Public problems are increasingly complex and connected, which requires policy practitioners to tap into creative answers.
The business case for innovation is well known. Faced with increasing citizen expectations, technological change, and the complexity and uncertainty of modern life, we need to do things differently in order to better address public policy challenges.
New Zealand is one of 40 countries that has officially adopted the OECD Declaration on Public Sector Innovation. The Declaration helps to nudge countries with a set of principles and associated actions that government and public organisations can use to enhance innovation.
What this means for policy practitioners and how we make innovation a routine part of our policy practice is worth exploring.
Resources
Policy Capability Framework: review tool
Use the Policy Capability Framework with your agency or policy team to assess and improve its policy stewardship capability. It includes a focus on how well a culture of achieving outcomes, constructive challenge, innovation and continuous improvement is promoted and maintained.
Policy Skills Framework | Te Anga Pūkenga Kaupapahere
Use the Policy Skills Framework to assess your skills or those of your team in relation to ‘Improvement and Innovation’. This relates to seeking ways to ‘do things better’ and ‘do better things’.
Policy Project Online: Dr Jaakko Kuosmanen – Innovating at the science and policy interface
Watch our session with guest speaker Dr Jaakko Kuosmanen, a strategic advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office in Finland. Dr Kuosmanen discussed strategic approaches to building foresight and innovation into policy making.
David Bent, UK based policy expert and founder of Atelier What’s Next, joined us to speak about how different types of frameworks can be applied to policy problems. Watch the masterclass to hear his insights.
Building innovative practice into policy development
A presentation to a senior policy leaders roundtable with David Albury from the Institute for Government, speaking on how to encourage greater innovation in the policy system.
Creating the conditions for innovation
A presentation by Brenton Caffin from Nesta on how to bring innovation into your policy practice, from a workshop with policy practitioners.
Service Innovation Lab Toolkit
This toolkit is based on experience of government agencies working together and listening to people to meet the needs of people in New Zealand. It includes ideas, tools and the successes and lessons learnt along the way.
Observatory of Public Sector Innovation
A range of innovation toolkits, case studies and publications on public sector innovation and transformation.
From Nesta, these pages include a competency framework for experimenting and public problem solving which sets out the skills, attitudes and behaviours that fuel public innovation.
A creative space in the United Kingdom’s Cabinet Office that uses design, data, and digital tools, and acts as a testing ground for policy innovation across government.
Better Rules Government Discovery Report
Detailed findings from a three-week Discovery Sprint facilitated by the Department of Internal Affairs Service Innovation Lab. A multi-disciplinary team explored opportunities to better align regulatory design with digital service delivery. This work resulted in the Better Rules, Better Outcomes approach which proposes developing human and computer consumable regulation, at the same time as the development of regulations to make them more easily applied in a digital environment. For example, the Better Rules approach can be used when developing regulatory settings for entitlements or obligations to ensure they can be digitally implemented.
Better rules – better outcomes
Detailed resources and information on how to take a Better Rules approach in New Zealand.
Connect with others
Connect with others to learn and share your innovation practice.
Go to Connect with our community of changemakers to join the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation’s community. They connect fellow public servant innovators and experts from around the world to share insights and lessons.