Jo Casebourne: Innovation in the Public Sector Organizations (NESTA_London)

INNOVATION IN PUBLIC SECTOR

ORGANISATIONSDr. Jo CasebourneDirector of Public & Social Innovation

Why is public sector innovation important?

Photo: mattfred Photo: Mat Walker

Science systems are global & have large scale investment

Open innovation

Innovation in services

User innovationDesign led innovation

Data driven innovation

Market-driven innovation also global & helped by strong incentives

But no comparable model for public sector innovation

Leading to:• Top-down imposition of unproven new ideas, or• Creative but disorganised local innovation, or• Reliance on quasi-markets – but without the R&D

necessary for radical innovation as opposed to incremental improvement

The result: productivity stagnation in 45% of EU GDP

Recognition that most innovation funding gone to military & hardware…

Marksontok, CC BY 2.0

Not to most pressing economic, social & environmental challenges

Csjetruner, CC BY-NC 2.0

Fuersen, CC BY-NC 2.0 Monica McGivern, CC BY-NC 2.0Msmail, CC BY-NC 2.0

kevinkarnsfamily, CC BY-NC 2.0 Viewminder. CC BY-NC 2.0

To improve productivity and generate positive outcomes need to innovate

Innovation Social innovation Adoption of innovations that work

ccarlstead, CC BY-NC 2.0

ShawnOster , CC BY-NC 2.0

JKFID, CC BY 2.0

Fiery Spirits Community of Practice

MattjHerring, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0Source: Rogers, E.M. (1963) ‘Iffusion of Innovators.’ Third ed., p.247. New York: Free Press.

Harnessing power of digital for social challenges

http://manuelherrador.blogspot.co.uk

How can we support public sector innovation?

Expectations on public services increasing

JodyDigger, CC BY-SA 2.0

urbantimes.co

HM Treasury, CC BY-SA 2.0

Why it’s hard Barriers• Departmental silos• Budgets and financial flows• Episodic - driven by politics• Lack of champions• Lack of dedicated budgets,

teams and processes• Targets and performance

management processes• Reward and incentive

systems• Attitude to risk and failure

limits experimentation

Complexity• Contradictory and

multifarious demands• Trade offs • Need to respond quickly• Transparency and

accountability• Need for security and

continuity

But conditions are ripe

• Economic: renewed incentives for efficiency as demand increased and public revenue falls

• Political: decentralised decision making and openness to new solutions

• Cultural: community, ethical consumption, collaboration, co-creation and partnership working

• Technological: enabling different relationships, interaction, participation

Evidence

Promoting public sector innovation

Adoption & Exit

Experiments

Scaling through: Regulation, Procurement, Commissioning, Investment

Structures & cultures: teams funds and labs, promoting risk, harnessing motivation

More & better ideas: ideas factories, open calls, prizes

Systems change

Structures and cultures

Designing teams, funds and labs

Transforming the processes, skills and culture of government

• Focus on transforming the way that government approaches innovation,

• Uses consultancy services and training, secondments and placements, to develop skills and mind-sets

• Educate and provide insights and knowledge needed to empower others inside government to innovate..

Achieving wider policy and systems change

• Focus on achieving wider policy and systems change and bringing about transformation,

• Look beyond specific interventions

• to the wider policy context and complex systems that need to change,

• Architects, creating the designs and blueprints that others can follow

Creating solutions to solve specific challenges (CEO)

• Focus on solving high priority problems, and developing usable and scalable solutions, Collaborate with colleagues in government agencies.

• Developers and creators of innovations.

Engaging citizens, non-profits and businesses to find new ideas

• Focus on opening up government to voices and ideas from outside the system,

• Open innovation and challenge-led approaches

• Strong communications and engagement strategies.

• Create conditions for innovations from outside government to thrive.

• that others can follow

4 types of

Promoting risk and making failure safe

Rain Rabbit, CC BY-NC 2.0

Supporting skills development

https://openworkshop.nesta.org.uk/

More and better ideas

TRIZ

Brainstorms

“The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away.”

menssanaresearch.com

Encouraging ideas

Dr Linus Pauling, American chemist and bio-chemist

22

Using ideas factories

http://ideafactory.com

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/6y5RfS-v3wo/maxresdefault.jpg

Using open calls

http://www.nesta.org.uk/project/innovation-giving-fund

Using prize competitions

Experiments

26

Design tools

By conducting rigorous experiments

Evidence

By making evidence useful

29

Standards of evidence

Adoption and Exit

Copying and adopting what works

31

http://allthingsd.com

Adoption of drugs by GPs

Research on championing the superadopters

Source: Thomas, E., Bennett, F. and Westlake, S. (2013) ‘In Search of the SuperAdopters: What Open Data tells us about GP Prescribing Practices.’ UK: Nesta

By decommissioning

J. M. W. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1838

Growing, scaling and spreading

Regulation - promoting spin-outs and using procurement for social outcomes

By using procurement

By using commissioning

Commissioning for outcomes

homeless.org.uk

Through crowdfunding

Peterborough Social Impact Bond launched 2011 with the goal of reducing reoffending amongst a 3000 cohort of male prisoners

Through Social Impact Bonds

http://www.socialfinance.org.uk

http://www.secondowelfare.it

Systems

New technologies, products and services

New policies and regulations

Recalibrated markets

Behavioural change, social

movements

Through whole system approaches

Photograph: Graphic, The Guardian

Learning how to change systems

Where next for public sector innovation?

Accelerating

Co-ordinating

Building capacitySpreading

Deepening

Where next?

Focus needs to be on…