UK Government Civil Service Training
A training programme to embed design thinking within the work of UK public servantsUK Government Civil Service Training
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Type of client
- National government
- Funded by
- Department for Business, Innovation & Skills
- Time
- 18 months (ongoing)
- Design support
- Design Council
Background
There was a recognition within
the UK government that
policymakers needed to start
doing things differently. Their
objectives included: giving
civil servants a better
understanding of user needs,
allowing them to do more with
less, and breaking down silos of
information.
The UK government’s Civil
Service Reform Plan published in
2012 called for the Civil
Service to become “pacier, more
innovative, less hierarchical,
focused on outcomes, not
process”. It set out the
government’s desire to find “new
ways of delivering services” and
to create policy “linked to
implementation”.
Design thinking methods promise
solutions to many of these
needs, but awareness of its
benefits among UK civil servants
is relatively low.
We need better skills, better technology and a mindset that revolves around the user, not the producer.
How design helped
Civil Service Learning, the
team responsible for
providing professional
training for public
servants, commissioned the
Design Council to help boost
understanding of design
methods in government.
The result was a series of
half-day introductory
workshops given to
cross-departmental groups of
civil servants, with a
particular focus on policy
specialists.
During the interactive
workshops civil servants
were led through:
- Examples of how design has been applied to policy challenges
- Examples of how design principles have helped public and private sector organisations to change
- Hands-on work with key design methods including prototyping, visual mapping and user observation
- Expert sessions on applying design principles to policy development and implementation
- Hands-on training in achieving innovative, tangible, people-centred results
The workshops were delivered by the Design Council’s Design Associates, a network of design experts recruited and trained to deliver coaching programmes like these. The Design Associates are leaders in their field with experience across a range of sectors having worked for the likes of Philips, Tesco and the National Health Service.
We know that we need to give civil servants new kinds of skills in order to tackle today’s policy challenges. It was great for us to be able to offer design training for the first time, as expected the demand for places was extremely high.
The outcome
Satisfaction
rates were
measured using a
post-workshop
survey and
responses were
overwhelmingly
enthusiastic.
The workshops
had a 99-100%
satisfaction
rate with 100%
agreeing or
strongly
agreeing that
they would apply
design to their
policy work as a
result.
A clear measure
of effectiveness
will only be
possible when
enough time has
passed to see
whether
participants
make long-term
use of these
methods, whether
they pass on the
learning to
others and,
ultimately, how
much difference
is made to
policy
effectiveness.
However, the
initial
responses
strongly
indicate already
that these
skills meet real
needs in terms
of civil
servants’
day-to-day work
and long-term
aims.
As a result of
the workshops
the Design
Council has been
invited to give
further training
directly to a
number of
government
departments in
the UK and
internationally,
and has been
asked by UK Home
Office (the
department
responsible for
immigration,
security, and
policing) to
work with them
on a major new
policy project.
I probably didn't realise at the time how much the programme had shifted my thinking. It takes a while for it to percolate through to all aspects of your work. It's been the most useful and transformative pieces of personal development I've done in a very long time.
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