Connecting People to Policy: Design-led Innovation in the Public Sector
Design-led innovation in the public sector to me means the ability to connect people to policy. In this, the role of the designer is the facilitator between people and policy. It is a long stretch, but it is possible and the evidence base for has already appeared out of countries such as the UK.
In connecting people to policy, designers:
- Use the approach of co-design to design with and for people
- Facilitate a process from reflection to invention
- Uncover deep empathy to inspire sustainable opportunities, and
- Capture human stories to mobilise group action.
In the early 2000’s in the UK, a groundswell of design for public services emerged. A number of enabling conditions, including the then-political context, investment in innovative uses of design and passionate intent of young designers looking to use design for social good, paved the way for a small and active industry of design agencies to orient design practices toward complex problems in areas such as health, education, mobility, food, energy, ageing and democracy.
Below are just a handful of exemplars of design-led projects that I encountered during my time in the UK and that over time, produced outcomes that made their way into local and national government policy.
Alzheimer100
Co-designing with and for people with dementia and their carers
The effects of the ageing population are already well upon us. Currently more than 47 million people around the world have dementia (World Alzheimers Report, 2016). It is debilitating disease, where for over 100 years, still no cure has been found. The costs of dementia will continue to exceed for national governments, and more and more, the care and support for people with dementia will rely on local communities and informal carers. The Alzheimer100 project asked — how can we improve daily life of people with dementia and their carers? The project was led by social design agency thinkpublic, who took a co-design approach to design a new service with and for people with dementia and their carers. The proposition was a signposting service where people with dementia and their carers met face-t0-face with a Signposter, a person who, at the point of diagnosis, could guide and connect people to local dementia support services and care.
Over the duration of the project, the UK government was conducting consultations to develop the country’s first ever national dementia strategy. The signposting service was a tangible demonstration of the innovative and fit-for-purpose outcomes that result from co-designing with communities and appeared as a recommendation in the National Dementia Strategy. Now called Dementia Advisors, the service was one of 17 recommendations that the government saw as greatly improving the lives of people with dementia and their carers. Today, Dementia Advisors is very much a live and relevant service for those most affected by the disease.
LowCarbLane
Changing energy behaviour in low income households
Most governments around the world have a mandate to greatly reduce the national carbon footprint. The LowCarbLane project had the added challenge of using design to change behaviour of energy use in low-income households. In their research, designers from service design agency, Live|work identified that for low-income households, a barrier to behaviour change was finance. Through the process of design research, synthesis and ideation, the designers created a service proposition called Saverbox — an interest-free energy loan which would allow low-income households install energy saving technologies (eg. solar panels) and pay the loan back over time with the savings made from energy usage the previous year.
The idea of Saverbox emerged from the insight that low-income households did not want their financial outlay to change from year-to-year and Saverbox would help address this barrier to behaviour change. Much like Alzheimer100, the project was timely in that the UK government were looking for new ideas to inform policy and Saverbox appeared as a recommendation to help the country reduce the national carbon footprint. The concept of Saverbox became known as 0% business loans. The government’s Carbon Trust made loans available for small businesses to reduce their carbon footprint. The concept of Saverbox also exists locally here in Australia. Much like Alzheimer100, LowCarbLane was a practical demonstration of design-led innovation in the public sector that inspired policy.
Urban Farming
Community engagement for well-being and food scarcity
In a city like Toronto, it is said that if all transportation systems broke down and no food was able to enter the city, Toronto would only have 3 days of food supply before it would run out. Provocations such as this get us thinking how we can future-proof and be more self-sufficient. The Urban Farming project was initiated to highlight a policy gap around the possibilities of food scarcity. It asked a team of designers to engage a community in the importance of food, self-sufficiency and urban farming. The outcomes of the project touched issues beyond this. The design team began by gathering insights on the ground in the town of Middlesbrough. They found a latent community spirit and observed empty urban spaces which present opportunities for food growing. A brainstorming session created the idea for a program of work called Urban Farming where:
- The local community would engage in growing food in empty urban spaces around town
- Kitchen Playgrounds would be chef-led cooking sessions to create recipes using the food being grown around town
- A Town Meal would be a big community event at the end of summer where locals would pick and bring food for consumption and celebration
The project was a huge success. It engaged all ages across the town of Middlesbrough and informed local government policy who observed through the project how health eating, physical outdoor activity and urban farming were interconnected and critical to health, well-being and community spirit of the town. Urban Farming has been run each year since its inception in 2007 and a number of program activities have emerged since then led, funded and run by the local Council, National Health Service and community service providers. The Urban Farming project is a powerful exemplar of how local community action can highlight and inform local policy.
Design-led innovation in the public sector is the ability to connect people to policy. Here designers design both with and for people; facilitate a process from reflection to invention; uncover innovative opportunities and mobilise people for action. Design-led projects are able to act as provocations for shaping, inspiring and highlighting new ares for policy.
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