The Scottish Approach to Service Design
Putting people at the heart of government
By Cat Macaulay
In Scotland, government has a longstanding commitment to working with and not just for citizens. The ‘Scottish Approach to Government’, as it finally became known in 2011, puts an emphasis on people and communities through the concept of ‘with not for’. Although the Scottish approach was initially born in policymaking in the early days of the founding of the Scottish Parliament, we want that to apply to designing public services as much as policy.
In fact, none of this can be done in isolation, which is why the reality of putting these ideals into practice is so hard. If we are to truly integrate policy and service design through citizen participation, and move beyond our organisational silos, it means changing the very fabric and structures of government and radically changing how we work consistently across the entire public services landscape.
We want to move beyond the idea of simply ‘joining up services’ — it’s too easy for government to be complacent in this mission. Redesigning public services around the needs of users means starting in a different place for every single organisation. Defining the problem through the design of policy, and following this through to the implementation and improvement of services. And this needs to be done collaboratively by organisations. A shared vision, collective ownership and a commitment to making sure the people we serve have a valued and supported place in the decision-making process.
Over the last five years I’ve been fortunate to work across every part of the Scottish public sector, from policy and service teams within the Scottish Government, to public bodies, the NHS, local government and the third sector. In that time I’ve seen a strong willingness to work differently, rethink the usual approaches and look for alternatives. Indeed the seeds of the Scottish Approach to Service Design are already there — just not everywhere. That said, there’s a real recognition that the current lifecycles of policy and service design are not sustainable for government in the 21st century, and not good enough for our citizens and service users. I feel more than ever that we’re pushing at an open door.
So where do we fit in? The Office of the Chief Designer is a small division in the Scottish Government tasked with bringing design thinking into the heart of ‘how we do government’. This means connecting government and citizens through the use of design methods and, just as importantly, opening up and democratising design thinking as a way of tackling problems we could all learn from. Our mission is simple. We want to support and encourage all of Scotland’s people to participate deeply and fairly in designing the services they need. The division also leads the design profession in central Scottish Government and its core agencies, making sure our practitioners out doing delivery are supported and connected to our strategic aims and ways of working.
The Scottish Approach to Service Design underpins our work. What started as a glimmer of an idea and a grassroots movement three years ago has been adopted by organisations across the public sector, from local government to health and the third sector. It is being rolled out through the team’s work with many others, building teams and partnerships right across government and out to the wider public service landscape.
The Scottish Approach to Service Design aims to:
• define a shared set of principles, tools and methods for service design
• create shared accessibility and inclusion standards for all services, and (crucially) for the methods and tools of design itself
• increase our ability to share and reuse design research findings, design patterns, and resources
• ensure everyone in Scotland can participate in designing the services they need and use, regardless of their circumstances
A wide range of advice, training and direct design support has been put in place to create awareness and understanding across our organisations and service teams, while at the same time we’re recruiting design practitioners to meet increasing demand.
Our three-day service design champions training course has been delivered across local and central government, the NHS and the wider public sector over the last 2 years. This awareness level course has rapidly built a community enthusiastic to use design methods in their work, while a senior leaders course helps create the space teams need to work in this way and make the case for design skills. More than 200 design champions have been trained and many more will be in the year ahead.
And while it’s important we transform and modernise government to be ready and capable to meet present day challenges, we also need to be looking ahead, learning to design for today, and for a rapidly evolving changed future. We cannot do that if we are not sure we have the very people in the room that will be affected by our decisions — and we need to help them participate in ways that work for them.
To meet that ambition we need to redesign design itself, to be more radically inclusive and accessible. We’ll fail if some citizens, for example disabled people, those in remote areas, or people with low literacy levels, cannot participate as easily as others. Design fails if designers are not as diverse as the population they work for. Truly collaborative design fails if only certain people can take part.
We’re constantly checking ourselves to make sure the design activities we promote do not create barriers for people. We produce guidance and assets for our community, and we’re always learning about where improvements are needed.
Design has the power to fundamentally change how the people of Scotland and government, both local and central, work together to collectively solve our problems. Teaching even basic design concepts and skills to citizens and service users helps to unlock people’s creativity, their ability to think disruptively, to challenge and to collaborate. This helps them understand the complexity of apparently simple ideas like ‘meeting someone’s needs’ — which of course can only ever exist in a complex web of constraints and challenges against which ‘needs’ must be juggled.
It’s an exciting time to work in the Scottish Government. Despite a challenging delivery environment, the strategic leadership is strong. We have a renewed National Performance Framework that defines what we collectively aspire to as a country. This set of national outcomes includes conventional economic indicators of course, but extends far beyond them, identifying the importance of treating people with kindness, dignity and compassion in how we carry out government. Initiatives like the Open Government Partnership have gained significant traction in Scotland, and reflect our First Minister’s desire that we are transparent and accountable to citizens.
Service design has been a key part of how we have translated these goals into reality for service users. For example, the reaction to the early benefits delivered by our new agency Social Security Scotland, as part of the devolution of 11 benefits to Scottish Government, demonstrates how well the involvement of thousands of service users in the design of its services has honoured the commitment made in the supporting legislation. Namely, to treat people applying for benefits with dignity and respect.
To me, this all demonstrates a real commitment to putting people at the heart of everything we do. To ensuring government and public services are designed with, not just for, the people of Scotland.
As the Scottish Government’s Chief Designer, I have half-jokingly said in the past that Scotland should aim to be the biggest design school in the world. Given the shift I’ve witnessed in the last few years across the Scottish public services world — and the potential this has to transform how we work with citizens — it doesn’t seem so completely out of reach. Indeed, it seems mission critical that we aspire to this, that we achieve this.
In another few years I hope to be able to say that in Scotland service design truly did become everyone’s business.
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Cat Macaulay is the Chief Designer in Scottish Government. She leads a team working on service transformation projects across central government.
