Posts tagged ‘IIPS’
Getting to the Big Society
By Alex Oliver
One of the more-commented on features of David Cameron’s Party Conference speech in Manchester was how little he mentioned the ‘Big Society’. Twice, in fact. You could easily have missed it. But maybe this is less surprising when you learn that the most recent figures from the government’s Citizenship Survey show volunteering and community participation rates at a ten year low. These are tough times economically and socially. People’s resources are being squeezed. The scope for community involvement is reduced as a result.
However, in our research this year on volunteering, a programme conducted for our public sector think tank the IIPS, we found that belief and interest in the concept of community involvement is still strong. 33% agree “I would like to become more involved in my local area”, a rise of 3% since 2010[1]. People cite a whole range of reasons for involvement – from social benefits, to gaining more control over important local issues to directly self interested motives like gaining work experience to get ahead in a competitive job market.
But the barriers to involvement previously identified in IIPS research remain high: lack of time and energy, low levels of confidence, a fear of being excluded or not fitting in and perceptions of red tape.
And this year, more than ever, we saw a growing suspicion – even hostility – regarding the motives of ‘Government’. Any suggestion of overt incentives, or even too much encouragement from government in the form of benefits, tax rebates or (heaven forbid) mandation, were roundly rejected by our respondents. So perhaps it’s not surprising that community members leading local clean-up operations after August’s riots (cited by David Cameron in his speech as a great example of a ‘social movement’), rejected the Big Society label.
So should the government should forget about the Big Society and stop investing in the range of initiatives kicked off to make it a reality? Well, not necessarily. Our research clearly shows that there is a real need for more facilitation to get a wider range of people involved – particularly beyond the so-called ‘civic core’. The Evening Standard’s Get London Reading campaign is an example of how inviting people to get involved has resulted in large numbers of new volunteers from previously under-represented groups like younger men. And there’s still a need to reduce bureaucracy, create structures and share information to support and enable those willing to get involved. Government at all levels could have an important role to play here – along with other public service providers and indeed the private sector.
It seems that there might still be life in the Big Society, even if some of the language has been wrong. But it will take some commitment from the government, as well as citizens, to make it work.
[1] The Futures Company Global Monitor UK only, 2011
The image at the top of the post was shown as part of a presentation on citizens and the Big Society at The Futures Company last month. It is shared here under a Creative Commons licence: some rights reserved.
The appeal of the local
Alex Oliver writes:
I was lucky enough to present some of our current insight about trust and decision-making, especially at a local level, to a group of local government leaders earlier this month. In short, it suggests that there’s a growing public appetite for more engagement and involvement, as well as greater confidence in decision making at the local level, compared to central government.
But there are also still significant barriers to engagement faced by certain groups, including younger people. These include knowing how to get involved, which often is not obvious. (Other work we’ve done for government about this also identified that if people did get involved, they needed to believe that their actions would make a difference and their opinions would be listened to; councils still forget to tell people about the impact their involvement has had on the outcomes.)
I also looked at the area of digital service delivery. Work done by the IIPS – the Institute for Insight into Public Services, the think tank we jointly run with TNS-BMRB – shows that concerns still exist around the potential inequalities inherent in internet service delivery for older and less affluent groups, along with the need to consider the role of other digital channels including i-TV and mobile. People continue to prefer personal channels (phone and face to face) where personal information is concerned, and still expect to be offered choice. The mail is still preferred by a significant proportion of the population (around a third) for forms and payments. People who use services continue to expect multi-channel delivery, rather than being funnelled into one channel. And from a service provider’s perspective, getting the mix of user and channel right can represent a big cost saving.
And the research findings on choice and quality of service continue to be worth emphasising; all social groups, and ages, put quality above choice. And those who value choice more – typically in poorer social groups who don’t have as much choice generally – are also most worried about their ability to make the right choices.
Apples and oranges
Rebecca Nash writes:
Segmentation is widely used in the private sector, to get closer to customers, to provide a language for understanding, and to create a framework to make the most of available resources. In the public sector, it can represent a powerful way both to prioritise customer insight and improve service delivery. Hence the reason that the IIPS (Institute for Insight in the Public Services, the co-venture between The Futures Company and BMRB) turned its attention to segmentation in its first breakfast briefing of the year, in particular as a tool for service transformation.
While planning the event we realised that, despite these benefits, some are put off by segmentation because of its specialist, technical jargon. But we also wanted to make the point that segmentation demands more than analytical skills – it also requires strategic and cultural awareness. A segmentation team needs to draw on a range of expertise to succeed, and the cultural challenges can be just as significant as technical ones.
In her presentation, IIPS Chair Michelle Harrison demystified the use of segmentation for those interested in better designing and embedding the method in their organisations but also emphasised that organisations must be clear about why they’re using segmentation. Sometimes it is not an appropriate insight tool and other methods will work better.
In the public sector there is growing recognition of the benefits of customer segmentations, but there are still concerns about equity (when some, not all, groups are targeted); the scale of public services (when your ‘customers’ are entire populations); and the analytical approximations that produce the segments (the boundaries of attitudinal and behavioural segments). But panellists from the Department for Schools, Children and Families (DCSF) and the Department of Health (DH) illuminated how segmentations that go beyond socio-demographic profiles are informing policy, interventions, marketing and communications, and how the government community is building up a body of best practice in this area.
The Futures Company will take another look at the technical and cultural challenges of segmentation, from the perspective of the private sector, when we host a breakfast briefing at our More London offices on 14 May. Please contact Jennifer.Kivett@thefuturescompany.com for more information.
The ‘five gaps’ around behaviour change
Courtesy of DEFRA
Rebecca Nash writes:
Behaviour change is much talked about, but still not well understood, which is why it seemed a good subject for the IIPS – the Institute for Insight in the Public Services, the think tank jointly run by Henley Centre HeadlightVision and BMRB – to take on in its third breakfast briefing of the year at the ICA in London. The challenge is how to link the ambitions of behaviour change in policymaking with the various levers which can influence it, such as legislation, incentives, taxation, policy, fines and, most specifically, communications.
The event was unique in explicitly positioning policy making and communications within a shared ‘behaviour change strategy cycle’, and approaching strategy planning (top down) and communications planning (bottom up) from a coordinated perspective.
The speakers were Alex Oliver, who’s recently joined the IIPS from the Cabinet Office, who made the connections between behaviour change and Whitehall’s ‘Public Service Agreements’, and BMRB’s Helen Angle, who’s an expert at campaign evaluation.
In their presentations, they identified five key challenges or ‘gaps’ faced by both ‘sides’ of the cycle: the gap within and between policy areas, the gap between high level strategy and implementation, the gap between success factors and evaluation measures; the gap between government action and public reaction; and the gap between incremental insight and strategy.
Bridging the gaps is hard but not impossible. Success requires, among other things, internal coherence, cross-policy alignment, and agreement about common success factors. The panellists, Sam Davis of the Central Office of Information, and Dr. David Halpern of the Institute for Government suggested that behaviour change theory informs both halves of the strategy cycle. And picking up one thought from the audience comments: that the government’s behaviour change efforts should be linked, explicitly, to a broader project of political and social renewal.
For more information about IIPS events, please visit the IIPS website.
7 October 2008 at 8:32 pm thenextwavefutures Leave a comment
