Design is a problem solving process but it is difficult to think of what problems it can help you solve when all you really know about designers is that they make nice gadgets like iPods or will have created the graphics for that attractive label on your tin of baked beans.
At the Design Council we believe design has much more to offer. Design is an approach to public service redevelopment which, by putting people first, creates solutions that are not only innovative but viable, fit for purpose and desirable to use.
Our Chairman, Sir Michael Bichard, is championing a new programme called Public Services by Design. He believes there are three key ways in which design can make public services better.
- It can redesign the way we deliver our services allowing us to “build or reshape our services around citizens, around clients, around customers.”
- It can help the development of better policy “ensuring that ideas are tested before having scarce resources invested in them on a national basis.”
- “Design can help us in the public services to be more innovative. We need to be conscious that today’s problems are just not going to be addressed by yesterday’s ideas and yesterday’s solutions...we need a whole new approach to policy over the 10 years.”
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This video explains how the Design Council is working towards better public services
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Find out more about:
The Design Council's plans for public services and why designers offer the right skills to help the public sector.
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What design has done for the Civil Service and how it can help it in the future.
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Each of us has a story to tell about our best experience of a public services, whether it's a helpful policeman, a well-timed tax rebate or a pleasant trip to the post office. We asked attendees at a workshop for senior public sector managers and leading designers about the last time a public service made them smile.
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The Design Council is tendering for an organisation or individual to evaluate the pilot phase of it’s Public Services by Design programme including the outputs and outcomes of 7 pilot projects with public sector partners. This tender includes information on the programme, its background, aims of the programme and what we need to evaluate. Find out more about the tender