Productivity Pitches #8: Spreading innovation across public services
Productivity in public services has never been more important. Most services are struggling to return to pre-pandemic performance levels, and the new Labour government has indicated that spending will remain tight. Improvements in performance will likely come from frontline workers finding new, innovative ways of delivering services.
So what can be done to improve productivity? By highlighting outstanding examples of innovation across public services, Productivity Pitches, a series of events hosted by the IfG, aims to share and support ways to improve performance levels.
This event was the eighth in the series and focused on innovation across public services.
Each speaker had 10 minutes to present their innovation, followed by 10 minutes of audience questions. The chair and a guest from The Productivity Institute – which kindly supported this event series – brought together the common themes from the pitches and discussed the lessons for improving productivity.
The speakers for this edition of Productivity Pitches were:
Aoife O'Higgins, Director of Evidence at Foundations, the What Works Centre for children and families explained how their work showing the efficacy of Family Group Conferencing (FGC) has led to the government legislating in the Children, Wellbeing and Schools Bill to mandate that councils offer parents a Family Group Decision Making meeting before referring a child to social services. This substantially expanded the use of FGCs.
Rhian Gladman and Gary Hughes on LGA’s peer challenge programme and transformation support. For its peer challenge programme, the LGA recruits senior local government officers and political leaders to act as peer reviewers. Following a meeting with the council that will be reviewed, a small team of peer reviewers is sent in to speak to people, assess processes and documents, and use their knowledge to provide peer-led feedback. For transformation support, the LGA matches peers with transformation experience with councils that need that specific advice.
The event was chaired by Nick Davies, Programme Director at the Institute for Government. Joel Hoskins, Research Assistant at The Productivity Institute joined to the discuss common themes.
Productivity Pitches was kindly supported by The Productivity Institute.
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IfG DevoLab #2: How can mayors and strategic authorities secure investment into regional economies?
The IfG team headed to Birmingham to explore how mayors can secure and deliver private investment into their regions in pursuit of growth and regeneration.
The IfG DevoLab is a new initiative from the Institute for Government dedicated to exploring the innovations enabled by devolution, learning from the results, and sharing the lessons so that places can take better decisions about how to use devolved powers and budgets.
IfG DevoLab #2 saw speakers from three regions – West Midlands, Greater Manchester, and the North East – set out how the powers and profile of mayors and the convening role of strategic authorities have been used to secure and deliver private investment for key regional strategic projects.
‘Investing in the West Midlands: The Birmingham Sports Quarter’, Jonathan Gibson, Interim Director of Strategy at the West Midlands Combined Authority
‘Investing in Greater Manchester: The Sister Innovation District, Robert Edwards, Deputy Director of Investment at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority
‘Investing in the North East’, Dr Henry Kippin, Chief Executive of the North East Combined Authority
The three presenters were joined on the panel by Julia Goldsworthy, Head of Social Impact Investment at L&G, and former Director of Strategy at West Midlands Combined Authority, for a broader discussion on the benefits of devolution and mayoral leadership, the lessons less mature devolved regions can learn from those further along in the journey, and whether further devolution can accelerate growth.
This event was chaired by Akash Paun, Programme Director at the Institute for Government, with an introduction by Hannah White, CEO of the Institute for Government.
Insights from this discussion informed a published policy briefing containing the three case studies and a synthesis of key lessons.
The Institute for Government would like to thank L&G for its support of this event and its wider support of the IfG DevoLab series.
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Local government reorganisation and public service delivery: What are the options and challenges?
The government’s major restructuring of local government will be a formidable challenge for local officials and political leaders in 164 district councils across 21 English county areas and 19 small neighbouring unitary authorities. For local government reorganisation to truly act as a catalyst for local public service reform, as envisaged by central government, services currently delivered by outgoing district councils – like waste collection and housing – will need to be merged and delivered from day one of the new unitary authorities’ existence.
This means harmonising service provision, staff terms and conditions, establishing new management structures and resolving issues such as incompatible ICT systems, culture clashes between teams and overcome incompatible business processes.
What are the challenges and options facing local district council leaders? How long does it take to merge these services? What are the risks and opportunities? What have been the greatest barriers to successful transformation in earlier rounds of local government reorganisation? And what structures and service delivery options are available to the new unitary authorities?
To answer these questions and more, this IfG event brought together an expert panel, including:
Professor John Denham, Research Fellow and Director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics at the University of Southampton
Liz Elliott, Deputy Chief Executive – Transformation at Harborough District Council
Justin Galliford, Chief Executive at Norse Group
Rachel Joyce, Assistant Chief Executive – Local Engagement at North Yorkshire Council
The event was chaired by Dr Matthew Fright, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Government.
We would like to thank Norse Group for kindly supporting this event.
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How can changes to NHS incentives help deliver the 10 Year Health Plan?
The government’s ambitious vision for the health system can only be delivered by changing the behaviour of thousands of different organisations and hundreds of thousands of people working across health and care. To do this, the 10 Year Health Plan proposes some major changes to how funding flows through the system and how providers and individuals are held to account. This includes multi-year budgets, patient feedback linked payments, best practice tariffs, performance related pay for leaders, league tables for providers but fewer overall targets, and earned autonomy for high performers.
How will changes to financial flows help deliver the government’s health priorities? What impact will the 10 Year Health Plan have on allocation of resources between different parts of the NHS? And will the new accountability regime incentivise the right behaviours and ways of working?
To discuss these questions and more, we were joined by an expert panel including:
Thomas Cawston, Corporate Affairs Lead at Novartis UK
Anita Charlesworth, Senior Economic Adviser at the Health Foundation and acting chair of North-West London NHS Integrated Care Board
Sally Gainsbury, Senior Policy Analyst at Nuffield Trust
Hardev Virdee, Group Chief Finance Officer at Barts Health NHS Trust
This event was chaired by Stuart Hoddinott, Associate Director at the Institute for Government.
We would like to thank Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK for kindly supporting this event.
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What is the Conservative route to fiscal sustainability?
Speakers:
Richard Fuller MP, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Thomas Pope, Deputy Chief Economist at the Institute for Government
Ryan Shorthouse, Executive Chair at Bright Blue
Trinh Tu, Managing Director, Public Affairs at Ipsos UK
This event was chaired by Dr Gemma Tetlow, Chief Economist at the Institute for Government.
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The Labour government has a huge majority in parliament – but Keir Starmer’s administration is also facing an incredibly complex set of policy challenges. So how can the prime minister and his team turn around public service performance? What can chancellor Rachel Reeves do to get the economy growing again? What will mission-driven government actually mean in practice? Who should be making the key decisions in Westminster – and beyond? And what will the appointment of a new cabinet secretary mean for the future direction of the civil service?
From reforming how the centre of government works to the battle for the future of the civil service, from making a success of levelling up to achieve net zero goals, IfG EVENTS stimulate fresh thinking and share ideas about how government works – and how it could work better.
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