Design Council - Make it work

Public services by design case study

Janet Smith
Business Investment Team Leader, Sunderland City Council
Sunderland has done extremely well over the last ten or 15 years in regenerating its economy, and we’ve created a lot of new jobs in automotive and contact centres and financial services, but quite shockingly we still have a very high number of people who are out of work. So, the workless cohort is around 37,000 people, and it’s a lot of people. And that is a mixture of JSA claimants, and also people on incapacity benefit. So, it’s still a huge, significant problem for Sunderland.

Tackling worklessness doesn’t just benefit Sunderland’s economy. It transforms peoples lives.

Louise is a full time carer.

Louise Henderson
Full time carer
I’m Louise Henderson and I’m a full time carer for my son. He was diagnosed with autism; he has quite a sever form of autism, and he has no speech. I used to work full time, but after he was diagnosed and I had my daughter, Holly, I became a full time carer.

I was just concentrating fully on caring and I really didn’t have an immediate plan for the future, and then I bumped into a company called, People Into Employment. After I met them, Jill Charmin who works with PIE, came to do an interview at home. She went through the types of work that I might be interested in, and I came up with being a teaching assistant, because that would fit into my lifestyle, with the working the hours and having holidays off where I could still do all the caring for Nathan. And then it went from there.

It’s absolutely fabulous, because if I hadn’t met PIE, I don’t think I would have been back in to work. And now I’m just looking forward to the future, and I’ve done another course related to autism, which I’m specifically interested in, and I’m just looking to the future, and I’m very ambitious about what the future holds.

James lived a life of drug addiction and crime before being helped into a job.

James Moody
Forklift Truck Driver
I didn’t think about the week after; I didn’t think about the next day. I thought I was just living a daily life. It was maybe the relationship I was in; I was trying to support my two kids, give them the best that they want, and obviously you can’t do that on the dole, and I was good money on committing crimes. So, basically I was just thinking about my ex partner and my two sons, but obviously going in and out of prison all the time, was just breaking the relationships down. But I didn’t realise at the time; I didn’t know what was happening. I just think I was keeping them up, by giving them money, but it wasn’t like that.

I just kept on going down to the Jobcentre for months at least trying to get a job, and I couldn’t break the barrier because of my qualifications. So, like basically they put us through my reg truck licence. The week after that, I got my certificates, didn’t have a card like, but I got my certificates, I went to the Jobcentre, the week after I was in the Jobcentre, I started employment. I’ve been there for a few weeks now, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s changed my life around. All my family has been HGV drivers so, that’s maybe one of my goals for next year, as long as you get Christmas out of the way and try and save a bit of money for my HGV licence. Because I’ve always wanted a HGV licence, but obviously the state that I was in, I couldn’t get to where I wanted to be. So, I was just like a far fetched dream, sort of thing, really. So, now it’s not a far fetched dream, it’s true, it’s actually in my grasp to reach it.

What made this project different?

Leslie Calder
Head of European Skills Strategy, One Northeast
What made this Sunderland Make It Work project different was the focus on service design and the involvement of innovation and design expertise to support the review, in such a traditional, public sector activity, and that’s what made it so interesting for One NorthEast.

The design-led approach really challenged the way we think about, and work with the market, both clients and providers. We have a much more user-centred approach. Design expertise helped us understand the real, not perceived barriers, and to design our practical solutions.

Karen Alexander
Employment and Training Manager, Sunderland City Council
I think the positive features that we’ve been able to learn from this project, has been very much to look at things through the eyes of the user, through they eyes of the client, and there was some key words that we’ve had drummed into us by the design team from the beginning. And that is, we have to make the journey, and the service be efficient and effective, but then, they’re terms that we’re all quite familiar with. But then it has to be usable, and useful, and desirable. And I think it’s really… that was a new one on us, we weren’t used to working with things that had to be desirable, but people have to want to do it.

Alisa Martin
Centre Manager, Sunderland Carer’s Centre
For me, personally, I think it was the visual thing. I actually think being able to visualise in very simple terms, the progression, and being a bit of an old cynic, I would sort of think, yeah, let’s see, let’s see. But then I went to a presentation, just a couple of months ago, when the figures were actually getting quite substantial, and you could actually see the clusters of people very visually, and you could see the progression very visually. And I think it was stunning, because it really showed you the achievement and, I think, seeing it… I’m quite a verbal person, and a sort of, anecdotal person, and being able just to actually visualise it was really, I thought was, I did actually find that quite stunning.

Gill Charman
Project Manager, People Into Employment (PIE)
It was good because it was an interactive experience, that the groups felt involved, and they felt that they were genuinely being listened to, and that people would value their opinion. And it also gave a feeling of optimism that there was a stream of funding that could be applied for.

Janet Smith
I think the refreshing thing about the project, and the most inspiring thing about the project has been how effectively, a disparate group, a motley crew of different providers has actually come together, and recognised the value that each of them has, and what they can actually give to other people. And give to the whole client journey.