Partnership with service users is part of the day job for many frontline staff. Teachers can’t teach if students don’t learn. Doctors can’t heal if patients don’t comply with treatments. And yet public services are rarely designed with these principles in mind. The implicit assumption – in design terms at least – is that service users don’t want to play more of a role, and that it’s only the domain of professionals to take decisions and direct resources.
This guest blog is written by Paul Vickery, venture partner for NESTA's Venture Capital Fund.
Look at your services through different eyes – where are you wasting resources that could help you be more effective?
There’s a perception of innovation as something that’s expensive, or only the task of experts. This doesn’t need to be the case. We’ve come across countless examples of innovation in public services driven by the staff who work in them using low-cost tools and speedy processes.
Cuts of an unprecedented scale require radical new thinking of the resources available.
Following last week’s Spending Review, it’s likely you will feel under pressure to cut new approaches or those that at first glance appear marginal and low impact. But it is these approaches that will save money and alleviate pressure on public services in the future.
Last week’s Comprehensive Spending Review has made the challenge critically clear: how can we save money in public services without significant harm to society?
London coffee houses of the 17th century were fertile ground for innovation.
The New York Times published an article recently about an entrepreneur, Seth Priebatsch, and described what it called his 'hypomanic' attributes: an elevated mood, obsession with one idea, little need for sleep, massive self-confidence.
The new line-up of top 100 UK tech companies shows just how disruptive and exciting this market can be.
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