Innovations in public services seminar, Third Sector Research Centre and UK Innovation Research Centre, 17 June 2013

1. Innovation in
Public Services
Laura Bunt, UK IRC 17th June 2013

2. This afternoon:
• Overview of Nesta and our research and practical
work on public services innovation
• Spotlight on two new research projects:
- Adoption of innovation in health services
- Managing public sector innovation
• Drivers for future research

3. About

4. Research and policy work on innovation in
different fields and contexts

5. Practical programmes to support
innovation within organisations
and communities

6. Investments in
innovation

8. Research on
public services
innovation

9. Our hypothesis: public services innovation is often a
coordination or systems change challenge; there are big
returns from innovation for whole systems and smaller returns
and higher risks for individual organisations (which more often
thrive by adapting or adopting the innovations of others).

10. Our research explores need for interconnected elements to
make public services innovative, including:
Structures to
drive and
promote
innovation
Processes that embed innovation in key
aspects of decision making
(commissioning, politics, crowdsourcing)
Combining experimentation and
close attention to evidence
Exit tools and processes for
decommissioning
Cultures that reward risks
and creativity
Tools and skills that are
widely shared

11. Who are the
Superadopters?

12. Who are the Superadopters?
To identify public service organisations and individuals that take up new innovations
rapidly, to understand their characteristics and behaviour, and to see how they can be
used to speed up the diffusion of innovation in public services.
Phase 1
Research with Mastodon C
New drugs adopted in primary care in England (GP prescription data, NHS
Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) and Indicator Portals) since 2010
Analysed adoption patterns of 108 potentially innovative items
Detailed analysis of prescription pattern of 5 NICE accredited drugs
Phase 2
Research with Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical
Innovation(CASMI)
Wider range of health innovations (novel diagnostic screening, practice-based
technologies, process and service innovations)
Qualitative research with GPs to explore ‘superadopter’ characteristics

13. Phase One (2012)
Early Adoption in Primary Care
Data from GP Prescriptions with
contextual data from QOF and
Indicator Portal
Chart shows the number of innovative
drugs (from phase 1 sample of 108)
adopter early (in first 3 months of
availability) by each GP practice in 2yrs.

14. Emerging findings:
• Most new drugs introduced in the period studied were not
adopted by most practices (slow adoption rates?);
• Most significant factor that made a practice more likely to adopt a
new drug was whether nearby practices also adopted it (social
network influence?);
• Large practices and those with larger patient lists were slightly
more likely to adopt new drugs early; those service deprived
neighbourhoods were, on average, slightly less likely to;
• NICE issuing guidance does not appear to create a step-change in
the number of items prescribed; growth of a drug tends to begin
immediately after MHRA approval and continue smoothly.
Thomas, E., Bennett, F., and Westlake, S. (2013) In Search of the Superadopters:
what open data tells us about GP prescribing practices. London: Nesta

15. Managing
public sector
innovation

16. Managing public sector innovation (iteams)
To discover what are the most useful and effective structures for managing innovation
in Government and the public sector, including labs, units, teams, funds etc.
Phase 1
Selection of global case studies from desk research and assessment framework
(shortlist of ~25 case studies with demonstrable impact)
Gathering descriptive information e.g. why was it created, what it does methods,
resourcing, location, impacts, links with wider organisational culture.
Phase 2
Primary research (interviews) with cases - site visits, qualitative interviews,
observations
Comparative typology to enable decision makers to make informed choices
about different options and to act as recommendations
[Beyond February 2014: explore complementary strands i.e. institutions outside
of government that influence public sector innovation]

17. decentralised
centralised
internalexternal
Prizes
accelerators
Collaboratives
Behavioural
insights team
Nesta
Innovation
Lab

18. Emerging findings:
• Right balance of insider/outsider structure (sufficient proximity to
political priorities, sufficient distance to take risks);
• Right balance of practical/creative (relatively rapid practical and
demonstrable impact vital);
• Strong internal processes for building coherent teams out of
diverse elements;
• Early focus on defined problem solving;
• Ethos driven (reform), methods driven(design), tool driven (data);
• Ability to iterate between specifics and systemic implications.

19. Drivers for
future research

20. • More evidence about cultural and behavioural factors
• Opportunity in use of new data sources – e.g. data grants
looking at social network data, online job ads, company
websites, etc. as sources of both structured and unstructured
data on innovation in public services.
• Experiments in idea generation – crowdsourcing; challenge
prizes for public sector tasks; accelerators; internal labs – and
developing a community of practice drawing on research on the
effectiveness of these different tools.
• Develop research and skills programme on systemic innovation
involving business, NGOs etc

21. Thank you
Laura.bunt@nesta.org.uk
@laurabunt