Transforming public service experience in Scotland

Design Council is helping to improve public services in Scotland by partnering with Capita, the UK's leading provider of business process outsourcing. We are equipping public service managers with design skills, methods and tools through a new training programme. This programme is focused on making public services more effective and efficient for users.

In response to the pressure to reduce costs and meet increasing service expectations in public services, Design Council and Capita are collaborating on a programme that demonstrates how using design thinking can dramatically improve service experience, reduce cost and unlock talent.

‘Design in the Public Sector’ is a 90-day programme that runs until April 2015. It incorporates design-led thinking into the way organisations think and how services are delivered.

This partnership with Design Council is an opportunity to demonstrate how design thinking can deliver valuable outcomes in service transformation.

Andy Parker, Capita Chief Executive

Andy Parker, Capita Chief Executive, explained: “Scotland’s progressive public services landscape is a perfect setting to support the adoption of design-led thinking across public services. Capita is constantly seeking to develop new ways of supporting public sector organisations in adopting new approaches to service improvement. This partnership with Design Council is an opportunity to demonstrate how design thinking can deliver valuable outcomes in service transformation.”

This creative response to stretched public services seeks to demonstrate how design approaches can be used to tackle some of our most urgent challenges, such as the integration of health and social care services and efficiency improvement within local government.

We are combining our expertise with Capita’s ability to embed the proposed changes at scale.

John Mathers, Chief Executive, Design Council

John Mathers, Design Council Chief Executive, said: “We believe that the key to successful public services is to make them people-centred, and design does just that. The programme is working with a diverse grouping of organisations across local government, health and education in Scotland with different service design challenges, ranging from waste disposal to children’s services. By combining our expertise with Capita’s ability to embed the proposed changes at scale, we will help find solutions to some very complex problems across Scotland.”

Through practical coaching and participative learning, delegates are rethinking and reframing their challenges to identify fresh, design-led opportunities. Central to this process is learning how to understand users’ needs, generate and prototype new ideas, and work collaboratively to develop better solutions at lower cost.

Mathers explained further: “The programme develops individual skills, organisational capabilities, and identifies solutions to challenges for public and private sector organisations. Above all it helps to develop a more innovative culture by equipping service commissioners and managers with proven user-centred design skills and tools to tackle challenges more innovatively.”

The current programme will finish in April.