The late Sir Jeremy saw his role to “challenge lazy thinking and find solutions”. In an attempt to avoid “lazy thinking” as we combat the crisis of creativity, this response might feel unsatisfactory. I’m afraid a whole lot more work is needed to develop the ideas I give.
To get this right, we need to go through a robust process: (i) be clear on the problem we want to solve, (ii) explore the evidence and (iii) ground ideas in the lived experience of the people affected.
I propose three ideas: (A) ‘Red team locums’, (B) Embrace rosters and (C) Stimulate the ‘ideas market’. These ideas are not final. I can’t preach ‘learning from failure’ and not have testing built-in.
(i) Let’s start by articulating the problem in three questions:
(A) How might we integrate more input, stimulus and challenge into public servants’ daily lives?
(B) In these times of crisis, how might we make time to hear and involve a range of perspectives?
(C) How might we build higher esteem for the art of learning from failure?
(ii) As we explore the evidence, let’s discover where we have expertise:
(A) On stimulus and challenge, the UK public sector has a head start. Our very way of doing things is built around challenge: from governance boards to private offices, from service standards to spending teams. We also have world-leading schemes to disrupt homogeneous thought. Schemes like the Care Leavers internships are genuinely groundbreaking. Local government has fantastic expertise in user-centred service design.
(B) The UK public sector has deep expertise in making time amidst a crisis. Organisations like the military, MoD, police and Border Force regularly go into – and importantly, come out of – ‘Command & Control’ (C2). These organisations have learnt lessons, often writing them down. [E.g. A concept note commissioned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2017 introduced the concept of ‘Edge C2’ for crisis response in complex environments].
(C) On embedding cultures of ‘learning from failure’ we must look at advanced state-sponsored R&D functions like the US’s DARPA, as well as to entrepreneurial mindsets in the private sector, where it is normal to proudly show off having a failure ‘under your belt’.
I suggest we trial three approaches:
(A) ‘Red team locums’:
Status quo: We know that private offices (and central secretariat functions) are a critical touchpoint in decision making. ‘Always on’, these are places which are forever challenging the business on behalf of the ministers or senior people they serve.
Status quo: There is an established practice of people covering short periods of absence in private offices. Some call this a ‘locum’.
Status quo: We have an Annual Leave surplus after Covid-19. Burnout is rife. People need time off.
Idea: What if we created a team of 10-or-so expert locums who were trained at being excellent private secretaries, meeting the needs of the people they support. Then the magic: those expert locums are selected from a truly diverse set of backgrounds: a care leaver, a technologist, an academic, a local government delivery expert etc.
Design: This team needs to be a hyper-stylish place to work. It needs to be private offices’ first point of call when they need to cover staff absences.
Delivery: The team must do the job they are covering, but will be measured on their ability to challenge the business on their area of expertise. They will be an in-built ‘red team’.
(B) Embrace rosters
Status quo: MoD, police and others know that crisis response (C2) has its risks. They design-in spaces – or split their commands – so that they have the ability to take a step back, reflect, be strategic and inclusive.
Idea: Can we accept that more areas of the public sector must be in a permanent ‘always on’ (C2) state? What if policy teams, and the Senior Civil Service (SCS) were run like operational teams with rosters and clear delineation between response and strategy?
Design: If we rostered the SCS, for example, we would force them to be better at handing over their business (improving audit trails!). We would create spaces for them to ‘take a step back’ from the day job – to take those valuable moments to receive outside inspiration.
(C) Stimulating the public sector ‘ideas market’
Idea: Create the conditions for ‘ideas’ to become the principal currency of the public sector.
Status quo: There is one dominant currency in the public sector: career progression. Whether it’s so you can earn more money to care for loved ones or so you can have more influence to better serve the public, what really matters is promotion. Promotion is a function of grade and how you navigate application criteria.
Status quo: Innovation and failure are in vogue. The public are more understanding than ever about the idea of testing and learning. The ‘U-turn’ is becoming ever rarer as a political critique.
Status quo: It has never been easier to build the systems that underpin new markets, e.g. blockchain and micro energy trading.
Idea: What if we created the conditions for public servants to compete on the quality of their ideas? What if we found ways we could manipulate the market to provoke behaviours?
– What if we allowed teams to ‘carry over’ budgets from one financial year to the next if they were conducting a trial?
– What if we didn’t allow promotion to the SCS unless an individual had published (only to parliament if ‘sensitive’) a case study of their biggest failure and what they learnt?
– What if we trialled pay structures where promotion is-not-equal-to uplift of salary? Instead salary uplifts come from evidencing you have learnt from a failure. Or we build a formula that attributes ‘credit’ for successful projects to those who had historically worked on those projects.
Every one of these ideas is an experiment. The thing that will end up ‘solving’ my problem will not look anything like these ideas. But we won’t get there without bravely trying out some new things.
1943-11