1. Fostering
Innovation in
Local Councils
Joan Munro
Innovation Researcher
27th April 2012

2. Innovation
Innovations are changes to services, products, organisational
arrangements or democratic approaches that are both:
 New to the council
 Deliver additional value for service users & citizens
Innovation continuum ranges from small scale improvements
to radical disruptive, game changing, breakthrough changes.
Successful organisations have a healthy mix of innovations at
different points on the continuum.
Given current challenges local councils probably need to
achieve more radical innovations.

3. Accelerating Innovation in
Local Government Research
Key Aims
 Identify what chief executives can do to encourage
innovation.
 Promote this learning to local councils.
 Contribute to research evidence on innovation in public
services.
Process
 Building on NESTA‟s Everyday Innovation research
 Discussion with group of 8 Chief Executives July 2011
 Interviewed 12 Chief Executives, July to December 2011:
 Bexley, Kingston upon Thames, Lewisham, Lambeth
 Buckinghamshire, Somerset, Rutland, Norfolk
 South Tyneside, Gateshead, Bristol, Redcar & Cleveland
 Between April to October 2012 testing with councils

4. Key findings so far
 Very few councils have comprehensive
approach to innovation
 Many doing some of the things that
contribute to achieving innovations
 In some, haphazard & limited approach
 Few have expertise in innovation nor
understanding of latest technology
 Private sector contracts don‟t necessarily
bring innovation

5. Local Councils‟ Innovation
Framework

6. Service user & citizen focus

7. Most successful innovations
are at the service
interface, between
operational managers and
leading edge service users.
Barry Quirk, LB Lewisham

8. I challenge our whole team
from the perspective of a
resident. “If you were a
resident, would you want
your money spent on that?”
Martin Swales, South
Tyneside

9. People on the front line doing the
customer contact day in day out
and the senior people supporting
them should always be thinking
about the customer.
David White, Norfolk County
Council.

10. It is important to let customers drive
innovation. Are our services still
relevant to the changing needs of
the public? Are we sufficiently
paranoid, or are we just carrying
on doing what we decided on
doing three years ago?
Barry Quirk, LB Lewisham

11. Questions:
 Are your operational managers „walking
in service users‟ shoes‟?
 Are they involving „leading edge‟ service
users in innovations?
 Is the council doing enough to unlock
and develop community capacity for
innovation?

12. Vision & Priorities

13. The key thing is having a really clear
idea about what you are trying to do;
have absolute clarity. It is essential to
have the support of the majority of
people: residents, staff, partners
and, especially, local politicians.
Amanda Skelton, Redcar and
Cleveland

14. We agreed that the core
business of the council is to
protect the most vulnerable
members of the community.
Then we looked at the things of
most concern to our residents.
The stuff in the middle is where
we are focusing innovation.
Chris Williams, Buckinghamshire

15. Questions:
 Isthe vision ambitious and inspiring, but
attainable?
 Are politicians clear about the most
important areas for innovation in the
medium and long-term?
 Are politicians prepared for
experimentation, considered risk taking
and necessary failures in these areas?

16. Leadership

17. Bringing together the right top team
is really really important if you want
to achieve innovative change.
Derrick Anderson, LB Lambeth

18. Communicating, Telling a story –
explaining giving meaning
why, convincing, i
nspiring
Having the
Listening answers to
difficult
Being open & questions
honest, sharin
g issues
Doing it face Saying it
to face again &
again

19. We can‟t rule by command and
control. My job is to ensure that the
managers create the space, and
promote the right set of behaviours
for that creativity to flourish, as long
as it is meeting the corporate
goals.
David White, Norfolk County
Council.

20. Sometime I ask the question „and
what is stopping you?‟ Frequently
managers perceive barriers that
aren‟t necessarily there.
Jan Ormondroyd, Bristol City
Council.

21. It is important to get the trajectory
right. You can‟t be at the depth of
your restructuring because of austerity
all the time. You have got to show
some light. And you can‟t be too far
ahead. You need to keep growing
the proportion of the longer term and
moving the horizons out a bit.
Will Tuckley, LB Bexley.

22. People have different models of
leadership: Nelson
Mandela, Mahatma
Gandhi, Winston Churchill or Rudy
Giuliani in 9/11. The picture I put up
is Alan Titchmarsh. It‟s about
nurturing and sticking with things.
Bruce McDonald, LB Kingston upon
Thames.

23. Questions?
 Isthe top team of politicians and
managers focusing enough time and
effort on innovation?
 Do leaders and managers fully
understand and operate innovation
processes and techniques?
 Do they persist until innovations work?

24. Strategic Approach

25. When we are doing the
exploratory, complex, ground breaking
stuff, you can set some objectives at
the outset but you can‟t say to
everybody „this is how it is‟.
Bruce McDonald, LB Kingston upon
Thames.

26. We operate in the goldfish bowl of
public accountability. Which can
easily mean blame when people
make an error. Every innovation has
a long line of failures until it
becomes a success.
Barry Quirk, LB Lewisham

27. What is a bright idea depends on
the context. You can have all sorts
of bright ideas, but it is never going
to happen because you don‟t
recognise the barriers or you don‟t
chime with the aspirations with other
players you are not going to get
there.
Will Tuckley, LB Bexley.

28. Questions:
Do you have:
 Sufficient resources and time devoted to
innovations?
 Major innovation processes protected
from organisational norms and pressures?
 Policies that support intelligent, well-
managed, appropriate risk taking?
 The expertise to fully exploit the latest new
technologies?

29. Organisational culture

30. Developing a culture
that expects managers
to try new things is
probably the most
important thing for chief
executives to do.
Barry Quirk, LB Lewisham

31. Is innovation promoted through:
 Leaders‟ and managers‟ everyday
behaviours?
 Values, norms and working practices?
 Safeguarding time for reflection?
 Involving people with diverse views?
 Encouraging healthy debates?
 Looking elsewhere for fresh ideas?
 Celebrating innovations?
 A no-blame approach, when well planned
experiments fail?

32. Cross boundary working

33. Increasingly it is some
cross-boundary
innovations that are going
to produce more.
Jan Ormondroyd, Bristol
City Council.

34. Bringing partners on
board, particularly „funky‟
people outside of our own
background has helped
tremendously.
Roger Kelly, Gateshead.

35. Questions:
Are you successfully delivering innovations
through:
 Cross-council working?
 Positive partnerships with external
organisations?
 Your commissioning, procurement and
contract management arrangements?

36. Employees

37. Getting talented people in the right
bits of the organisation is absolutely
crucial. We have very cumbersome
structural and HR arrangements that
don‟t help you in putting the right
people where you need them.
Jan Ormondroyd, Bristol City Council.

38. There is something, not just about
younger people, but also newer
members of staff, who think
differently. And encouraging
that, not having them completely
constrained by organisational
boundaries, is going to be even
more important in the future.
Jan Ormondroyd, Bristol City
Council.

39. We are living in a different world in
terms of how people communicate
and respond to information. We need
people in the organisation who are
tapped into that, because that is how
it is going to be in the future.
Jan Ormondroyd, Bristol City Council.

40. Questions:
Do you:
 Have enough employees, in the right
positions, with:
 Fresh perspectives and ideas?
 The determination and drive to make
innovations happen?
 Encourage all employees to come up with
and develop better ways of doing things?
 Involve frontline employees in innovation
processes?

41. Delivery

42. It is about getting the balance
right between vision, process
and outcomes. Project
management is a really
important tool. We want stuff to
happen consistently.
Bruce McDonald, LB Kingston
upon Thames.

43. Questions:
Do you have:
 Effective ways of tracking and delivering
innovations?
 Sufficient innovation process experts?
 A systematic approach to evaluating and
learning from both successful and
unsuccessful innovations?

44. “Ideas are a dime a dozen. What‟s
more important is the execution: the
alignment of the right ideas, the
right team, the right development
process, the right leadership, the
right level of risk management, the
right target, the right time to market
and so on.”
Jones and Samlionis, IDEO

45. Keep in
touch
 Framework & other materials available at:
http://creativity.city.ac.uk/accelerating_local_govt_inno
v.html
 Chief executives‟ self assessment questions
 Frontline staff focus groups formats
 Keep me informed about what you are learning:
 joan.munro.1@city.ac.uk
 Tel: 0779 2952 498