public sector

Digitalization and Public Sector Transformations

Curated on April 21, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Jannick Schou and Morten Hjelholt: “This book provides a study of governmental digitalization, an increasingly important area of policymaking within advanced capitalist states. It dives into a case study of digitalization efforts in Denmark, fusing a national policy study with local institutional analysis. Denmark is often framed as an international forerunner in terms of digitalizing its public sector and thus provides a particularly instructive setting for understanding this new political instrument.

Advancing a cultural political economic approach, Schou and Hjelholt argue that digitalization is far from a quick technological fix. Instead, this area must be located against wider transformations within the political economy of capitalist states. Doing so, the book excavates the political roots of digitalization and reveals its institutional consequences. It shows how new relations are being formed between the state and its citizens.

Digitalization and Public Sector Transformations pushes for a renewed approach to governmental digitalization and will be of interest to scholars working in the intersections of critical political economy, state theory and policy studies…(More)”.

The rise of public sector innovation labs: experiments in design thinking for policy

Curated on March 13, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Michael McGann, Emma Blomkamp and Jenny M. Lewis in Policy Sciences: “Governments are increasingly turning to public sector innovation (PSI) labs to take new approaches to policy and service design. This turn towards PSI labs, which has accelerated in more recent years, has been linked to a number of trends. These include growing interest in evidence-based policymaking and the application of ‘design thinking’ to policymaking, although these trends sit uncomfortably together. According to their proponents, PSI labs are helping to create a new era of experimental government and rapid experimentation in policy design.

But what do these PSI labs do? How do they differ from other public sector change agents and policy actors? What approaches do they bring to addressing contemporary policymaking? And how do they relate to other developments in policy design such as the growing interest in evidence-based policy and design experiments? The rise of PSI labs has thus far received little attention from policy scientists. Focusing on the problems associated with conceptualising PSI labs and clearly situating them in the policy process, this paper provides an analysis of some of the most prominent PSI labs. It examines whether labs can be classified into distinct types, their relationship to government and other policy actors and the principal methodological practices and commitments underpinning their approach to policymaking. Throughout, the paper considers how the rise of PSI labs may challenge positivist framings of policymaking as an empirically driven decision process….(More)”.

Using Open Data for Public Services

Curated on March 5, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

New report by the Open Data Institute: “…Today we’re publishing our initial findings based on examining 8 examples where open data supports the delivery of a public service. We have defined 3 high-level ‘patterns’ for how open data is used in public services. We think these could be helpful for others looking to redesign and deliver better services.

The patterns are summarised in the table below:

The first pattern is perhaps the model which everyone is most familiar with as it’s used by the likes of Citymapper, who use open transport data from Transport for London to inform passengers about routes and timings, and other citizen-focused apps. Data is released by a public sector organisation about a public service and a third organisation uses this data to provide a complementary service, online or face-face, to help citizens use the public service.

The second pattern involves the release of open data in the service delivery chain. Open data is used to plan public service delivery and make service delivery chains more efficient. Examples provided in the report include local authorities’ release of open spending, contract and tender data, which is used by Spend Network to support better value for money in public expenditure.

In the third pattern, public sector organisations commissioning services and external organisations involved in service delivery make strategic decisions based on insights and patterns revealed by open data. Visualisations of open data can inform policies on job seeker allowance, as shown in the example from the Department for Work and Pensions in the report.

As well as identifying these patterns, we have created ecosystem maps of the public services we have examined to help understand the relationships and the mechanisms by which open data supports each of them….

Having compared the ecosystems of the examples we have considered so far, the report sets out practical recommendations for those involved in the delivery of public services and for Central Government for the better use of open data in the delivery of public services.

The recommendations are focused on organisational collaboration; technology infrastructure, digital skills and literacy; open standards for data; senior level championing; peer networks; intermediaries; and problem focus….(More)”.

Data Collaboratives can transform the way civil society organisations find solutions

Curated on February 22, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Stefaan G. Verhulst at Disrupt & Innovate: “The need for innovation is clear: The twenty-first century is shaping up to be one of the most challenging in recent history. From climate change to income inequality to geopolitical upheaval and terrorism: the difficulties confronting International Civil Society Organisations (ICSOs) are unprecedented not only in their variety but also in their complexity. At the same time, today’s practices and tools used by ICSOs seem stale and outdated. Increasingly, it is clear, we need not only new solutions but new methods for arriving at solutions.

Data will likely become more central to meeting these challenges. We live in a quantified era. It is estimated that 90% of the world’s data was generated in just the last two years. We know that this data can help us understand the world in new ways and help us meet the challenges mentioned above. However, we need new data collaboration methods to help us extract the insights from that data.

UNTAPPED DATA POTENTIAL

For all of data’s potential to address public challenges, the truth remains that most data generated today is in fact collected by the private sector – including ICSOs who are often collecting a vast amount of data – such as, for instance, the International Committee of the Red Cross, which generates various (often sensitive) data related to humanitarian activities. This data, typically ensconced in tightly held databases toward maintaining competitive advantage or protecting from harmful intrusion, contains tremendous possible insights and avenues for innovation in how we solve public problems. But because of access restrictions and often limited data science capacity, its vast potential often goes untapped.

DATA COLLABORATIVES AS A SOLUTION

Data Collaboratives offer a way around this limitation. They represent an emerging public-private partnership model, in which participants from different areas — including the private sector, government, and civil society — come together to exchange data and pool analytical expertise.

While still an emerging practice, examples of such partnerships now exist around the world, across sectors and public policy domains. Importantly several ICSOs have started to collaborate with others around their own data and that of the private and public sector. For example:

Several civil society organisations, academics, and donor agencies are partnering in the Health Data Collaborative to improve the global data infrastructure necessary to make smarter global and local health decisions and to track progress against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Additionally, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) built Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), a platform for sharing humanitarian from and for ICSOs – including Caritas, InterAction and others – donor agencies, national and international bodies, and other humanitarian organisations.

These are a few examples of Data Collaboratives that ICSOs are participating in. Yet, the potential for collaboration goes beyond these examples. Likewise, so do the concerns regarding data protection and privacy….(More)”.

Civic tech: Where is the impact?

Curated on February 21, 2018October 9, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Ramy Ghorayeb: “When it comes to civic tech, there is a clear opposition between the fans, who view the young sector as a key foundation that will change democracy for good, and the haters, who think it is simply a gadget that doesn’t have any weight on political decisions considering its position towards the existing powers/counter-powers.
I view this conflict of opinions as a general misunderstanding on what value civic tech is supposed to bring. There is a huge bias towards civic tech ecosystem. It is commonly presented as a challenger more than a partner for the public sector, because projects are overhyped by the legacy of disruption of tech. But there is no analogy.

Civic tech is failing only when viewed as an ordinary tech disruptor

Taking what French deputy Paula Forteza said last December, after its rebirth ten years ago with the Obama administration, the civic tech ecosystem has reached a dead end compared to its initial expectations as a challenger of the existing institutions. There is indeed a lack of political, economic and social impact:

Lack of political impact because citizens are becoming very exigent towards democratic initiatives and are less willing to participate without being sure that their contribution will have weight in the final decision. This is amplified by the fact that currently, even with all the collective power in the world, leveraging civic tech still depends on the good will of the elected administrations.
Lack of economic impact because after few years of overexcitement by investors, believing civic tech was the next big thing, everybody has realized how difficult it is to build a company with both financial and social objectives.
Lack of social impact because with this new digital tools is emerging a technological elite that can have much more influence than the rest of the population. This representation problem is of course not specific to civic tech but still undermines the positive outcomes.

People want civic tech to disrupt traditional political institutions, like tech did in all the other industries. But many specific issues refrain this ambition, and I already written a lot about it [1][2]. Furthermore, there is too much competition today for civic startups and organizations. The existing actors are continually improving and annihilating any chance civic tech has to become a serious opposed challenger:

Public administrations are recruiting the best disruptors to help them embracing digital.
Medias are keeping their counter-power role by being always more scattered and diversified.
Tech giants are developing their own tools to address civic needs.

So if civic tech failed as disruptors of the existing institutions, the question becomes: What do we want to do with civic tech?…(More)”.

Opening Government to Improve Outcomes

Curated on February 14, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Laura Wesley at Canada Beyond 150: “Open Government is a concept. It’s a view into government. It’s an invitation to stakeholders, citizens and civil society to help shape government decisions and actions. It is not a program or policy, yet both can be part of achieving the vision of a government that encourages civic participation, invites accountability and demonstrates transparency. Examples of open government include proactively disclosing financial and human resources-related information online and publishing expenditures that can be displayed visually or as machine-readable charts. These measures are intended to strengthen public sector management.

From my place within the public service, I see opening government as a verb. To me, it’s what we are doing to create opportunities for people – wherever they work or reside – to contribute to the activities that go into governing so that the country reflects the values of those who live in it. Engaging citizens and stakeholders in the context of policy shaping builds trust, seeks others’ perspectives, enables accountability, and allows us to collectively design better policy, programs and services.

What is engagement in the context of public policy?

Engagement processes can be structured and formal like parliamentary committees to study an issue or those that allow for anyone to provide feedback on legislation as it moves through Parliament. They can be done by elected officials or by public servants working on their behalf, for example, through processes that invite stakeholders to comment on proposed regulatory or legislative changes. They can be informal, like hosting conversations online. They can be open and transparent, moderated or unmoderated, multilateral or bilateral. There are many options, yet deciding which methods to employ at the right time can be cloaked in complexity, with much at risk if we get it wrong. So how can we teach “engagement” as a mechanism to improve policy-shaping?

Canada Beyond 150 is a participatory learning program for public servants to experience new ways of developing and delivering public policy. I was excited to learn that engagement, along with design and foresight, was one of the three pillars of the program. My team had mapped some of the system-wide gaps that needed to be filled in order to build the organizational muscle required to engage broadly; this was our chance to understand how to support new public servants through change….(More)”.

Handbook of Research on Modernization and Accountability in Public Sector Management

Curated on February 14, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Graça Maria do Carmo Azevedo, Jonas da Silva Oliveira, Rui Pedro Figueiredo Marques, and Augusta da Conceição Santos Ferreira: “The effects of recent economic and financial crises have reached an international scale. A number of different nations have experienced the fallout of these events, calling into question issues of accountability and reform in public management.

The Handbook of Research on Modernization and Accountability in Public Sector Management is an essential scholarly publication that focuses on responsibility within public sector institutions and the importance of these institutions being ethical, transparent, and rigorous. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics, such as corporate social responsibility, e-government, and financial accountability, this publication is geared toward regulatory authorities, researchers, managers, and professionals working in the public domain….(More)”.

Building Trust in Data and Statistics

Curated on February 14, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Shaida Badiee at UN World Data Forum: …What do we want for a 2030 data ecosystem?

Hope to achieve: A world where data are part of the DNA and culture of decision-making, used by all and valued as an important public good. A world where citizens trust the systems that produce data and have the skills and means to use and verify their quality and accuracy. A world where there are safeguards in place to protect privacy, while bringing the benefits of open data to all. In this world, countries value their national statistical systems, which are working independently with trusted partners in the public and private sectors and citizens to continuously meet the changing and expanding demands from data users and policy makers. Private sector data generators are generously sharing their data with public sector. And gaps in data are closing, making the dream of “leaving no one behind” come true, with SDG goals on the path to being met by 2030.

Hope to avoid: A world where large corporations control the bulk of national and international data and statistics with only limited sharing with the public sector, academics, and citizens. The culture of every man for himself and who pays, wins, dominates data sharing practices. National statistical systems are under-resourced and under-valued, with low trust from users, further weakening them and undermining their independence from political interference and their ability to control quality. The divide between those who have and those who do not have access, skills, and the ability to use data for decision-making and policy has widened. Data systems and their promise to count the uncounted and “leave no one behind” are falling behind due to low capacity and poor standards and institutions, and the hope of the 2030 agenda is fading.

With this vision in mind, are we on the right path? An optimist would say we are closer to the data ecosystem that we want to achieve. However, there are also some examples of movement in the wrong direction. There is no magic wand to make our wish come true, but a powerful enabler would be building trust in data and statistics. Therefore, this should be included as a goal in all our data strategies and action plans.

Here are some important building blocks underlying trust in data and statistics:

Building strong organizational infrastructure, governance, and partnerships;
Following sound data standards and principles for production, sharing, interoperability, and dissemination; and
Addressing the last mile in the data value chain to meet users’ needs, create value with data, and ensure meaningful impacts…(More)”.

Landscape of Innovation Approaches

Curated on February 8, 2018October 11, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Bas Leurs at Nesta: “Through our work in the Innovation Skills team, we often find ourselves being asked by governments and civil servants which innovation tools and techniques they should use. So what innovation approaches are there that can be applied in the public sector? And how are they related to each other?

With these questions in mind, over the last couple of years we’ve been mapping out the various innovation methods and approaches we’ve come across from studying innovation practice and our many conversations with different lab practitioners, colleagues and other innovation experts.

Download this diagram as a PDF.

The map we’ve created provides an overview of innovation methods and approaches that help people make sense of reality, and approaches that help develop solutions and interventions to create change.

Understanding and shaping reality

The approaches mapped out in the diagram are structured into four spaces: intelligence, solution, technology and talent. These spaces are built on the premise that in order to create change, you need to make sense and understand reality, as well as develop solutions and interventions to change that reality:

intelligence space – focuses on approaches that help you make sense of and conceptualise reality
solution space – focuses on methods that help you test and develop solutions

In terms of mindsets, you could say that the intelligence space is more academic, whereas the solution space involves more of an entrepreneurial approach. The activities in these are supported by two further spaces:

technology space – includes approaches and technology that enable action and change, such as digital tools and data-related methods
talent space – focuses on how to mobilise talent, develop skills and increase organisational readiness in order to ultimately make change happen…(More)”.