Public Services Lab Blog

Prototyping and learning in Wigan: Creative Councils Camp

Jonny Mallinson - 19.02.2013

The second camp of phase two of Nesta's Creative Councils programme, hosted by Wigan Council, began at Sunshine House community centre in Scholes with an introduction to some of the most innovative work already happening in Wigan and the surrounding area.

We listened to presentations on the Community Budgets pilot being run throughout Greater Manchester and the LIFE programme, designed by Participle and run by Wigan Council.

Two hours of ideas generation to unpick the complementary currency component of Wigan's Creative Councils proposal followed, until finally the well-worked participants were whisked off to dinner at the Wheel restaurant, staffed by young people from Wigan & Leigh College.

Day two was focused on the development of learning and evaluation strategies for each council. The day started with councils "road mapping" their projects by identifying the big tasks (leading and managing change, articulating the vision, building the case for change) crucial to their success over the next 8 months. 

Against each of these bigger tasks councils mapped a set of practical actions. Prioritising these allowed them to spend the afternoon working through a logic model identifying possible indicators that might provide evidence of progress. Finally councils were asked to test their basic evaluation strategy with other council teams, collecting feedback and refining ideas.

The Camp provided the Creative Councils community with an opportunity to build relationships, share best practice and refine and critique ideas. But it also provided Nesta with an opportunity to reflect more broadly on innovation in local government. Some of the key themes that emerged over the course of the two days were:

Empathy - Mike was a father and a drug addict, an unemployed husband and a homeless son. He is now a strong community member and vociferous spokesman for the LIFE programme, the package of support provided by Wigan Council that helped Mike turn his life around.

The LIFE programme encourages social workers to ignore convention by engaging each family on its own merits, without any predefined objectives. The support provided is based on a deep understanding of the particular needs of the individual and family, developed over months of relationship building. The LIFE programme suggests that public services must be much more sensitive to the emotional needs of their users; they must be empathetic.

Language -The language of innovation can be highly inaccessible, particularly for those with no experience of working on innovation projects. In one presentation at the Camp, co-design was highlighted as a key theme. But co-design in this instance does not refer to the design of a service alongside the users of that service; it refers to teams of professionals from pilot councils and central government working towards the implementation of community budgets.

This reflects a much broader challenge to those working on innovation programmes: not everyone will understand your language and as a consequence your idea; and even if they do, their understanding might be based on a completely different set of principles and assumptions.

Discipline - The discipline of the methodology used in day two of the camp allowed people to analyse huge amounts of information in a very small amount of time, shedding new light on challenges and opportunities.  Many assume that a design-led approach to innovation projects implies a lack of process and a rejection of structure.  On the contrary, successful innovation projects, whilst leaving room for creativity and iteration, must be incredibly disciplined.

The power of numbers - The goal of day two was to encourage participants to identify a set of indicators that might provide evidence of progress towards overall outcomes. Although councils are often good at setting numerical targets against their overall outcomes, they can be reluctant to identify clear indicators that can provide evidence of progress.

Day two focused on highlighting the difference between data for evaluation and data for management. The latter is rarely considered essential, but in reality regular, numerical evidence of progress is extremely powerful in any number of ways. The question becomes: 'what would happen if data felt like a friend...?'.

Jonny Mallinson is a Project Co-ordinator and Researcher at Innovation Unit.