Research by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has revealed the priorities for public service managers going into 2013.

The five areas managers told the CMI they were needing to focus on were: controlling costs, managing performance, restructuring, developing strategic partnerships, and improving employee engagement – while the restructuring of public finances is the biggest worry both in the public and private sectors.

The research, published at the end of last year, is not all doom and gloom, as it also says there has been a small increase in the positivity managers are feeling about the prospects for 2013.

This pressure on public finances is creating a need to find new ways of working, to try and achieve more for less. The issue of controlling costs will not go away, and one approach to doing this is a smarter use of IT in the public sector.

And, to this end, the Government’s G-Cloud and CloudStore – where organisations can purchase the IT needed to bring about these changes – shows the Government’s commitment to the adoption of cloud computing as one avenue forward.

As their website reads: “The G-Cloud is an iterative programme of work… which will deliver fundamental changes in the way the public sector procures and operates ICT.”

Managing performance is a thorny issue – to get more for less, any organisation needs to improve the efficiency of its employees’ working life – easier said than done, when people tend to be stuck in old ways of working, with the very human tendency to find the process of change a difficult one.

This need to improve employee engagement ties in very closely with the need to manage performance – if you don’t take your employees with you on the journey your organisation needs to go on, it will struggle to make the necessary changes.

Restructuring also necessarily involves difficulties in maintaining engagement.

Developing strategic partnerships is also crucial, with the need for the public sector to embrace both the private and third sectors, to be able to deliver their services.

The priorities the managers have outlined for 2013 sound very much like a manifesto for new ways of working and a change in workplace culture that empowers staff, while also making them accountable.

And from this culture change, the other priorities will surely flow more easily… a flexible, empowered workforce will be open to the changes necessary to develop strategic partnerships, will allow restructuring to take place with the minimum of pain, and will be open to having their performance managed more closely.

Here at Alliantist we believe our collaborative cloud service, pam, can offer help in all these areas. pam has tools, frameworks and modules that will meet the needs of organisations going through these changes.

And, more than this, pam is a way to change the culture of a workplace – don’t take our word for it, watch this video, as Mike Maiden, CEO of Staffs and West Midlands Probation Trust, talks about how pam achieved this in his workplace.

pam is built in a bespoke fashion, just like building with Lego bricks, to add the functionality an organisation needs to the platform – whether it be the Partner Selection, Stakeholder or Risk Mapping tools. You could add in the Negotiation Map, or the Partner and Alliance Relationship Assessment, or Risk and Opportunity Plan tools. There’s also Selection Assessment, and a place to collaboratively manage documents, and to create groups and manage accounts.

And, of course, there is the ability to task and monitor work and projects in a collaborative way, thus allowing staff at any level to contribute to the whole, bringing a sense of achievement and ownership to their work.

The public sector is having to get more for less, by exploring new ways of doing business and managing work… can you imagine how pam can make this possible?