Comments on: Innovation is the key to building Britain’s future http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2009/06/innovation-is-the-key-to-building-britains-future/ Instant analysis from expert bloggers and highlights from Public Finance Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:18:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Kieron Flanagan http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2009/06/innovation-is-the-key-to-building-britains-future/comment-page-1/#comment-21 Kieron Flanagan Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:14:50 +0000 http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/?p=1672#comment-21 Gill Hunter's examples are of radical public service innovations - new services or radically new ways of delivering services - thus downplaying the incremental innovation which certainly does happen in public services. But whether we seek radical changes or incremental improvements, promoting innovation in the public sector is not simply a matter of changing attitudes to risk or failure (the public sector has developed these attitudes for good reasons - and it also doesn't help that the term 'innovation' is synonymous in the public sector with disruptive top-down change for change's sake). A more profound challenge is that the whole conceptual toolkit with which governments and analysts alike think about public sector activity is based around static notions of 'efficiency' which are inimical to innovation. Even process innovations which may cut costs in the medium term require experimentation to begin with. It is certainly necessary to be prepared to see failed experiments as sources of learning but to even have the chance to experiment to begin with you need 'slack' in terms of time and resources. How likely is this to be forthcoming in the current circumstances? Gill Hunter’s examples are of radical public service innovations – new services or radically new ways of delivering services – thus downplaying the incremental innovation which certainly does happen in public services. But whether we seek radical changes or incremental improvements, promoting innovation in the public sector is not simply a matter of changing attitudes to risk or failure (the public sector has developed these attitudes for good reasons – and it also doesn’t help that the term ‘innovation’ is synonymous in the public sector with disruptive top-down change for change’s sake).

A more profound challenge is that the whole conceptual toolkit with which governments and analysts alike think about public sector activity is based around static notions of ‘efficiency’ which are inimical to innovation. Even process innovations which may cut costs in the medium term require experimentation to begin with. It is certainly necessary to be prepared to see failed experiments as sources of learning but to even have the chance to experiment to begin with you need ‘slack’ in terms of time and resources. How likely is this to be forthcoming in the current circumstances?

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