WILL HUTTON
“NOT INNOVATING IS NOT AN OPTION”
Mention the word innovation and few people think of the public sector. Rightly or wrongly, the state in its various guises is linked to big bureaucracy, the filling of forms and the maintenance of rules; moreover, many of us have an instinctive sense that innovation in activities such as policing, teaching and guarding prisons may be a bad thing – associated with faddishness and a decline of basic standards. Perhaps coupled to this sense is the notion that there are lower incentives to innovate in the public sector because there is no competition between providers and no overall objective to raise profits.
The prejudices may be sometimes ill-informed, but they nevertheless place hurdles in the way of encouraging innovation in the public sector. The impetus and energy to overcome such hurdles is one of the most pressing challenges facing leaders and managers in the public services. Not doing so is no longer an option – but no one should pretend it is easy.
Obviously, some are better than others at it. The ambition of authorities, their leadership, their openness to novelty, how empowered their staff and partners are, the space they allot to creative thinking, the use of information and organisational structure: all play a part in the generation and dissemination of innovations.
But none can now escape the pressure to innovate. First and most important is pressure from citizens. As the UK has become a consumer society, there is a new emphasis on public services changing to meet the rising demands of citizens; products, services and the way the public sector interacts must all change.
Second, there is increased pressure from central government through demanding efficiencies, by the messages sent by ministers and through the target regime. None of these lead in their nature to more innovation – targets can foster an excessively risk-averse culture, for example – but they are important drivers nonetheless.
A final pressure is examples from elsewhere. Ideas such as ‘beacon councils’, city academies, superheads – all have behind them the notion of exemplar institutions and individuals cascading a constant flow of new ways of doing things to others in their sector. New standards are thus set. The pressures are there, the culture of innovation must now follow.
Will Hutton is Chief Executive of The Work Foundation. He also writes a weekly column for the Observer
Top three public sector innovations
1 NHS DIRECT This service provides information direct to the public via telephone, the internet and digital TV. More than two million people access NHS Direct every month.
2 RECYCLING WASTE Households across the UK now regularly recycle glass, paper, tin and plastic in a bid to reduce the 100 million tonnes of waste that the UK produces each year.
3 BBC iPLAYER For up to seven days after BBC shows are aired viewers can watch what they missed by going online and downloading programmes or streaming content.
