Tag Archives: organisational culture

Changing government, changing society: what now for public innovation?

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Image: CC Ross Findon via Unsplash

States of Change is an independent, global non-profit organisation which focuses on supporting and promoting learning around public innovation. During June, they hosted an online festival, bringing together practitioners, academics and policymakers from around the world in conversation. The recordings of all the sessions are still available online and in this blog we reflect on some of the discussions.

In the UK, we’ve seen over the last decade the growth and mainstreaming of government-supported initiatives, such as the network of What Works centres, and innovation centres such as Y Lab in Wales.

We’ve also seen the high profile introduction and use of agile methods and service design approaches, such as in the Government Digital Service and Gov.UK.

The question remains, however, how to build capacity for innovation at all levels of government and the public sector. To be successful this requires public sector managers and employees to be supported to develop the skills, mindset and culture that enables innovation.

We’ve written before on this blog about the transformational approach to public sector innovation in countries such as Singapore and Estonia. And during the States of Change Learning Festival there were some great discussions on international experiences. Of particular note, given the current UK Government’s stated desire to reform the civil service, was a webinar on How Singapore Learns, which explored how the Singapore government had, over a number of years, developed capabilities for forward thinking, openness to new ideas and agility.

From ideas to practice

Charles Landry, famous for developing the concept of the creative city, participated in a discussion during the festival on what being creative at an organisational or system-wide level actually means. He noted that what the current pandemic has done to generate urgency and a sense of focus within public sector systems, which may have included toying with small tweaks to bureaucracies, or taking an innovation approach built on numerous small-scale pilots or projects.

There were also sessions looking at tools and methodologies for public innovation, such as behavioural science and public innovation labs. And a discussion between Aarathi Krishnan and Panthea Lee highlighted the need for those working in government to recognise their own privilege. Questions such as “whose voices are we hearing and who is out in the cold?” and “who’s in the room when we ‘imagine’ new futures and how are we making the future just and equitable?” may seem challenging but they are necessary in order to build a different and better future.

How governments think

Another thought-provoking session was a conversation between Geoff Mulgan (Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation) and Aaron Maniam (Deputy Secretary in the Singapore Government) on how governments “think”. Mulgan highlighted two challenges for government that have been brought to the fore during the pandemic. Firstly, there is a need for new skills and transparent communication about the use of competing and often contradictory knowledge in decision making. Secondly, there’s a need for a new ecosystem of data governance, which would offer protection and public trust about the use of personal data by government. Interestingly, the session also highlighted the differing use of metaphors and language to describe the role of government. How ‘government’ is talked about shapes our view on what it could and should do. For example, is government a brain, or a war machine, or a facilitator, or a steward for future generations?

Evolving public innovation

The COVID crisis has forced rapid advances in how governments observe, make sense of patterns, use models and plan big interventions. They’ve had to make use of data of all kinds, draw on complex scientific advice, and mobilise local and national systems – all while maintaining public trust and compliance.

As we move into the recovery planning phase, there is now a need for medium-term and longer-term visions on how every policy area could be different in the future, from health to social care to education to transport to urban planning. This use of the imagination has traditionally been seen as the specialist realm of futurists and horizon scanners. It also requires strong storytelling, to create confidence and acceptance of change. Whether governments around the world are able to leverage new visions, will determine whether the rapid changes we have seen in response to COVID-19 will lead to genuine positive transformations or ultimately just a return to the status quo.

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From failure to improvement: how public services can turn themselves around

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A new report on the instructive role of failure has been published this summer by the Institute for Government.

Failing Well describes the experiences of four previously failing public services organisations which managed to turn their services around.

Introducing the report, the authors highlight what failure means for public services.

“Failure matters because failure happens. The constellation of organisations that constitute public services in the UK is inherently complex and therefore at permanent risk of failure. This risk, while longstanding, is particularly acute at present. Service providers remain under pressure to cut costs and reconfigure the way services are delivered.”

In addition, structural changes to the ways services are being delivered – a push towards more decentralised and autonomous models of public services – can heighten the risk of failure.

And the authors note that the impacts of failure in the context of public services can be serious:

  • unacceptable standards of service provision
  • harm to service users
  • disruption to service provision
  • discontinuation of the service entirely

Doncaster Council

Four case studies in the report illustrate the different ways in which identified failings in a public sector organisation can lead to changes for the better.

In 2010, a corporate governance inspection by the Audit Commission reported that Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council:

“does not do enough to meet the needs of its most vulnerable people, does not safeguard children, and has not been good at helping vulnerable people find a home.”

In short, the commission described Doncaster Council as “a well-known failure”.

In the light of this damning assessment, the Communities Secretary appointed a new chief executive and a team of commissioners to oversee a turnaround at the council. As Failing Well’s authors note, the move by central government to impose its will on local government in direct opposition to democratically elected councillors was an extraordinary step. One of the lessons from Doncaster’s case is that earlier forms of support may prevent such interventions before a public service reaches the point of serious failure.

The report goes on to describe the improvement plan for Doncaster Council agreed by the new commissioners, covering areas such as corporate issues, health and caring. At the same time, the commissioners sought to repair breakdowns in personal relationships at the council that were partly responsible for the problems in running the organisation. By 2014, confidence in the governance of Doncaster Council was restored, and the commissioners were withdrawn ahead of schedule.

West Sussex Children’s Services

Another case study in Failing Well describes the traumatic impact a poor Ofsted assessment had on West Sussex County Council’s Children’s Services, particularly concerning recruitment and retention. But the labelling of failure also proved to be pivotal in bringing problems into the open and stimulating action.  Children’s Services presented its own improvement plan, with progress measured by the council’s Improvement Board. Subsequent Ofsted assessments demonstrated that the journey from failure to improvement was under way.

Lessons from failure

The case studies from Doncaster and West Sussex, along with those from a school and an NHS foundation trust, highlight the different pressures faced by a range of public service organisations. But the authors found some common lessons emerging from these different stories:

  • Peer-to-peer support provides opportunities for earlier intervention – but it needs a trigger.
  • Interventions may not need to remain in place until the turnaround is complete.
  • Insularity is often a characteristic of failing organisations.
  • Responses to failure can be over-reliant on structural reforms.
  • Creating an open, no-blame culture helps to protect against future risk of failure.
  • There is scope for more sector-wide learning from failure.
  • Failure can appear to get worse before it gets better.
  • Turnarounds should set the foundation for long-term improvement, as well as dealing with immediate problems.

The authors warn against an over-reliance on blame, suggesting that this can forestall attempts to understand why failure arose. And they conclude that cultural reform is key to responding to failure:

“In all of the case studies, turnarounds were to some extent predicated on the adoption of new cultures and ways of working…Open, blame-free cultures, where staff are actively encouraged to flag risks or concerns about standards of provision, allow organisations to prevent further failure and encourage reflection when failure does occur.”

Previous blog posts on the the subject of public sector services include: