This article is written by John Mortimer, Systemic Change, Impro. Working with local authorities and using systems thinking to understand better ways of working.

  • The problem: As the problems in the public sector and NHS intensify, the search for solutions is now as important as it has ever been.
  • Why it matters: Digital continues to transform the private sector, and the promise of “fixing” the public sector is enticing. What do we find when we look past the hype, and examine what we can learn from the digital journey we have trodden so far?
  • The solution: We find that digital can contribute, but it is no match for the complexity of our public services. We must be wary of jumping to another solution and avoid the challenge of fundamental systemic change.

Some years ago, learning from the likes of Amazon online shopping, we realised that digital can make a big difference to the public sector. Digital by default was launched with support from the digital industry. And with that enthusiasm, in 2012 we launched Digital Service Design as a civil service strategy in the UK, which is being replicated in many countries across the globe.

What have we learned after years of digital and service design promise?

The cost savings due to better workflows in highly transactional services had been impressive. Renewing a passport has become far easier for us than it used to be. Since 2011, Government Digital Service (GDS) in the UK has saved over £1 billion pounds, and improved services for citizens.

We are in danger of being seduced by the attractiveness of the simplicity and success of digital.

However, in local authorities, I find that digital design has actually created barriers between citizens who have complex needs when they access services.

Digital front ends

The first thing that I notice in the local authorities I visit, is that the digital front end has partially replaced the contact centre and personal visits. Unfortunately, with many service needs, people still need to talk to someone, and this is often more difficult to arrange today than it used to be. The reason for this is often explained as due to cost. But in every situation I see, with the more difficult demand routing and delays that this causes, this actually increases costs to the service.

We record everything digitally

The majority of the resources in local governments go towards funding complex services rather than transactional ones. And citizens often have multiple issues. Complexity is by definition non-logical and multi-layered. I find that we are designing digital and complexity solutions that simplify; creating categories rather than links, standardising services, and creating data rather than getting knowledge.

We are in danger of being seduced by the attractiveness of the simplicity and success of digital. But public sector change does not equal only digital change.

Complex knowledge and service design

Service design is now being used to tackle complex services, and the end result is an oversimplification of the real problem. For instance, with the problem of multiple requests from anxious parents bombarding social care staff, the solution might seem like an app that registers and responds online. The reality is that this design pushes citizens that we need to engage with to use alternative ways of getting the help they need from us, creating more work for the staff, and further distancing citizens from support.

Because of our reliance on digital, we have to translate complex knowledge into recording systems that we can all access and share. The result is that we have now lost our ability to understand the whole picture and make decisions on what is actually happening in a complex local world. We see citizens through a lens that is numerical and increasingly artificial. The outcome at the point where frontline staff deal with citizens is a breakdown of the variation and richness needed to make those important decisions. Worse still, we aggregate that data upwards and present that to senior decision-makers as evidence for operational measures and strategy.

Over the past years I have analysed the key contributing factors to the need for homelessness support in local authority housing services, and the issues for people who need social care. We find that the top ones include isolation, loss of life purpose, substance abuse and a general failure to engage to move forwards. When we look at the causes of these, we find that the imposition of Universal Credit is at the top of the list, followed by being forced to interact through individual digital services.

All of these factors have underpinned the design and reworking of Universal Credit. Although various reports have highlighted problems with the project management and development of the project. The reality is that the design of this complexity was tackled with a transactional design. The design and approach was flawed from the start.

Digital is only one technology that we need to use. Maybe we should replace the mantra ‘digital by default’, with ‘accessible by default’.

The solution is not so difficult. Systemic design incorporating both digital and complexity, helps us to see how transactional service design is very different from complex service design. Dealing with each one requires different methods. If we truly wish to reduce cost, and maintain the value we provide, we have to recognise the difference between that which should be digitalised, and that which still needs to be dealt with by people. We need to focus on the real needs of citizens and the value that can be brought to assist them in living good lives.

👋 You can write an article like this one! Share your thoughts with a community of public servants. Learn more

(Image Credit: Unsplash)