The 'go to' organisation for Local Government improvement in Scotland

Here at the IS we have been building our knowledge and skills for our own areas of work and thought we would share our approach in case others find it helpful. The Improvement Service recognises that across Scottish local authorities and individual services within councils, the maturity of embedding service design is varied and there will be different support needs across the country. In response, the IS will tailor our support to accommodate the varying needs that exist across the country to maximise the positive impact for each local authority.

In response, we have developed a unique four-phase service design model specific to local authorities. Designed to complement our bespoke support offering and highlight the importance of service design, build knowledge and address the skills gap.

Evolved from the British Design Council’s established Double Diamond model and the Scottish Approach to Service Design model, this approach highlights four main phases: discover, define, develop, and deliver. What makes this approach different is that it prioritises iteration, stakeholder engagement and reflects on goals throughout to ensure maximum positive impact is achieved for citizens.

The model replicates the design process; therefore, we start by identifying the challenge, issue or opportunity area. It is important at this stage to engage with stakeholders, agree goals and ensure buy-in.

The discover phase focuses on understanding the problem or opportunity space in more detail. This is achieved by defining and researching, gathering insights from stakeholders and conducting research across the impacted system. This phase is important as it helps avoid assumptions and allows officers to gain an even deeper understanding of the area by spending time with people who are involved or affected by it. By giving a voice to marginalised and underrepresented groups new ideas and theories are generated which would not be achieved otherwise.

The define phase is crucial as it provides an even deeper understanding of the problem or opportunity and the system within which it sits. By amalgamating the insights gathered in the discover phase from a systems level perspective and identifying themes and patterns, we go beyond recognising the symptoms of a challenge and identify the root cause.

This phase allows you to approach the problem from a new perspective and generate more innovative and effective solutions by looking at the intersections of challenges across the entire system to generate a new and deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities. By leveraging these insights, we can create solutions that address the needs of citizens in a more impactful and immediate way.

The develop phase involves generating a range of ideas that address the problem or opportunity space using an iterative approach. This allows officers to refine their ideas and explore different possibilities, pushing outside of the boundaries of what we assume is possible. By generating multiple ideas and co-designing with a diverse range of stakeholder's officers can create more innovative and effective solutions that better address the needs of all citizens.

The deliver phase emphasises the importance of exploring multiple ideas and putting those ideas into action to create measurable change. Using an iterative approach and co-designing with a diverse range of stakeholder's officers can improve and refine a broader range of ideas and perspectives which creates meaningful change from incremental changes to full transformation

Using techniques such as appreciative inquiry, local authorities can reduce risk by spending less time and money generating ideas and only investing resource in ideas that create meaningful change. Once an idea is agreed by stakeholders and implemented, officers can then focus on the impact generated and evaluate how this aligns to the overarching project goals and mindsets.

Iteration

This model does not follow a linear process. This unique approach embeds iteration at every stage of the process.

Why? Because design and innovation are not linear, especially when the project space is complex. Often officers will need to revisit a step or method until they are satisfied with their outcomes.

Designing in the public sector is complex and ever changing, which means local authorities must constantly evaluate and evolve programs, products, and services to ensure they are delivering the best outcomes to citizens. To make it a truly collaborative process, local authorities should engage stakeholders regularly at each phase of the process to ensure the project continually brings in citizen's needs, so it can deliver the best impact possible.

These four phases will help local authorities gather deep insights and data about challenges they are facing to uncover the root causes in complex systems and generate a portfolio of ideas that support short and long term impact at scale.

This approach will be especially useful for local authorities as it emphasizes empathy, user-centricity, and iteration, which can lead to more innovative and effective solutions that better meet the needs of citizens.