New focus on innovation
agendaNi considers the practical results from Simon Hamilton’s reform programme.
The Civil Service is being encouraged to generate new ideas about public service delivery and use data more effectively as part of Finance Minister Simon Hamilton’s drive for further reform.
At a strategic level, Hamilton’s ministerial advisory council is providing independent advice on improvement and innovation. The group includes three former public sector leaders: Michael Bichard who restructured Whitehall’s Department for Education and Employment, John Elvidge who pioneered the ‘one government’ approach in Scotland, and Paul Haran who established Science Foundation Ireland.
Two other members have analysed reform from outside the public sector: Ulster Bank Chief Economist Richard Ramsey and Professor Nola Hewitt-Dundas from Queen’s University Management School. In addition, Marco Steinberg brings an international perspective as the former Strategic Design Director at Finland’s innovation hub (Sitra). He is now an independent consultant on organisational design.
The Public Sector Innovation Lab was announced by Hamilton last April with the aim of developing solutions to complex problems in a short timeframe. Its first project focused on making regulatory impact assessments more effective. The lab brought together subject experts in an intensive workshop in late June and it has now turned its attention to how to improve dementia services.
Alongside that, the Civil Service has introduced a new IT system (Ideas Engine) which gives staff the opportunity to become involved in service redesign. Speaking at its launch, Hamilton remarked: “The best and most creative ideas for modernisation and reform often come from those who are working in the system and I plan to encourage staff to promote such change through a new mechanism for harvesting their ideas. The best of these will be one source of material for the innovation lab to progress.”
Data release is also seen as an increasingly important driver for reform. Practical examples include the Spatial NI portal for geographic data and the first Northern Ireland open data challenge, which was won by the Belfast IT company Datactics. Its solution was an app to make tourism-related data more usable for tourists, businesses and policy-makers.
Northern Ireland has also participated in the Office for National Statistics’ well-being data project which started in 2011. The results have consistently concluded that it has the best quality of life among the four UK nations.
The CBI’s Public Services Reform Committee is satisfied that good progress is being made. Its Chair, Jackie Henry, has commented: “The business community is leading on the development of new technology that can enhance and make our public services more sustainable and it is such examples – in the context of continued public expenditure constraint – that we will continue to showcase.”