Paul OBrien

picture of Paul OBrien

Paul O'Brien is the Chief Executive of the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE). Based in Manchester the organisation has 250 local authorities in membership from throughout the U.K. He has overall strategic responsibility for the management and development of all the Association's activities in the United Kingdom. Following a period as Acting Director, he was officially appointed Director in March 2000. He represents the Association on the Office of the Deputy Prime Ministers, Strategic Partnership Taskforce and the Local Government Procurement Forum. He has given evidence to various parliamentary select committees and participated in numerous lobbying meetings with Government Ministers, whilst representing the Association. Paul is also on the editorial board of the MJ. Paul was previously the Association's Principal Advisor ( Scotland), with a remit to develop links with the Scottish Parliament and associated local government agencies. Paul has 20 years experience in local government. Prior to his appointment with APSE, Paul worked with South Lanarkshire Council in the areas of CCT and Best Value. When previously a trainee manager with Strathclyde Regional Council, Paul spent two years on secondment to APSE at the Scottish Secretariat from 1994 to 1996. Paul graduated in 1998 with a Masters Degree in Business Administration, having carried out his dissertation on the transition from a CCT environment towards the development of Best Value.

Waking up to carbon reality

Up until recently climate change has often been described as the greatest challenge of our time although perhaps the world wide recession and the state of the UKs public finances has started to contest that notion.
Now with the commencement of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) looming large for local government these twin phenomena’s may […]

June 22nd, 2009 by Paul OBrien

Mixing with the London set!

Spend a couple of days in London at a variety of events and meetings.
Attend a Fabian event on the future of local government at parliament where local government Minister John Healey speaks along with Simon Jenkins from the Guardian. It quickly turns into a debate about localism and whilst it’s all interesting I started to […]

May 21st, 2009 by Paul OBrien

Planes, trains and vans!

Attend APSEs annual transport and refuse seminar at Aviemore for a few days this week. It’s always a great opportunity to get together with this sector of local government in Scotland. We run a massive exhibition along side the conference and it’s always well attended.
Despite the 6 hour train journey each way the event was […]

May 21st, 2009 by Paul OBrien

Performance management in the round!

Attend a public finance magazine roundtable in London today on performance management. Coming just after the budget it is a great opportunity to debate the economic and financial mess the country is in and what the likely impact will be on public services.
There are some really useful contributions from people like Tony Travers of LSE, […]

May 21st, 2009 by Paul OBrien

Budget response - is that it?

Being one of those who had hoped to see a second fiscal stimulus that invested heavily in local government in particular and public services in general in an attempt to spend our way out of the current recession I have got to admit to being slightly underwhelmed by the Chancellors offering today.
However, having examined the […]

May 21st, 2009 by Paul OBrien

Putting a roof over peoples heads!

Chaired an APSE / ARCH debate today at Parliament on Councils being allowed to once again build a significant level of council housing directly themselves.
It is amazing how quickly political theory changes, if you had talked about Councils being able to build council housing a year or two back you would have been laughed at […]

May 21st, 2009 by Paul OBrien

Feeding the nation!

At the Queen Elizabeth II centre opposite Parliament today for a Local Authority Caterers Event debating school meals. It’s a good turnout and a lot of friends and colleagues are present at the high profile event.
Basically the thrust of the issue is that new nutrient standards are due to be implemented in secondary schools in […]

May 21st, 2009 by Paul OBrien

To efficiency and beyond!

My speech from the Guardian Conference – Northern Ireland 09
Delivering in the downturn: driving efficiency, securing cost savings and expanding services through the innovative use of ICT – A big topic for someone to cover in 5 minutes but for someone originally from the West of Scotland it should allow for about 10,000 words.
The challenge […]

May 20th, 2009 by Paul OBrien

Stick to the plan!

‘Streamlining the Public Sector’ is the title of the Guardian Seminar I have been asked to speak at today. They have asked me to speak in a section of the conference billed as a debate on ‘insourcing versus outsourcing’.
I am asked to speak first and give my views as to why market failures have demonstrated […]

March 31st, 2009 by Paul OBrien

Learning some gritty lessons!

The ‘Great Salt’ debate takes place today at APSE’s annual Highways and Street Lighting conference in Newcastle. With the worst conditions for 18 years this winter has been extremely demanding for those charged with keeping the country’s roads moving, with the media debate raging about how close the nation came to running out of salt […]

March 31st, 2009 by Paul OBrien