ntouk.com - Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog

A good session last night on "innovating out of recession" at the LSE's "box" in central London, courtesy of Professor Tony Travers and Professor Patrick Dunleavy. A timely topic of course given that the next decade presents one of almost unparalleled austerity for the UK (last time it happened we had just fought the second world war).

As The Economist has commented:

"Britain is no stranger to fiscal crises. They occurred under Labour in the mid-1970s and the Tories in the early 1990s. Yet the peak deficits that caused such alarm then (7% of GDP the first time and almost 8% the second) are dwarfed by this years. The Treasury forecast in April that public borrowing would exceed 12% of GDP, and it could be more. A continuing string of high deficits would give Britain the biggest debt build-up between 2007 and 2014 in the G7 economies"

But all of the simplistic talk of macho budget cuts and shelving service improvements (potentially indefinitely) is not a viable option. Innovation, including the re-design of public services made possible through the informed use of information technology, is a means by which operational efficiency can be achieved whilst also re-thinking the configuration of government and the design of public services. Re-designing the UK's public services is no longer just a nice idea, it lies at the very heart of what now needs to be done.

Indeed, the current state of the UK's economy and public services presents an opportunity to help enable the very changes long hoped for, but which seem to have proved impossible to deliver in more prosperous economic times.

The session was Chatham House rule and included two interesting, but very different speakers in addition to Professor Dunleavy: Peter Gilroy, Chief Executive of Kent County Council and Irene Lucas, Director General at the Department of Communities and Local Government. So without revealing who in the room said what, whether speaker, host, or audience, some of the soundbites included:

• The main blocker to modernising the UK and the effective use of innovation is the hierarchy and arrogance that exists within much of the public service, particularly Whitehall, which lives in a world that has long since passed and refuses to listen and learn
• Contributions to innovation should have no hierarchy and should come for all levels, inside and outside of the public sector
• Co-creation and co-production has been talked to death but not delivered
• The UK has the biggest opportunity to finally modernise itself, an opportunity not seen in over four decades
• It can take 10-15 years before knowing which innovations are weeds, which flowers. People, organisations and services need time to fail and time to learn from failure, not to respond to the latest soundbite or media-driven agenda
• Take the Blackberries (smartphones) away from senior suits sitting pontificating in offices, who have little need of them, and put them into the hands of frontline workers who can use them to improve service delivery
• We need services based on user need not centrally-imposed targets. Money should follow the individual not be handed down arrogantly by the service provider
• People need to understand the balance between "evidence-based" policies and the smart application of (unproven) innovation. [After all, I guess the first cave man to suggest that building a house might be a better and more adaptable idea than staying in a dark cave probably had little evidence at the time to back up his idea, and doubtless plenty of doomsayer critics too]
• Consider extreme ideas to help think through consequences and actions. What, for example, if you were to set a target that after April 2014 no public sector organisation could deliver public services itself, merely ensure they happened? In some areas services would rapidly be picked up commercially. In others, where profits might be less clear, they are more likely to be picked up by the third sector (including social enterprises)
• There are more constraints on the third sector than there have ever been before, stifling innovation. This arises from the burdensome and pedantic contracts and financial interlinks with the public sector, which is overly-cautious and backward-looking
• Napoleon once said we were a nation of shopkeepers. Today, the UK seems more akin to a nation of shelf-stackers, with inefficient conformity and routine prized over innovation and doing the right thing
• Many public sector employees feel trapped in systems that don't work either for them or those they serve. We need to find a way of enabling them to do things right, not just to get things done
• Much of the public sector harbours "hidden call centre jobs": people who are paid to do one role, but end up effectively being a call centre spending most of the time handling calls from the public. The example of head librarians on highsalaries spending much of their time dealing with book enquiries was quoted
• Services like libraries are run to the convenience of those employed there --so they're not generally open during the evening for example for those in work to use. This is symptomatic of the wider pubic sector, which is often run for provider rather than recipient convenience
• Tescos has a lot to offer the public sector if only the public sector would listen
• The public sector is trailing, and failing, the citizen
• 1 in 8 couples married in the US last year met online
• The Digital Britain report was a disaster: unaspirational, incomplete and half-baked. Elsewhere, some parts of the public sector are already well ahead, moving money from publication budgets to broadband delivery of online services
• Focus groups, 10-20 people in a room, are an utter waste of time. How can such select groups possibly represent anything? Basing decisions on such a small sample is the cause of many well-meaning but misguided policies and decisions. Instead we should be using the scale of modern technology to get massive and continuing feedback from those the public sector is there to serve, providing a programme of continuous improvement under the tutelage of those who use the services the most
• The senior civil service is drawn from a world that doesn't either understand or get IT. They need to be educated or replaced if the UK is to modernise and compete effectively both at home and internationally
• Telehealth is already showing how the reality of home-based medication and wellbeing will change the way policies are made. It is enabling patients to spend more time at home, to waste less of their time hanging around hospitals and empowers them to better manage their situation and improve their own overall health
• There is no gain without pain. The professions are the biggest blockers to innovation and service improvement, preferring to carry on the way they've always worked. They need to be broken out of their silos and to focus on those they are there to serve. Once they start re-thinking like this, they become much more effective and co-operative
• Properly managed IT enables public money to be saved and services improved. Public services will wither on the vine and die if they are not reformed and brought back into the contemporary world. The public will not see why it is paying for increasingly out-dated and irrelevant services and public employees
• "have you been privatised?" is the typical reaction from the public to the delivery of well designed public services built around the citizen not the supplier

Gus O'Donnell has already acknowledged that "necessity is going to be the mother and father of innovation, there is no other way". Enabling innovation to flourish is going to be essential if the public sector is to find new, more cost-effective solutions to the UK's existing problems. But I predict this is going to be a bumpy ride. Real change and reform that's genuinely worth it always is.

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