Mindspace

Although we can, with some justice, argue that local government has always been in the business of behaviour change, there’s little doubt that since the publication of Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s Nudge, there’s a much greater interest these days in behavioural economics. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading two of the [...]

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The merits and limitations of coproduction

 I’m always interested to read what David Boyle has to say.  He is the co-author of a recent report published jointly by the New Economics Foundation and NESTA.  The report puts forward co-production as the best, most cost effective way of improving public services. Boyle and his co author, Michael Harris, argue that by focusing [...]

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The Pushmi-pullyu approach to social reform

 The idea that there can be perfect congruence from the vision and aspirations of an organisation all the way through its various strategies and action plans to an individual employee’s objectives has always struck me as overly simplistic. In practice, the so called ‘golden thread’ tends to be as elusive as the golden medina. In a similar way, [...]

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In praise of receptiveness

Like the teenagers we seek to influence, councils are only too susceptible to peer pressure. No sooner have we started to feel confident enough to say that we will no longer be hostage to targets than we all seem to be jumping collectively on the bandwagon of save, save, save. And it seems to be [...]

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Double Choice

Since Tony Blair’s departure from government, we seem to have heard much more about ‘voice’ (people power) than about ‘choice’ (enabling people to exercise preferences) as a way of driving improvement in public services.  In his speech today at the Labour Party Conference Gordon Brown used the word ‘choice’ more than 20 times but only [...]

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First day at school

Tomorrow, my younger boy starts school.  My two older children have been in school a few years now and it’s been a generally positive experience for them.  They’ve made friends, learned a great deal and had plenty of fun. And yet, I find myself fighting against this first day at school.  For one thing, there’s the dullness of [...]

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The tyranny of habit

The other day I was in a meeting where a number of us where talking about how best to initiate a conversation across the organisation about dealing with cuts.  We were talking about the need to deliver quantifiable efficiencies when a colleague pointed out that in our personal lives if we find ourselves with financial [...]

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Settlers, Prospectors and Pioneers

Last week, together with a number of other colleagues I met with the Campaign Company to learn more about some of the very interesting work they have been doing with outer London boroughs on community cohesion issues. They take a ‘values modes’ (VM) based approach, making use of cultural dynamics. VM is mapping system that [...]

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Free time

Usually every Monday morning at 9am I am part of a departmental meeting where we look back at the highs and lows of the previous week, and forward to what’s coming up in the week ahead.  It’s a useful meeting but inevitably it has become something of a ritual. There was no Monday morning meeting this [...]

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Nutmeg, the local government apprentice

There were always targets for breakfast.  There were always performance indicators for lunch. There were always inspections for supper.  The civic offices were full of files of data. Nutmeg, the local government apprentice, looked out of the window.  Cllr Nesbit fiddled with bits of things.  Nicodemus, the chief executive, sat in his chair and dozed. Nutmeg [...]

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