A conference at HM Treasury provided a platform for senior central government officials to share their views on the issue
Innovation is an attractive concept closely related to advances in technology, but also one that can be quite vague and difficult to translate into practical change and new solutions.
Public servants often talk of the need to innovate but struggle with the demands of making it happen.
HM Treasury addressed the issue at its Innovation Day last week, hosted by Huw Stephens (pictured left), HMT CIO and head of business solutions, bringing together a collection of senior officials from central government to share their experience and thinking about how to drive innovation for the transformation of services.
A central perspective was provided by Mike Potter (pictured right), until recently the Government’s chief digital officer. He made the point that many people regard innovation as being about technology, and acknowledged it is a highly important element.
“But technology is one engine for change, innovation and growth,” he added. “A huge amount of innovation really comes from change in practice, change in process, change in approach. The technology might be a catalyst, but it’s what the people do with it and how they work the changes.
“So innovation is actually a democratic activity. It’s not limited to technologists; all of us can do it.”
Competitive advantage
Potter said that in the private sector innovation is driven by the need for a competitive advantage against the competition, and this should also apply to government, as the UK has competition in areas such as the economy and defence, and innovation can give it an edge against competitor countries and hostile states.
There are key parts of the public sector that are relentlessly focused on innovating more than the competition, and others for which, although the competition is not so intense, they contribute to the successful operation of society. It all contributes to creating a sustainable advantage for the UK.
He highlighted different approaches, one being ‘cut and paste’, taking a good idea from one area and mapping it across to others.
This came with a reference to his past experience in the NHS National Blood Service, in which it identified the most productive areas for collecting donations, focused on understanding how they achieved this, then on how they could pass this on to others. This led to a 20% improvement in productivity over 18 months.
Another approach is to adapt cut and paste to a new context. He recounted an effort to increase organ donations in the NHS, when it was discovered that some nurses were more effective at persuading families to give consent – or ‘clinching the deal’. This prompted sales training for nurses in relevant areas.
Imagining a different future
Third is ‘blue sky’, which comes from brainstorming and imagining a different future, and has led to the development of programmes such as Making Tax Digital in HM Revenue and Customs. This began as an effort to achieve improvements in how the department handled downloadable software and CDs, but developed into a more ambitious and wide ranging reform.
“That’s a fundamental reform of the tax system that started out to solve a specific problem but has become quite transformative and shows how the public sector can operate,” Potter said.
Considering what characterises innovation, he said he is not a fan of the term ‘fail fast’, but prefers ‘learn fast’ as that conveys the key requirement to learn what works best.
Another is the importance of building communities, throughout the public sector and with private sector partners, to share ideas and best practice.
Then comes the need to develop a ‘path to scale’, taking good ideas towards a practical solution that is widely used.
Telling a story
“A huge differentiator between a good idea succeeding and not is your ability to tell a powerful story,” Potter said. “It’s to build confidence in yourself, talk about the things you’ve done, the profound difference it has made, what can be taken, widened, deepened and used more broadly.”
He summed up the overall approach as: “Take the idea, crack on, see where it takes you, learn and go again.”
Other senior government officials provided their perspectives in a discussion chaired by Huw Stephens, CIO and head of business solutions at HM Treasury.
Alison Campbell, CEO at the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT), said: “You have to legitimise it, make it OK for people to innovate. Give them some space and time and allow for some risk, and it needs some senior ownership.”
She cited the Government’s report from 2021 on a strategy for knowledge and innovation assets in the public sector – The Mackintosh report – which highlighted untapped knowledge assets in the sector, in the form of data, know-how, software and intellectual property. Making these assets easier to find and use, a prime reason for setting up GOTT, is also a significant measure in promoting innovation.
Continuous improvement
Karl Hoods, (left) chief digital and information officer for the Department for Energy and Net Zero and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, emphasised the significance of identifying a problem in a process, developing a solution then pushing on into continuous improvement.
He also spoke of the need to close the gap between back office functions and the delivery of policy, as changes in the latter need the former to operate smoothly to succeed; and for an innovation team to stay close to the people who will depend on the solution, and to any relevant suppliers, so they can share any problems that emerge.
Dr Iain McGregor, (below) director of innovation and development at the Government Internal Audit Agency, said there have been instances of organisations persisting with innovation programmes when there is evidence of them not working, and there should a mechanism to stand back, examine what is wrong then change direction if necessary.
This is highly important in managing risk and will become more so as organisations look to innovate with AI solutions. McGregor advocated choosing projects on one or two applications at a time, which will make it much easier to identify and deal with any risks.
Key takeaways
Asked for key takeaways on approaching innovation, he said leaders should urge their people to think about what could make their jobs better and talk to colleagues and peers about it at every opportunity. This “plants the seeds for innovation”.
Campbell made the point that if you keep doing the same thing you keep getting the same thing in response, and that civil servants have the responsibility to innovate as this is doing the right thing for citizens.
Hoods responded with a statement that should underpin the drive in any organisation: everybody can innovate, and that it can be about smaller things as well as the big things in an organisation.
“Start small and keep doing it,” he said.
