The new Whitehall Innovation Hub run by the National School of Government’s Sunningdale Institute will encourage systematic change by supporting innovative thinking and practice across Whitehall, explains Hub Director Dr. Su Maddock.
In March 2008, The Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS) White Paper ‘Innovation Nation’ called on the National School’s Sunningdale Institute to set up a Whitehall Innovation Hub to act as a focal point for innovation in Whitehall and to help create more innovative government and public services.
Funded by DUIS, the Hub will carry out research and consultancy, network formation and learning events for leaders, develop corporate mechanisms that will help incentivise innovation, and look to relevant government interventions internationally. This will include working with National School Sunningdale Institute Fellows to support those building a new landscape for government – not just in Whitehall, but across the public service system. The National School will work with the Hub to build capacity to develop and deliver imaginative and integrated approaches to public service leadership and systems innovation.
The spread of public service innovation is often stifled by institutional practices, and the Hub is particularly focused on building capacity and capability across Whitehall. In particular there is a need for the government machinery to be less focused on constraining local agencies and more on encouraging frontline staff to become more innovative and responsive. A great deal of evidence shows that the top-down compliance model constrains public service staff in a number of ways. If front-line professionals or staff such as the police, nurses and teachers are bogged-down by administrative process or given little freedom to act on their own judgement their morale suffers and their motivation to connect to local problems and local people ebbs away.
The Hub’s Strategy is based on the need for systemic change in government, and for civil servants to recognise and value innovators and stimulate demand among their colleagues who lack their insights. Employees say they need time-out to work off-line, free from everyday constraints – and they want to be valued. Typical comments include: “People like me are not rewarded or recognized; I’m less interested in money”,” There are no incentives or alignment between performance appraisal and innovative work”, and ”I’ve always been interested in improving processes, but managers do not listen.”
By contrast, when innovative leaders free up frontline staff they become less concerned with process and are more likely to pay attention to what is happening in the classroom, on the streets and on the wards. Most public sector staff want to improve services, and once galvanised by their management they start to become more responsive and alert to problems. This doesn’t happen overnight, however, and requires encouraging and purposeful leadership.
Whilst creating incentives and removing disincentives is important, creating the conditions for innovation in the public sector also requires a shift in understanding in how public innovation travels through the system. There is some confusion over ‘innovation’. What is it? Is it improvement? How is it different from invention, creativity, and learning and development? Good design harnesses creativity with innovation. Public Sector Innovation involves a radical redesign of services, and relies on an appreciative attitude to local people and to staff. It requires co-design and new relationships – such innovation is driven by those who want to address social problems through collaboration. By contrast, improvement tends to involve incremental changes and making existing systems work better, faster or smarter.
Central to the Hub’s strategy is an open model of innovation flow, based on the idea that innovative practices are adopted by those who see the point of them. There is truth in the saying ‘Invention is the mother of invention’. In other words open innovation is an approach that attracts those wanting to tackle problems.
An increasing number of companies are now adopting this approach as a way to the stimulate co-creation of new platforms, services and products. LEGO, Peugeot, Lilly, and LINUX all believe that customers can not only tell them what they like, but can also contribute to the design of new products and platforms. The use of the web has made this form of connection between people possible, and open source platforms have themselves emerged from co-creation. However, ICT technologies in the public service domain are tools rather than solutions - they create the connections between people who want to make a difference,
The Hub will encourage more open co-creation across government by activating networks to support the flow of innovative thinking and practice across Whitehall. A Vertical Network – due to be launched in Birmingham on Sept 11th - will help build the collaborative relationships between public leaders in the regions as well as in government who want to support systemic innovation and generate the channels for the diffusion of public innovation up-and-down the system.
A second key objective will be to work with the National School to develop activities and curricula that support understanding, awareness and leadership of innovation. In particular, we need to look again at how we integrate innovation messages into our existing practice, and consider new approaches to working with participants. The key question concerns how public leaders create the conditions for innovation – and what concepts, tools and approaches are required for both individual and organizational development.
Finally, the Hub will prioritise knowledge generation, distilling contemporary thinking on public service and governance innovation. In particular there is a need for reflective work on transforming government, and on how to reconcile the tension between the command and target-driven model culture with local and regional decision-making. To this end, we will work in partnership with other intermediaries and innovation hubs to disseminate and discuss more appropriate knowledge models of public innovation.
For more information on the Whitehall Innovation Hub contact Dr. Su Maddock (su.maddock@nationalschool.gov.uk). Details of the conference ‘Creating the Conditions for Public Innovation’ are available on the National School website (www.nationalschool.gov.uk).
