Sarah White's List: Public Sector Innovation

"The goal of this book is to improve this track record—to help governments
become serial innovators. The book describes how public organizations can
develop and sustain a culture of innovation. Governments have to become better at leveraging the creativity of those closest to the problem, be they employees or citizens. Governments need to draw upon all their sources of innovation — employees, citizens, private organizations, and other governments — to produce regular and successful innovations."

"Australia has a rare opportunity to deepen its democracy, achieve more open government and improve public policymaking – using the best of the new tools on the internet. Dr Nicholas Gruen, Chair of the Commonwealth Government’s ‘Government 2.0’ Task Force, says the internet can open a new era for Australian democracy and good governance if we take full advantage of the tools for communication, discussion, and collaboration it has to offer."

"Tackling wicked problems is an evolving art. They require thinking that is capable of grasping the big picture, including the interrelationships among the full range of causal factors underlying them. They often require broader, more collaborative and innovative approaches. This may result in the occasional failure or need for policy change or adjustment.

Wicked problems highlight the fundamental importance of the APS building on the progress that has been made with working across organisational boundaries both within and outside the APS. The APS needs to continue to focus on effectively engaging stakeholders and citizens in understanding the relevant issues and in involving them in identifying possible solutions. "

"Community engagement refers to the many ways in which governments connect with citizens in the development and implementation of policies, programs and services.\n\nEngagement covers a wide variety of government-community connections, ranging from information sharing to community consultation and, in some instances, active participation in government policy development and decision-making processes.\n\nEngagement acknowledges the right of citizens to have a say and to get involved in the business of government. Effective community engagement allows government to tap into diverse perspectives and potential solutions to improve the quality of its decisions."

mySociety is many things! mySociety runs most of the best-known democracy and transparency websites in the UK, sites like TheyWorkForYou and WriteToThem. mySociety is a not-for-profit company that builds websites of a democratic bent for other people, such as the No 10 Downing Street Petitions Website, for the Prime Minister’s Office. mySociety is a community of volunteers and (paid) open source coders.

"The Australian Government declares that, in order to promote greater participation in Australia’s democracy, it is committed to open government based on a culture of engagement, built on better access to and use of government held information, and sustained by the innovative use of technology."

The Government 2.0 Taskforce is being formed against a backdrop of increased interest by governments worldwide in the potential uses of public sector information and online engagement.

A patient-led NHS is easy to say but hard to do. thinkpublic adapt the best approaches from the design sector, and combine them with cutting-edge thinking in innovation to put the ideas and aspirations of policy-makers into practice at the frontline. The results are positive, even transformative.

"Founded by UK Communication and Public Service Design Agency ThinkPublic, The Real Work Experience is foremost an initiative aiming to bridge the gap between design and public services."

"E-government services throughout the world have been plagued by lower than expected rates of adoption by individuals and institutions. A lack of user centricity in e-government services design and development has been identified as a primary reason for this slow adoption. Even when governments involve users or potential users in their design process, the resulting e-government service is often not user-centered. Drawing on our involvement with PortNL, an integrated e-government service for expatriates in the Netherlands, we suggest that a fundamental tension between the needs of users and those of governments is at the core of governments' difficulty in creating user-centered services. User-centered design prioritizes the needs of users, supporting their approach to tasks and information-seeking, as well as advocating for the importance of users needs even, when necessary, over the needs of service builders. In an e-government context, however, the service builders represent governments, not companies. And governments­ in their various forms ­have their own needs and goals, which do not necessarily succumb easily to those of their users"

"Eidos Institute is a partnership amongst diverse organisations linked by a common purpose –passionate commitment to understanding into reducing the growing gap within the knowledge economy. Eidos Institute represents an up-front commitment by these organisations to change they way they work together towards a common vision for social and economic change.

The Institute is a network of ten universities. Within Eidos Institute’s member universities and government agencies, there are more than 100 research and policy centres, and over 500 active senior and early career researchers. Eidos Institute harnesses these resources to maximize their contribution to state, national and global education and social research, policy and practice."

The mission of the Australian e-Government Technology Cluster is "to research, develop and deploy e-Government technology to improve and strengthen the use of ICT in the government sector in Australia."

"Video presentation by Senator Kate Lundy at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC."

""Web 2.0 technologies provide significant scope for the Government to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery, public administration and community engagement. There is no doubt that the Australian Government will increasingly be looking for ICT solutions to 21st century challenges and there is also no doubt that not all of those solutions are going to come from inside government. That is what Gov 2.0 is all about, sharing information and engaging with citizens to determine better ways of doing things.""

"The Government 2.0 Taskforce invited you to MashupAustralia to help us show why open access to Australian government information is good for our economy and society."

"apps4nsw is a public competition to foster and promote the development of innovative digital applications and web services using public sector data relating to New South Wales."

"Open311 is a form of technology that provides open channels of communication for issues that concern public space and public services. Primarily, Open311 refers to a standardized technology for location-based collaborative issue-tracking. By offering free web API access to an existing 311 service, Open311 is an evolution of the phone-based 311 systems that many cities in North America offer."

"Ever been frustrated that you can't find out something that ought to be easy to find? Ever been baffled by league tables or 'performance indicators'? Do you think that better use of public information could improve health, education, justice or society at large? "

"OpenAustralia.org is a non-partisan website run by a group of volunteers which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their representatives in Parliament."

The Power of Information Taskforce (member list here) was established by Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson MP in March 2008. Our Terms of Reference are:

To advise and assist the government on delivering benefit to the public from new developments in digital media and the use of citizen- and state-generated information in the UK, including those identified in the Power of Information Review. The Taskforce will report to the Minister for Transformational Government at the Cabinet Office but work with public sector bodies where it sees benefit to the citizen or workforce. The Taskforce will operate in an open and transparent manner using modern media.