Austere:IT' ...sweating the existing systems

I am now in the advanced stages of organising a conference on a 'make do and mend' approach to public services IT. It will be a different style of conference - a highly interactive and dynamic conference - in that all present will be able to shape the agenda on the day - towards what can be done to sweat, tweak, exploit (etc) existing IT in order to achieve more with less.

This is in the context of there being no money to buy expensive new systems or upgrades - hence the title.

If you are interested in finding out more, possibly attending and getting involved in the debate - please contact me: jon@jonharveyassociates.co.uk . Thanks

The date to pencil into your diary is 10 June 2011

Otherwise - please watch this space for further details...

New digest: 330+ ideas & counting!

This blog has now had over 20,000 page loads so I thought it was about time to produce another digest of all the ideas in an readily accessible pdf format. You can download it here (from Google docs)

Please search, peruse and plunder practices that will help you deliver more with less.

Slugging: a sustainable response to higher fuel costs?

...Public transit never shows. But, eventually, a blue Chrysler Town & Country does. The woman behind the wheel rolls down her window and yells a kind of call-and-response.
“Horner Road?”
“Horner Road?” repeats the first woman in line.
“Horner Road!”
And two women get in the van, heading, presumably, for Horner Road...

...

People here have created their own transit system using their private cars. On 13 other corners, in Arlington and the District of Columbia, more strangers — Oliphant estimates about 10,000 of them every day — are doing the same thing: “slugging.”...

A (long - and I have not read it all) post about how commuter behaviour has altered in the US in response to high occupancy lanes - a self organising system for sharing transport - that appears to benefit all. (Click here for the full document)

Yesterday I tweeted about the system that Devon has in place to help people organise car sharing (see below) - and why more councils should be copying this approach. 

But perhaps what is needed is the space to create slugging in this country... So come on local government - can you create conditions in which this might happen in this country too?

DotGovLabs: Innovation Hub

Just been sent details of this website which is designed to provide "a virtual space enabling digital innovation of public services."

The philosophy of the Innovation Hub will help you learn more about how the hub brings together users, innovators, investors and government to shape and build radical digital solutions to social challenges. The Innovation Hub provides new ways to collaborate. Finding solutions to social challenges and breaking down barriers

Here is the link: https://dotgovlabs.direct.gov.uk/Page/Home

So it is a place to find out more ideas on how to deliver public services in innovative ways. Please visit!

(Thanks to Noel Hatch for the invitation)

Do you know where you smalls are?

Regular readers of my ramblings will know I run two blogs: one about leading change and development from a whole systems perspective and this one about the small and creative ideas that are making a difference in the public and third sectors.

I am posting this - just to remind people that this blog has over 300 ideas for how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of local services.

This blog is:

• Totally free
• Totally searchable
• Totally open to more ideas being added!

In these stringent times - there may just a few small ideas in here to help you reduce costs while still maintaining or even improving services.

The blog also stands up for public service organisations 'home growing' their own improvements rather than spending buckets of dosh on consultants who borrow your watch, tell you the time, keep the watch and slip a needle in to carry on drawing blood too.

And this links back to my other abiding interest: leadership. What are leaders doing or should be doing... (apart from not signing cheques for large consultancy contracts that add no value) to foster the necessary levels of engagement / verve / commitment / creativity (even in these austere times) amongst public service staff?

Answers on a postcard - or better still - please post them on the parallel post on my other blog here. 

Thanks

A festival of ideas

News from the Innovation Unit of exciting developments in Leeds:

Local authorities helping innovators

Yesterday, Innovation Unit hosted its tenth Festival of Ideas in partnership with Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership looking at greening public services. In the room, were senior colleagues from local authorities across the Yorkshire and Humber region, social investors who work closely with innovators from the community and voluntary sector and eight innovation projects working to green our public services...

Full story here

Direct debits: making savings

Prompted by an enquiry on another site - I did a brief piece of research into good practice on increasing the numbers of people paying their council tax by direct debit. Here is what I turned up:

Here is some details from Wandsworth - in case you have not already seen this: here and here

There also appears to have been a London wide campaign: click here

And here are some more links too:

Burnley

Daventry
South Tyneside
Leeds 

The BEST in Birmingham

There is a good summary of the BEST programme that Birmingham City Council runs to harness the ideas of the staff here

The BEST programme: 

Improving employee engagement in Birmingham City Council

Summary

Change for any organisation can be hard. The frontline workforce can often feel left out. Birmingham City Council has placed its staff at the heart of the process, boosting their motivation in the process. Birmingham has set up a network of groups that are helping shape the future.

Key learnings for other councils...

Welcome to this blog!

I have just written to a large number of public service bodies alerting them (again) to the existence of this blog. If you have been prompted to come here as a result of that email - thanks for coming to visit!

This blog now has over 300 ideas for how to increase efficiency, effectiveness and overall service. The aim of the blog is to disseminate, celebrate and stimulate practical improvement ideas in the public and voluntary services.

Given all the huge pressures facing local services, I thought now would be good time to remind people that this blog exists – to help where it can.

Please: 

• Have a look at the blog – browse and search it – there may be an idea there that you could use – it’s free and no sign up is required 
• Let other people know - anyone who you think might be interested in ways to improve efficiency 
• Write back to me with an idea (or two) that you would like to add to the blog 

The blog has been browsed now nearly 20,000 times in the last couple of years.

Everyday people from the UK (and often from places further afield) visit the blog for inspiration.

I would be most grateful for any ideas you would like to contribute. (They don’t have to be amazingly creative, or unique or even that small... just an idea that you know of, or implemented yourself, that you think is making a positive difference. I will assume that whatever you send me can be uploaded with your name & organisation attached – unless you tell me otherwise. Non attributed postings are quite OK.)

Thank you.

Jon

U Suggest

A local District Council writes:

The scheme was set up in October 2007, and awards are made approximately quarterly.  Of the nearly 90 ideas sent in to U Suggest so far, 23 suggestions have received awards.  The types of suggestion we receive include operational improvements; the highlighting of areas of our service which would benefit from review; suggestions for improved staff facilities; suggestions for carbon emission reduction; ideas for improving internal communication, and so on. 

I would draw to your attention the following two suggestions, both of which received significant awards under our scheme.

Suggestion regarding Council Direct Debit changes

An award was made to an officer for his suggestion that changes to benefits for Council tenants paying by Direct Debit should be generated by an electronic report. This suggestion was made by someone from outside the relevant department, who realised that such a report could save much staff time.  The idea has been successfully implemented. 

Suggestion regarding testing of Lifeline equipment

Instead of officers carrying out visits to customers using Lifeline equipment purely in order to check that the equipment was working, telephone testing was suggested.  Of course, in view of the vulnerable nature of many of these customers, this suggestion would not be feasible or desirable in certain cases, but where appropriate, remote testing will take place, thus saving officer time.  

Thanks for this

Seasonal greetings: a time for prosperity

At this is a time of year, a good many people take a moment to remember the riches they have.

These are not the riches that can ever be measured in £ or $ signs. These riches are far, far more valuable than that. These are the riches in the smiles from neighbours, the gleams in the eyes of our children, the kind words of old friends, the courtesies of strangers or the laughs of our family members. These are the riches that make us feel truly warm, solid and human.

Although sadly, not everyone has these riches in abundance, happily we can all take action to spread more of this wealth around. Whilst I do try to do this wealth creation as much as I can, I will admit that during these austere and recessionary times, I have sometimes become just a tad too focused on the lesser (financial) riches. My resolution for 2011 is to remain resolutely focused on building true prosperity.

With this in mind, I have adopted the word 'prosperity' for the next 12 months. (The 'I CAN' charity in association with Collins Dictionaries allows you to adopt words in exchange for funding action to ensure that no child who struggles to communicate is left out or left behind. You can adopt a word yourself by visiting here: http://new.adoptaword.co.uk/index.php And you can see a copy of my adoption certificate below.

  

So I am sending you my seasonal greetings: I sincerely wish that 2011 will be a truly rich and prosperous year for you, your families, friends and communities.

Jon

Communities of Practice

If you are not already registered with the IDeA communities of practice website - I would strongly recommend joining. It is a hot bed of ideas and helpful practices designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the public services.

You can register to join here.

Watch this space for further links into the CoP as they emerge. Although I am sure you will find much there yourself once you get inside! 

All ideas wanted!

Welcome to this blog - thank you for passing by.

Below you will find over 300 ideas for making public and third sector services more efficient, effective or just better. There is a search button to look for any themes or ideas you have in mind.

I am always on the lookout for new ideas that you think others might like to hear about. So if you have something - please email me and I will post it here. (This can be done anonymously or with attribution - your choice entirely.)

Free creativity tools

Go to here for some helpful free apps to get your creative juices flowing!

From smart phones to iPads to our various personal computers and data managers, we have all kinds of tools at our disposal to help us collect information for school work, business, personal use, and more. But even though it’s easy to find, that information still needs to be stored, saved and even shared in a way that’s also simplified....

200 to 0: Northants Police win

Extracted from: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/news/crime-cracking

An initiative which reduced the number of sex workers from 200 to zero topped this year's Home-Office-backed Tilley Awards.

Northampton’s Operation Uncanny set up innovative measure to tackle prostitution in residential areas. This included a 'toleration area' where sex workers were not arrested for solicitation.

The Sex Workers Around Northampton (SWAN) partnership also gave advice and support on health, housing, drug addiction and education to help the women exit prostitution. Meanwhile, police monitored the area to identify and arrest customers.

Seems like a very good result all round. Congrats to the Northants Police team

Employee engagement - even more yet again!

David Zinger has managed to inspire an even better (free) e-book on employee engagement - a series of 6 word descriptions on what employee engagement means. Well worth a browse!

http://www.davidzinger.com/wp-content/uploads/Employee-Engagement-Six-Word-ebook.pdf

(My contribution is on page 6)

Another story of front line dedication & innovation

Here is a great blog post about why front line people should be celebrated and indeed involved in the process of finding cheaper and better ways of delivering local public services.

Here is the link to the article entitled "Just a reason why frontline services in Local Gov should be celebrated!" and you will be intrigued and delighted by the story told. It is a story of dedication and the resulting insight reduced the amount of work to be done to achieve the same result.

The service is street cleaning by the way - one of the core services provided by local councils.

And thank you to Spencer Wilson for the story - who can also be found on his twitter account here.

Sexual Offences Almost Halve During Operation Northdale

I understand this project run by West Yorkshire Police won the overall winner of the 'Excellence in Policing' award (sponsored by Alexander People) at the ACPO EiP conference today.

Congratulations!

Streets in West Yorkshire’s towns and city centres have continued to get safer for late night revellers this summer following the end of a major campaign. Police and partners have said they are very pleased that levels of sexual offences in the towns and cities have remained low and dropped by 48% during the operation Northdale campaign... 

More information here. (Twitter site for WYP is here.)

Thanks to Justin Partridge for this information

UPDATE: Here are all the other winners - click here (thank you to SurreyPA for that link) Congrats to all!

Austere:IT

I am part of a small team which is planning a guerilla conference on a make do and mend approach to using IT in public services. The aim is to create an event that will enable people to exchange ideas and develop new ones on how to make the most of existing IT. Specifically, we hope the (free) event will be a celebration and dissemination of all that can be achieved without purchasing new kit / software / contractor time / bells / whistles etc. (This event will be an antidote to the burgeoning number of other events which are still promising huge cost reductions by paying for just that one more piece of ("waffer thin mint?") IT investment

Please watch this space - there is more to follow - including what we mean by a guerilla conference! (Well - you have heard of guerilla gardening... try thinking along similar lines...!) The date will be towards the end of the year - possibly early into the next.

But meanwhile... do you have examples of where you have spotted or even initiated a change or achieved a result with a deft (and zero or very low cost) use of an existing IT system?

Please post these examples below as comments (or you can email me if you prefer) - thank you!

E-books: now more easily available

When this blog reached 15,000 uploads I turned into an e-book. You can now access and download if you wish, this off Google Docs by going here.

For your information my other blog (Jon Harvey Associates) is also available in e-book form as well (produced when it hit 10,000 uploads) from here.