Despite the talk, innovation is very rarely taken seriously. But this could change thanks to the work of the National School of Government, Young Foundation and NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) who have joined forces to show – through new research unveiled at their conference on public innovation on 1 November – that the public sector can innovate, but often it is despite, not because of, the systems they are working in.

The Public Innovation Conference ‘Creating the Conditions’ heard from a heavy-weight line up of innovators from across systems of public service delivery in health, education, housing and crime.

Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service Sir Gus O’Donnell opened the conference, and Sir Ian Watmore, Permanent Secretary of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills joined Cabinet Minister Ed Miliband to discuss with delegates how government could better support innovators and innovations already present in the public sector.

Key findings from the case studies featured at the conference showed that:

• Innovation comes mostly from those most in contact with social problems, service users, front line staff and pockets of professionals rather than executives, researchers or policy thinkers.
• The spread of innovation is dependent on public organisations shortening their delivery chains to get closer to social problems.
• The innovation journey can be like ‘hacking through a jungle’ as there is no well-defined path to follow.
• The spread of innovation depends on the receptiveness of the gatekeepers, allies and adopters. Examples of champions from the case studies include Mike Farrar, chief executive of West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority who backed ‘Patient Opinion’; Sir Norman Glass who ring-fenced Treasury funding for ‘Sure Start’; and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair who promoted the idea of Police Community Support Officers.
• Entrenched institutional structures act as significant barriers to public innovation as well as a culture of targets, risk-aversion and short-termism.
• The most systemic obstacle to innovation is the collision between public institutions and small groups of innovators who have little common ground; go-betweens are needed to make connections.

Key recommendations from the research include:

• A call for financial investment in innovation, including in new and existing networks across the public sector.
• More research based on the ‘connect and develop’ model in conjunction with universities, which aims to create an understanding of customers before developing products and services for them.
• Incentivising, rewarding and promoting civil servants who take the risk of backing innovation, making it central to leadership, human resources and corporate thinking.

More information, including a full copy of the case study research, is available from the National School of Government conference website at: http://www.nationalschool.gov.uk/innovation.

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