The influential organisation: How government can deliver by empowering the rest of us

by Tony Browne

Airbnb owns no property, Uber owns no cars, Alibaba owns no inventory. We’ve all seen the memes. And whereas I could pick fault with how true that really is — and with the kinds of lessons people are taking from it all — there *is* undoubtedly something interesting emerging.

Some of today’s most innovative organisations are creating impact not through the production of tangible ‘things’, but by influencing the world around them.

It’s Lego creating digital educational tools for millions of others to build upon, reinforcing their position as a leader in child development at relatively little cost. It’s SpaceX redefining long-distance travel by publishing its ‘Hyperloop’ engineering patents, allowing others to invest in and build the underpinning technology.

Even Apple, held up as an example of a tightly-controlled, product-driven business, is hugely reliant on the App Store — a marketplace that incentivises others to build things of value to their core (apologies!) mission.

Technology is the catalyst for much of this trend. In 2016 we’re able to more easily create digital products which host the tools, marketplaces and resources others need to build upon and support our work. We’re able to seamlessly publish opinion-forming content to where people are, be it mass-market (Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp), or more niche micro-communities. At minimal cost, we’re able to connect people with the spare capacities and resources available to them.

So what might this trend mean for a modern, ‘influential’ public sector?

Let’s be clear first of all: the near future of government, especially local government, is unlikely to be a delivery-free zone. Building platforms and influencing ecosystems is about adding to the toolkit, not replacing it.

But what it means to ‘deliver’ could change radically. If we focus first and foremost on the social outcomes we want and then work our way back, the most effective solution is increasingly unlikely to be: ‘…and then government will build or commission the entire range of services needed to achieve that’. In an age of austerity, that approach is too expensive for a start.

If there are already established channels, communities, capacities, businesses or technologies out there with the power to support social outcomes, why waste resources on duplicating and competing? It’s simpler to ‘go where people are’ and influence that world instead. Ask ourselves, what stimulus — be it seed money, prestige, information, access, data, whatever — might that environment need in order to support government, and deliver the outcomes society wants? This goes beyond commissioning services, and positions government as a key influencer.

Luckily, there are already some great examples from across government which show us the potential of this kind of thinking.

The UK Government Digital Service have been flying the flag for ‘government as a platform’ for a little while now. Products like Verify, and the recent work they’ve been driving on Registers, are starting to show how building pieces of supportive technology, can enable businesses, individuals and other parts of the state to improve existing services, and build entirely new ones — at minimal ongoing cost to the state.

Our very own Casserole Club is a terrific example of using a digitally-enabled tool to achieve key social outcomes at minimal cost. Rather than paying a provider to mass-produce meals and pay a driver to drop them off, Casserole finds people who love cooking and connects them with older neighbours who could benefit from a home-cooked meal and a chat.

Further afield there’s the Swedish government exploring how the blockchain can underpin land registration, all the way down to the postman we met in rural Suffolk, who also acts as a community transport provider whilst doing his rounds*.

These examples should encourage us all to adopt a different way of thinking when we talk about ‘delivery’ across government. But this different way of thinking, will require different ways of working. An organisation set up to deliver services, commission providers, and manage contracts, can’t be the organisation that supports everyone else to do so. Government will need to change. For example:

• We’ll need a leadership, and a culture, that is truly comfortable about delivering through others, and the incentives which focus on outcomes and innovation, over clickthrough rates on our organisation’s own sites.
• We’ll need to recruit and train outward-facing people who are able to nurture and develop partnerships with businesses, individuals and other parts of the state. For certain services, this might be combined with people experienced in local activism in order to kickstart community-driven delivery.
• The corporate centre will need a strong analytics function to understand trends and performance in a more complex delivery environment, alongside a business transformation function which combines systems thinking and human-centred design.
• Data sets will have to be opened up, addressing all of the technical and cultural challenges that comes as a byproduct of doing so. This should be combined by a technical development capability (in-house or otherwise) to build the ‘platform’ needed to support the ecosystem. TfL’s data publishing and the subsequent app economy built around it is a great example here.

This is just a starting point. To fully become an influential, digital organisation will require a lengthy process of reinvention and revolution — but the payoff could be enormous. In an era of ever-increasing demand, heightened expectations, and plummeting budgets — it has never been more important to take the first step.

*not entirely sure that he was authorised to do this, he was just a great guy, please don’t tell anyone!