In the current economic climate the public sector in the UK is under extreme pressure to continue to deliver the services that we need while cutting budgets. The remedies adopted by those who class themselves as leaders seem to fall into two categories: slicing thorough the organisation undergoing some form of ‘transformational change’ The first remedy is easy to implement. If we need savings of 10% then let us trim 10% from everything. This takes no account of what we do, it is just simple belt tightening and when services start to suffer our leaders just cry ‘we had to
Social Innovation- is this the way forward?
Being an advocate of social innovation I would say ‘of course’ but it depends on your definition and what your own particular situation is. I will start by making things complicated and offering two not entirely unconnected definitions. Forget the use of the word ‘social’ to mean outside work and think of what it could mean. When we are being social we are interacting, sharing, caring and even building. We are essentially social beings (although some do like being alone) so why not focus on a type of innovation that makes use of our social characteristics? In simple terms, think
Should The Public Sector Be Quite So Public?
Is transparency costing us dearly? I was speaking to Dr Paul Thomas (of BBC’s Ban The Boss programme) and something that he said stuck in my mind. He stated that ‘monitoring costs’. This is so obvious but I had never heard anybody say this before. Each time that we want to monitor something we have to define a process or assign someone to keep a look out. In many cases we might have to create a job for someone to oversee this. Thus a seemingly simple act might cost say £15,000 to £20,000 per year minimum. Why do we need
Yes There Is Hope – Public Sector Innovation
TV viewers here in Wales, UK may seen a documentary entitled ‘Ban The Boss’. It was made in conjunction with Dr Paul Thomas at the University of Glamorgan. The title was a little sensationalist to say the least, but the programme itself was very interesting. Following my article last month on what is wrong with public sector innovation I thought it right to shine some light on how things could be fixed. Despite the fears of those involved the idea was not to cause anarchy or make large numbers of people redundant but simply to make the changes necessary to
Innovation In The Public Sector
This article is based on thoughts and observations rather than research, and is meant to stimulate some thinking on the topic. There will be some generalisations and hence some exceptions can be found also. In this context I define the Public Sector as everything that is not Private thus education and Not For Profit are included also. Innovation is taken to be some sort of system where processes and behaviours are changed to create value and improve output rather than the shiny new gadget that has just come from a high technology start up company. The big question is ‘Does
Creativity and Innovation in the Public Sector
I imagine that there are some readers who will eagerly begin reading this article expecting me to either say how great the public sector is in this area (like steering a tanker, sterling effort, lots of good work being done) or how bad and behind the times they are (bureaucracy, bound by unions, outdated structures, jobs for life). Both groups will be disappointed I’m afraid. It would be foolish to make a sweeping statement about the performance of hundreds of thousands of people in such an article. Just like the private sector, there are good and bad examples. The drivers
