Can we create better public services using design?

Design Council

In the Cox Review, Sir George Cox proposed that taking steps to 'use the massive power of public procurement, both centrally and locally', would help to encourage more imaginative solutions from suppliers.

'If we want to change the business culture in the UK, making it more enterprising and innovative, creating services and products that are world leaders, the vast domestic market that the public sector represents has a major role to play in becoming a more enlightened and more demanding buyer.'

But the issue is wider than that. The Review spurred designers to ask how design methods and processes could be used to not only encourage innovation from suppliers, but innovation in services themselves?

Designs of the time (Dott) has spent 2007 asking how design could improve how people live. The public services they use on a regular basis - schools, health services and transport for instance - were at the centre of the projects undertaken.

The results show that design methods and processes can help identify what people really think about public services and can help them to identify ways to make them better.

Case studies of the projects completed by Dott 07 formed the basis of an Associate Parliamentary Group for Design and Innovation policy seminar in Westminster on Thursday 13 December. The event examined the role of design in public services and provided attendees with the opportunity to hear first hand about the innovative approaches to transport, low carbon housing and sustainable schools that were developed in collaboration with local communities in the North East as part of Dott 07.

After his 2005 Review on how best to enhance UK business productivity and innovation, Sir George Cox agreed a series of Breakfast Meetings with the then Chancellor Gordon Brown. These would take place at 11 Downing Street and allow the creative community to discuss the role of design in public and private sector innovation with members of industry, education and Government ministers.

The latest Breakfast Meeting took place on 7 November 2007 and included representatives from Virgin Atlantic Airways and Unilever, ministers from DIUS and designers from Live/Work and Engine Service Design. Discussions surrounded how pressures such as an ageing population, chronic diseases and greater demands for personalised and more flexible learning could be managed.

The need for innovative solutions to solve the problems of society has become more widely recognised, and the Breakfast Meeting gave designers the opportunity to show how they could manage creativity and help public and private sector businesses capitalise on new market opportunities as well as provide better services for their users. 

At strategic level, Government has recognised the imperative for innovation in the public sector but few practical tools or programmes have yet been developed. New responses will require new approaches, activating knowledge networks, resources and imagination across society not just within the public service professions and institutions.