Some developments and articles of interest from over the holiday break:
- Bill Eggers and Ruben Gonzalez from Deloitte write about the need for disruptive innovation in the public sector. “Budget cutting in government is typically an exercise in using the blunt instrument of across-the-board cuts—in other words, doing more of the same with less money. The inevitable result, however, is not more for less but less for less. To get more for less requires doing things differently. Needed are innovations that break traditional tradeoffs, particularly between price and performance. Disruptive innovation offers a path to accomplish this goal and in the process transform public services.”1
- The UK’s NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is establishing a centre for innovation prizes. It will be a hub for expertise in designing, setting up and running challenge prizes to tackle social and technological challenges in the public interest. (Information on competitions and prizes can also be found in the relevant Public Sector Innovation Toolkit module).
- Ingrid Burkett from The Centre for Social Impact writes about social design. “Social design can point to a particular outcome of a design process: that is, design for a social purpose. So social design can focus on the design of products that benefit people (for example, the design of water purifiers for people living without potable water); or services (for example, designing more inclusive financial services); or processes (for example, designing participatory decision-making processes inside organisations).”2
- The Australian Public Service Commission has released circular 2012/1 ”Revisions to the Commission’s guidance on making public comment and participating online“.
- Tim Glyn Burke considers what the public sector can learn from the legacy of Steve Jobs. “Real solutions to intractable public problems are out there. The challenge is what Jobs knew how to do best: forcing change that endures by cutting through bureaucracy, fearlessly facing down opposition and insisting on maximum performance. What will it take for governments—along with their nonprofit and community partners—to do the things they never dreamed possible?”3
- The Harvard Business Review launched the Beyond Bureaucracy Challenge with McKinsey. Polly LaBarre shares the stories of the 14 finalists from different sectors around the world.
As always, please feel free to identify any other developments or articles of interest in the comments below.
- This quote is not covered by the Creative Commons licence or Commonwealth Copyright. From Bill Eggers and Ruben Gonzalez “The Public Sector, Disrupted” 18 January 2012, accessed at http://www.governing.com/columns/mgmt-insights/col-government-disruptive-innovation.html ↩
- This quote is not covered by the Creative Commons licence or Commonwealth Copyright. From Ingrid Burkett “What is social design?” 11 January 2012, accessed at https://blog.csi.edu.au/2012/01/what-is-social-design/ ↩
- This quote is not covered by the Creative Commons licence or Commonwealth Copyright. From Tim Glynn Burke “The Crazy Ones, the Misfits, the Rebels” 10 January 2012, accessed at http://www.governing.com/blogs/bfc/col-steve-jobs-innovation-lessons-public-sector.html ↩
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Disruptive innovation is essential. However, the APS is not geared for that due to the degree of risk aversion and an over emphasis on hierarchy.
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Steve – that may be the case in some circumstances, but can it be said about all of the APS? And if the authors of the report are right, it will generally be that such innovations originate outside of much of the public sector. “This means that disruptive innovations impacting the public sector will typically originate outside of large government organizations. The job of government officials is then to support these efforts and protect them from efforts by incumbents to kill them through regulation or similar means” (p.37 of the full report).
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Thanks Alex. I think disruptive innovation has a lot to offer but I’m just concerned that both the public service, private sector and academics underestimate other factors at play within the delivery of public services.
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Nice pick up by Josh.
The new APS Circular come across as a bulwark against change that is perceived as disruptive. in this case social media.
I know that central agencies in the public sector do not deliberately issue circulars with the intent of telling public servants to, as it were, shut up online. However, that is precisely what the APSC Circulatdoes
It is important to have a sense of balance here. Read through the circular and you will see some sentiments that suggest that this circular is not intended to discourage online participation and, to be fair, it is intended to provide guidance.
However, and this is the important point, what the circular does do is give managers within APS agencies a big stick to whip employees into line. It does so due to the fact that it is ambiguous in some key respects. Consider the extract below.
. . . it is important ...
... for the employee to notify their manager of any comment that they propose to make in their ‘expert’ role that might reasonably reflect on their APS employment. This would need to be considered in light of the agency’s policies and the APS Values and Code of Conduct. It is important that the employee also make it clear, when making public comment in this role, that they are not representing their agency or the Government.
Consider the ambiguity. If an employee critiques, say, a publicly available communications strategy and their immediate manager does not like it they could easily end up in a world of pain. Then again, some managers may be more tolerant. But what if senior management then holds the employees manager accountable.
So yet again we have something well intentioned creating a climate of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the public service. I have nothing against HR per se – it’s roughly a quarter of my professional background – but this circular has got severely risk averse HR written all over it.
I have absolutely no problems about setting decent fenceposts around the use of social media by public servants, but this circular goes beyond that. Now let me make some points that will get me in trouble.
• Government is not perfect
• The public service is not perfect
• Management is not perfect
• Public discussion is a good thing
• Constructive criticism is a good thing
• The community expects and deserves better
• Employees can be trusted
• It’s 2012 not 1912
I am drafting something more detailed on this over the next couple of weeks for publication elsewhere.
And some last words on this from a citizen (taken from the Canberra Times
This is just typical of the PS in protecting its own backside. Once you start having an effect, they try to shut you down. I wouldn’t mind if they first made an attempt to change their behaviour that led to the original criticism, but they never do or at least what they do never works. Pollies have to understand that people sometimes resort to slagging off because all other avenues for getting the message across have become ossified, courtesy of the stultifying effect of the bureaucracy.
Hint to the PS: stop being so self-interested and take external criticism as a warning sign.
Steve Davies
Former public servant, Founder OZloop
Originally published on
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Has anyone seen anything that incorporates the problem of netwidening in government disruptive innovation? For examples, diversionary programs such as on-the-spot fines, -police cautions, limiting incarceration to sentences 6 months + did not deliver savings because the result was more people in contact with the system. People who previously would have received 3 month sentences started getting 6 months sentences, others who would not have been incarcerated ended up on underfunded community service programs. Is it really a good idea for us to try and capture more people?
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Hi Sam – I’m not aware of anything along those lines but will keep an eye out.
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Hi Josh – we linked to the Circular from the Australian Public Service Commission.
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No mention of this article? http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/ps-on-notice-over-social-media-use/2423502.aspx?page=2
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