From Functional to Thematic Organisation: Knowledge Networks as Drivers for Change at the Audit Commission

This paper presents our experiences of a 14 months participatory action research project in the Audit Commission, a major governmental body, responsible for auditing, inspecting and researching public service quality and efficiency throughout the territories of England and Wales. Its workforce, geographically widely dispersed, must operate in strict observance of legal regulations and policy guidelines. Since the introduction of competition into public services, professional practices are compelled to change at accelerating pace in accordance with continuously evolving government policy and law. Under these conditions, the capability for organisation-wide learning, knowledge sharing and good practice transfer had become paramount for fast and effective practice change. The aim of the intervention was to introduce greater collaborative capability through a thematic organisation of the workforce, using knowledge networks, otherwise known as communities of practice, as a driving force. We present the design and execution of the intervention and outline its organisational impact. The design components included an intervention framework for launching business focused knowledge networks, a governance system for linking knowledge networks into the functional structure; a co-operative behaviours framework for knowledge network participants; and a process for evaluating the progress and performance of knowledge networks. The knowledge network initiative has been a tremendous success. Knowledge networking, the evaluation has shown, has increased staff’s operational efficiency and improved service quality. Yet, most importantly, the impetus that the KNs have generated for thematic integration of the workforce, has been taken up at strategic level and resulted in a major restructuring of the Audit Commission around its knowledge domains and integration of the fragmented workforce into the new, ‘one organisation’. This paper makes an important empirical contribution by documenting a real-world example of effecting structural change through the community of practice concept.