Designing better public services
The Design Commission has published a report entitled 'Restarting Britain 2 - Design and public services'. The report was recently launched in parliament.
The has four key objectives. Meeting needs, saving money, humanising services and engaging citizens. It was co-chaired by Baroness Kingsmill and Barry Quirk, the chief executive of Lewisham Council.
Baroness Kingsmill said at the launch:
"We've got to convince and we've got to work with local authorities to bring about change.
We need to change people's attitudes to design and we need to change government's view"
She hinted that the concept of using design for public service reform has been slow to take off, but said that design is all about solving problems.
"and there are plenty of problems in our public services".
The use of design in service delivery can also save money too and Baroness Kingsmill insisted that in future, services must be:
"Better, faster, easier to use and cheaper" She called for a new generation of evangelists to keep this important work going and to ensure that this report is not forgotten and actually taken seriously and implemented.
Barry Quirk has been chief executive of Lewisham Council since 2003. As co-chair of the report he agreed that a more relevant public service was required to meet the changing demands of the time.
"What the report does is ask fundamental questions. If you reduce budgets by 2% here and there you are only bring about incremental change. In many services we are seeking to halve costs"
He suggested the relevant questions from this report regarding using design for public service reform are "what are the purposes of this service and where can you add value"
He cited libraries in his own borough as a perfect example:
"Our libraries are full of people but they are using the internet not hiring books. In the internet age how relevant are many of our services?"
He concluded that budgets needed to be redesigned to reflect changing purpose and productivity. New generations have fundamentally different demands and are more focussed on self-service.
He also said the local election format is outdated and that his own borough had tried to make progress on this by trialling voting in supermarkets and train stations and would continue to experiment to find out what works best.
