Archive: Public Services
This is where you will find details of my recent writing on public services reform and personalised public services.
Public Services 2.0
What would the public sector look like if it embraced the kind of highly collaborative and participative user-generated appraoches of Web 2.0 and social networking?
This chapter for a collection of essays on the future of public services explored the potential for public services 2.0.
Download a draft of the chapter here.
Personalisation through Participation
New Script for Public Services
By Charles Leadbeater
Published by Demos, 2004
Personalisation can be likened to privatisation of state-owned utilities in the 1980's - a big idea with the potential to transform the public sector. The Prime Minister has promised personalised public services in a series of recent speeches. This pamphlet argues that offering personalised education and health services will increase people's expectation and create a demand-led pressure for reform.
How far does the government want to go with personalisation? Is it an attempt to woo middle class consumers to keep them loyal to public services by giving them more choice? Or is it an idea that could sustain waves of reform, leading from incremental innovations to existing public services but eventually leading to more radical solutions.
Charles Leadbeater believes that if the government is serious about personalisation, public sector bodies should regard this challenge to the way they currently operate.
He explains how personalisation goes beyond a simple consumer model to actually involving users in the design and delivery of the next generation of services.
Download it at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/personalisation
RED PAPER 01
HEALTH: Co-creating Services
By Hilary Cottam and Charles Leadbeater
Published by Design Council, 2004
The Design Council has established RED, a new unit challenging accepted thinking on economic and social issues through design innovation. We run rapid, live projects in order to develop new thinking and practical design solutions in the form of systems, services and products. Our team is inter-disciplinary, including designers, policy analysts and sector experts. Our approach is human-centred, involving users, business and service providers in the design process. RED papers explore a wide range of issues that make a link to our practice.
This paper looks at the new challenges facing public services, taking health as a case study. Chronic disease presents a new and growing health challenge. This paper argues that reform to the health services currently on offer cannot address either the management of chronic diseases or the broader lifestyle issues that might promote better health. We argue for a new approach which we call co-creation, since a set of new relationships between users, workers and professionals lies at its heart. We set out this model. Many of the seeds of this new approach can be found within the current system. Communities of the kind we envisage are well developed in software and other fields. We suggest ways in which we could build on these open systems to foster a new form of co-created public service. Our ideas should be considered as work in progress. We hope to develop our model further as we test our approach in practice with partners in Kent and Bolton.
Download it at: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/
The Future of Social Care
This is the text of a report I did with Hannah Lownesbrough from Demos for the review of the future of social work carried out for the 21st Century Social Work reviewin Scotland chaired by Will Roe which reported in February 2006.
The report based on extensive interviews, case studies and detailed user journeys argued that social work services would need to become far more personalised and participative in future to be effective.
To download a copy of the report click here
The Man in the Caravan
By Charles Leadbeater
Published by IDeA Publications, 2003
Wilf is an 80year-old man who had lived much of his life in a dilapidated caravan without running water or electricity. Wilf's life has since been transformed by Kent County Council, which developed an innovative recuperative care scheme to assist Wilf and others like him. Thanks to the scheme, Wilf has been given the home comforts he deserves and now lives in a smart flat, where he can spend time enjoying luxuries such as watching television.
Wilf's story is just one of seven that are told in the book: 'The man in the caravan and other stories', by Charles Leadbeater - a leading writer on innovation and entrepreneurship. The book was commissioned by the IDeA as part of a wider project, to develop the IDeA improvement model. The model sets out to clarify what is critical for councils to improve and how to effectively share knowledge and learning on improvement. These stories help to bring this model to life. They also help to demonstrate how councils can find new ways to blend the basic ingredients for public service improvement such as: strong leadership; demanding performance management; and continued customer focus. At the heart of each story is how local councils have created or improved their services to transform the lives of individuals. The detailed study of what has led to these positive results can provide vital clues for managers and politicians in the public sector.
To order at £20.00, visit:
http://www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk/idk/reg/publications-order.do
INNOVATE FROM WITHIN
An Open Letter to the New Cabinet Secretary
By Charles Leadbeater
Published by Demos, 2002
Sir Richard Wilson's retirement offers a golden opportunity to overhaul the civil service and accelerate the reinvention of public services. Existing controversy about the 'politicisation' of the civil service has masked the fact that this institution is struggling with the complexity of the demands it now faces. Senior politicians express growing concern about the capabilities of the civil service, but offer new solutions.
In this open letter to the new Cabinet Secretary, Charles Leadbeater argues that the Government's delivery mantra has resulted in over-centralisation. There is now a growing tension between the short-term, incremental improvement of existing services and the creation of entirely new services for a more complex society. The solution is to encourage innovation from within. As an alternative to a target-driven approach, Leadbeater sets out nine principles for reform. These are based on the need for 'licensed freedom' to innovate within a framework of transparency and high expectation. For a notoriously risk-averse institution such as the civil services, this means a fundamental change of culture and working practice. The diversity of people recruited as public servants also needs to be increased. This is the challenge facing the incoming head of the British Civil Service; for Government the challenge is overcoming its controlling instincts enough to allow it to happen.
Download it at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/innovatewithin
The Shape of Things to Come:
Personalised learning through collaboration
By Charles Leadbeater
Published by Department for Education and Skills in association with National College for School Leadership, 2005
The Shape of Things to Come explicitly links two policy agendas which are deeply interconnected but have often been treated as if they are separate: personalising learning and school collaboration. The argument here is that if our aspiration is personalisation for all learners, schools will need to work together to achieve it. Personalising learning relies on getting young people to 'invest' in their education. The term is used metaphorically, pointing to the need for learners to be much more profoundly engaged in the process of learning. To achieve this, schools need to use resources flexibly and creatively, especially in partnership, and reach beyond the boundaries of the classroom and the school. The best way to handle the increased complexity this entails is through school networks and collaborators with other stakeholders.
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/innovation-unit/
or,
http://publications.teachernet.gov.uk/default.aspx?PageFunction=productdetails&PageMode=publications&ProductId=DFES-1574-2005&
Beyond Excellence
By Charles Leadbeater
Published by Improvement and Development Agency
This project, looking at some of the work of the Innovation Forum of leading councils, has been a search to find next practices: where elements of the public services of the future are being created. Next practices - emergent innovations that could open up new ways of working - are much more likely to come from thoughtful, experienced, self-confident and skilled practitioners trying to find new and more effective solutions to intractable problems. In the main the protagonists in these stories are grey-haired-revolutionaries: practitioners whose experience and reputation gives them the self-confidence to lead others to innovate. These grey-haired-revolutionaries are among the prime human capital in public services. They are experienced, visionary, energetic and innovative. They are a vital part of the distributed leadership of the public services.
Download at: http://www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk/idk/aio/4103576
The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur
A growing band of social entrepreneurs, working at the grass roots of the welfare system in the space between the public and private sector, are developing innovative answers to many of Britain's most pressing social problems. Social entrepreneurs are leading innovation in the most dynamic parts of the voluntary sector and on the edge of the public sector, often with the help of private sector partners. They frequently use business methods to find new solutions to problems such as homelessness, drug dependency and joblessness. They create innovative services by taking underutilised resources - particularly buildings and people - to address social needs left unmet by the public sector or the market.
This report is based on case studies of five inspirational schemes which exemplify the potential of social entrepreneurs to create forms of active welfare which are both cheaper and more effective than the traditional services offered by the welfare state.
Charles Leadbeater, 1997 Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
Download at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/socialentrepreneur
OVERDUE
How to Create a Modern Public Service Library
By Charles Leadbeater
Published by Demos, 2003
Unless decisive action is taken now, the decline of our public libraries could become terminal by the end of the decade. If that happened Britain would be writing off vital social and cultural assets.Public libraries used to be central to the life of many communities but they are increasingly marginalised. People now get books and information from other sources. Libraries need to respond by making themselves more attractive, while building on their traditional strengths.
This report recommends the creation of a new national library development agency (NLDA) which would bring together all library stakeholders from national and local government. A crucial job for the new agency would be to create a libraries network to tackle the fragmentation of the existing service. The report goes on to describe a 10-year strategy for transforming libraries. It recommends the creation of library 'hubs', based in shopping centres, which learned the lessons of more attractive retail environments by blending learning and leisure.
Download at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/overdue
To Our Mutual Advantage
The conversion of many building societies from mutual ownership to shareholder organisation has led some commentators to write the obituary for the entire mutual movements.
However, this book - the first comprehensive review of Britain's mutual 'sector' - shows that mutuality is far from extinct. In fact, mutuals are poised to play a far bigger role in the twenty-first century economy.
It shows that the mutual sector is far larger, more diverse and innovative than many people realise. Mutuals and co-operatives provide a significant share of the services we rely on most: childcare, insurance, food, community safety, health care, education, social housing and environmental improvement.
The report highlights the factors that make mutual enterprises more effective and innovative and the barriers to their success. It sets out a programme for a radical 'mutualisation' of services in the UK. Mutuality was a 'big idea' in the last century; it can be again in the next, offering a way to combine economic dynamism with social responsibility and community spirit.
Charles Leadbeater and Ian Christie, 1999 Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
Download at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/mutualadv
The Self Policing Society
Fear of crime is endemic and pressing. A new consensus has developed between Labour and Conservatives over the need for tougher sentencing and more police. Yet few people are confident that simply more of these kinds of measures will really reduce crime.
As a society we rely too heavily upon specialist institutions such as the police and the prison service to sort out crime for us. Instead of this outsourcing of responsibility for dealing with crime we need an approach which harnesses community self-help. We need innovative policies to help create a society better able to police itself through the development of Street Watch schemes, the creation of Neighbourhood Constables, the reintroduction of the police box and a managed market for policing. We also need to experiment with forms of punishment in the community and creative sentencing, to deliver more effective but more cost efficient punishment in the community.
Charles Leadbeater, 1996 Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
Download at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/theselfpolicingsociety
Civic Spirit - The big idea for a new political era
The days of 'there is no such thing as society' are over. Right across the political spectrum, the search is on for ways to pull nation and community together for the common good. In Civic spirit, Charles Leadbeater argues that mutuality is set to be the big idea that shapes politics in the years ahead. The idea of mutuality links rights with obligations and balances individualism with membership. It builds on the example of voluntary associations to set out new ways of organising education and work, law and order, health and savings. Civic spirit is a brand new way of thinking about the remaking of our society.
Charles Leadbeater, 1997 Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
Download at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/civicspirit
