital self-assessment; civil claims and more (Yu and Zhou, 2016). Vote registration: Traditional voting procedures are now completely digitalised where,
registration system in order to vote has moved online (Laffin, 2018). This online system
has helped in reducing fraud, where within transformation of 5 months, over 2.4million
people have registered their name for online voting (Digitising public services in the UK:
An introduction, 2019). Visa application: With technological advancement, online application system to get visa
has also replaced the traditional method (Carmona, 2015). Over 3.44 million tier few
years before in UK, two priority visas are used to issue every year. This would allow for
recruitment beyond the EEA where vacancies cannot be filled by EEA or British workers.
But now this system has made visa applications easier than ever.
 Visitations: There is a new online service in UK available now, for booking visits to
rehabilitation centres and prisons (Raadschelders, 2015). This system has also allowed
for booking over 1.5million visits where, previously it was carried out via manual servics,
phone or email systems.
The development of public services within banking sector:-
Trace of digitalisation in banking industry is easily evident from launching of ATM cards
to online transaction services (Zaretsky and Leone, 2015). With the emergence of technology
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like early broadband in 1980s and 1990s, connection between companies, their suppliers and
stakeholders are becoming norm. Furthermore, improvement of e-commerce system and
broadband in 2000 resemble the modern digitalisation of banks that offer a range of public
services (Banking services. 2019). It includes proliferation of smartphones that has opened the
door for online transaction and reduce need of ATM machin es. In this regard, to facilitate
demand of customers, banks nurtured the same by using CRM software, which connects vendors
with money via channels determined by public (Leyden and Link, 2015). In this regard, dynamic
services offered by banks including Bank of England are – Gold custody services; securities
settlement and custody; fixed-term deposits; sterling call accounts & payment services; etc.
P2 Outline development of The Bank of England
The Bank of England has a long and distinguished history of development, which is
evident from its incorporation period, i.e. 1694. In past history, it was the second oldest central
bank and was only incorporated bank of Britain for more than a century (Lindberg and et. al.,
2015). It was nationalised in 1948 and become independent organisation in 1997, where it gain
opportunity to set interest rates, oversee the money supply, manage foreign reserves, provide
banking facilities, regulate UK banking system, issuing notes and coins etc. At initial state, this
bank doesn't offer any public related banking service and acts a management of customer-facing
issues like exchange of superseded bank notes (Izogo and Ogba, 2015). Till 2016, it provides
only personal banking services like privilege for employees. But after adoption of digital
technologies, respective organisation has provided whole banking and enhanced customer
services (Sallehudin, Razak and Ismail, 2015). The Bank of England also provides foreign
currency accounts as well as payment services to UK Government, securities custody, settlement
services and more. This organisation now, acts as Treasury's agent which holds reserves of
foreign currency assets, gold and IMF (International Monetary Fund).
M1 The ways in which contemporary practice sits within a tradition of historical practices
With development of technology, contemporary practices of public organisations are
completely changed. Now, organisations work more efficiently in providing services to
customers. In past decades, various of government websites are used to obtain information but
now with digitalisation, all websites are integrated into single one. The other changes that
contemporary practices have made within traditional practices are observed via online voting
process, online transaction of money, visitations, procedure of visa applications and more. All
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such changes have developed the way of public sector organisation in operating businesses, to
provide welfare to societies more efficiently.
D1 Contemporary issues within development of public services
With development of public services, organisations have faced a number of various
contemporary issues like raising customer's expectations, growing demand, financial pressures
and more. In context with banking sector, the digitalisation have brought serious issues in
business, which includes increasing cyber crimes, security and theft issues due to online
transactions of money. Along with this, other contemporary issues faced by public organisations
during implementation of digital technology and development of public services are –
infrastructure and asset management; fundamental shift; raise awareness of risks; provide insight
into local government and more.
TASK 2
P3 Describe the operational structure of The Bank of England
The operational structure of The Bank of England is divided into various departments as-
Human Resource Departments, Chief Operating department, Finance department, Internal Audit,
Procurement & Security and Information Security etc. Here, each department plays significant
role in operating the banking services with main purpose is to provide best public service (Bason,
2018). Description of each department can be described in following manner :-
Human resource management: This department of respective bank is taken as highly
important which has grown manifold, due to the nature of banking industry, that is mainly
service based (Ghosh and et. al., 2015). The management of people, handling the financial and
economic risks, etc. are the potent challenges that would only be done by effective human
resource management. Hereby, efficient as well as skilled manpower help in managing the
financial risks on regular basis (Zameer and et. al., 2015). Therefore, main role Human Resource
department is responsible for finding such talented manpower as well as placing them in right
jobs in respective bank. Here, HR managers also provide adequate training to its workers
whenever new technology is implemented at workplace, to enable them to work in efficient and
digitalised manner.
Finance management: The main role of this department is to maximise the value of
shareholders and deals with a number of monetary decisions which banks are made, to provide
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public services (Rahi and Ghani, 2016). The operational activities carried by Finance department
involves the evaluation, disclosure as well as management of economic activity, which is crucial
for the successful and effective operation of business. Managerial finance of The Bank of
England concerns mainly on assessment rather than technique, like reviewing an annual report,
incorporating accounting techniques and more (Rahi, 2016). Finance managers also helps in
creating value, optimising organizational ability via allocation of scarce resources to increase
business opportunities, monitoring entire transaction of money and funds of each account holder
etc. With introducing of digitalised technique, financial managers of The Bank of England get
opportunity to prepare finance report in less period of time (Kaura, Durga Prasad and Sharma,
2015). Along with this, it would also help in making effective decisions related to conduct direct
investment activities, develop strategic plans for the long-term financial goals of business and
more. Other functions that easily be carried out by digital techniques related to finance includes –
 Preparation of financial statements, reports related to business activity, forecasting and
more.
 Monitoring the financial details for ensuring if legal requirements are met or not, so that
ethical banking services can be provided.
 Supervise associated workers for preparing financial report and budget.
 Reviewing the financial reports and seek ways for reducing costs,
 Analyze latest market trends in order to identify opportunities for further expansion of
business,
 Help management to make better and efficient financial decisions.
Internal auditing: The main role of internal audit in bank is to provide independent
assurance in terms of risk management, corporate governance and control the overall internal
processes for operating banking services effectively and efficiently (Paul, Mittal and Srivastav,
2016). Digital technologies like advanced analytics and robotic process automation provide
various opportunities to The Bank of England in improving its internal audit function of
operational management. This would allow its internal auditors for testing an entire population
instead of taking a sample of transactions, which lead to help in cost savings significantly by
automating rote tasks (Julios, 2017). Along with this, it also helps the internal audit staff of
respective bank to focus on overall tasks which require human judgment as well as deepening
insights, to provide improve auditing process.
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P4 Explain how the public sector is held accountable for its actions and directions both
operationally and strategically
Accountability refers to an obligation or willingness to account for action or accept
responsibility, that generally appears to be absent in large manner from public sector
organisations. In this sector, no one takes responsibility for massive project failures, abysmal
customer service, significant financial losses, poor productivity, malingering, malfeasance,
security and privacy breaches etc. But now in UK, time had changed with movement of
digitalisation in public sectors where for introducing the concept of accountability within
business. For this purpose, they focus on some main aspects towards a cycle of continuous
movement. It includes – manage actively instead of passively; communicate with all
stakeholders about expectations in clear and defined measurable goals and objectives; supervise
entire process where management concerns on informing 10% to people about what they have to
do with 90% sureity; managing consequences and take responsibilities for any failure of project;
identify reason when project fail to achieve its targeted goals. These strategic operations help
public sector organisations in meeting a cycle of continuous improvement. Public sector
accountability is generally a range of organisations, agencies, and institutions. For an example:
accountability to monitor how public resources are used, are taken by courts and tribunals,
members of Parliament, inquiry agencies, public entities, media and more. In public sector
organisations, accountability is developed on main principles which include transparency,
integrity, fairness and trust. These principles help in strengthening the public sector
accountability, promoting fairer and more effective corporate governance etc. In the context of
banking sector, transparency refers to openness of business activities i.e. the extent to which
banks provides information to public about what it is doing and how it is performing for saving
and increasing their investment.
M2 Structure of public sector organisation with reference to responsibilities
The structure of Bank of England describes responsibilities holding by main people as
per their specific position (shown in figure). It includes overseeing the money supply, providing
banking facilities, managing foreign reserves, regulating the UK banking system, Lender of last
resort (providing liquidity shortage in banking system), issuing notes and coin etc. All these
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responsibilities are carried out under guidance of Governor, CEO, Deputy Governor, legal
department, Audit & Risk committee, etc.
TASK 3
P5 Explain the types of sources of funding available to the public sector
Funding refers to an act of providing the financial resources, generally in the form of
money, to meet requirement of finance in a company. Funding also defines as internal reserves
where a firm uses to satisfy its necessity for cash (Leyden and Link, 2015). There are various
sources of funding includes for public organisation sector like credit, bank loans, donations,
venture capital, grants, savings, subsidies, taxes and more. Hereby, among these funding-
donations, subsidies as well as grants which needs no direct requirement in order to return of
investment are termed as "crowdfunding" or "soft funding" (Lindberg and et. al., 2015). It
facilitates the public organisation in exchanging of equity ownership for capital investment
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through online funding portal which is also known as equity crowdfunding. In this regard, some
other sources of funding for public sector organisations are given below:-
Central Government funding: Mostly, all central government departments in UK have
funding programs for voluntary organisations. It covers with a national remit and grant schemes,
which are designed with purpose to fit the policy objectives as well as program outcomes of
departments at individual level (Izogo and Ogba, 2015). In this regard, another great deal of
central government funding that is available by a wide range of government agencies, includes
Design Council, Community Development Foundation, Natural England and more.
Local Government funding: Nearly, all local authorities within UK make grants to the
community sector and local voluntary, to organise budgets, administration as well as support
differently as per required conditions and resources (Sallehudin, Razak and Ismail, 2015).
National Lottery funding: The National Lottery funding process is offering by the the
Department for Culture, Media and Support, to issues policies and financial directions including
wide Lottery distributing bodies, Big Lottery Fund and more in (Ghosh and et. al., 2015).
Hereby, for every £1, the citizens of UK used to spend 28 pence on Lottery tickets for programs
like arts, educations, charities and voluntary groups, health, environment, heritage and sports
(Bason, 2018). In UK, lottery funding organisations help in distributing the good which causes
money for public organization, local communities and national projects. The Big Lottery Fund
in this country, is considered as the biggest lottery distributor which is highly responsible for
giving out more than half of money raised via National Lottery for good causes.
Raising money from public: Raising money from general public helps pubic sector
organisations in getting a large proportion of total income, through various ways UK (Zameer
and et. al., 2015). It includes fundraising from individuals, small to large-scale events via regular
payroll legacies and more. By deciding for which techniques public sectors can use, depend on
size, capacity, location as well as on aims (Rahi, 2016) (Rahi and Ghani, 2016). Hereby, raising
money from such source of funding has a number of benefits like- getting a source of 'no-strings'
funding by voluntary and community organisations, raising awareness of organisational work
and more.
P6 Identify how funding is allocated to different public sector organisation
Government finance or Public Sector Finance can be defined as a process of dealing with
allocation of resources as per accordance within a proper budget constraint of a public sector
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organization (Kaura, Durga Prasad and Sharma, 2015). The main objective of government is to
provide welfare to societies instead of maximising profitability, therefore, it has been observed
that expenditure of government on any project exceeds their revenue. Thus, a budget deficit in
this regard, is considered as common phenomenon in public sector organizations, which leads
them to borrow in terms of public debts, which are mostly marketable securities and issued by
the government to make specified payments at specified times to the concerned holders (Paul,
Mittal and Srivastav, 2016). Government organisations through this process can issue bonds in
terms of revenue bonds, increment bonds and more which may give tax advantage to its holders.
Along with this, main source of revenue for public sector organisations are come by applying
various forms of taxes such as income tax, sales tax, etc.
M3 Impact of funding from different sources and its allocation within public sector
Funding refers to a means of introducing capital in business, which is required to
undertake a project, portfolio or programme for public welfare. By collecting funds from
different sources like raise money from public, National Lottery funding, Local Government
funding and more. This would help government in gathering money which is required for
executing projects that are made for welfare of societies. After funding from internal and
external sources, further funds will be distributed across different regional, subsidiary and
departmental budgets. It helps in carrying out assign activities more effectively for executing a
project successfully and develop public services more effectively.
TASK 4
P7 Define the strategy, structure and role of public sector organisations
Structure and Strategy of The Bank of England
The structure of Bank of England is divided into a number of subordinate units which helps
in fulfilment of essential functions (Julios, 2017). It includes - Monetary Analysis and Statistics;
Money Markets; Financial Stability; Banking Services; Central Services; Finance; Internal
Audit; Communications and Human Resources. Along with this, it also includes the highly
influential departments such as Monetary Policy Committee which consists a nine-member body,
who oversees monetary policy for the United Kingdom (Zaretsky and Leone, 2015). This
committee used to conduct meetings every month for two days, in order to make a discussion on
taking initiatives related to monetary policy, like raising or lowering the interest rates; creating
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asset purchase programs and more. The main goal behind such meeting is to control the entire
supply of money, regarding with circulation of influencing the health of UK economy (Yu and
Zhou, 2016).
Role of The Bank of England
Public sector banks of UK like The Bank of England has played a number of roles in
providing best public services such as –
Deciding Interest rates – In order to keep inflation rate significant in UK with 2 percent
(+/- 1%), The Bank of England has played a sole responsibility to determine level of base
interest rates (Economics Online. 2019). It used to produce own statistics as well as undertakes
the detailed monetary analysis for creating financial stability. The actual rate in this regard, are
manipulated are known as repo rate. This is also considered as base for repurchasing agreement
rate at which the respective public bank, purchase back securities, which has sold within money
markets previously (Laffin, 2018). This kind of money markets include security dealers, banks,
building societies, and more. Hereby, making alteration in the repo rate may affects short-term
liquidity process in monetary system, that ultimately put an effect on all other rates as well.
Monitoring the money supply - The another main role played by Bank of England in
public service is to oversee the supply of money within economic aspects, in order to ensure that
there will be sufficient liquidity in the same (Raadschelders, 2015).
Managing foreign reserves: The Bank of England in UK also manages the reservations
related to foreign exchange, to ensure that nation is in effective position to settle down its
international debts.
Providing banking facilities: This public bank also provides the range of banking
facilities to other credit banks, high street banks, Government of UK and more, to help them in
keeping their account with the Bank of England (Carmona, 2015).
Regulating the UK banking system: Regulation of banking system is considered as the
main role of The Bank of England where, current regulatory structure within UK involves three
major organizations that are – UK Treasury, the Bank of England, Financial Service Authority
(FSA).
M4 Impact of proposed changes upon society in which public sector serve
With rise of technological development, public services are also improving more
efficiently, where public sector organisation gain opportunity to make better use of resources,
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involve citizens in economy development, invest in employees as well as collaborate with other
sectors, to provide welfare to societies. Digital technology has led to develop result-oriented
governments, where organisations are focusing more on using hard data and statistical analysis
for making informed decisions to create benchmark against private organisation,
D2 Analyse the allocation of funding within public sector and impact of funding, structure and
strategy on the sector
In order to execute a project which is based on providing welfare to society, public
organisations are used various sources of funding like raise money from public, through shares
and more. After getting required funding, further resources like capital, labour and more are then
distributed within departments as per requirement. This would impact directly on structure of
public sector where every department performs specific role in execution of plan in successful
manner, because any shortage of money and resource would effect their work. Thus, in this
regard, it is essential for management to allocate resources and funding appropriately by making
proper budget according to their requirement.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarised from entire assignment that development of digital technologies
has not only improve the working procedures of public sector organisations, but also enhance the
services they are providing to people for their welfare. With changes in voting procedures, online
purchasing, online transaction of money and other banking services, etc. have made life of
people more easy. Along with this, it also help public sector organisations in running their
business more effectively as compared to traditional procedures.
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