Governing the City State - Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate ...

… finding this ‘space’ [to innovate] may be the hardest challenge of all – as one person’s‘innovation capacity’ is often another’s ‘efficiency saving’. 347Vertical structures and siloed approaches can also stifle innovation:policy makers at the heart of government will need to become much morecomfortable with the idea of innovation being driven by frontline workers – centralagencies need to become talent spotters for new ideas and initiatives or risk becomingbottlenecks. Joining up government around outcomes will require a significantinvestment of political and managerial leadership to break down entrenched barriers.Effective shaping of the future environment will often require public sector leaders totake an unfashionably long view of policy problems. 348There was a strong desire from officials to approach agency specific and ACTPS-widechallenges and issues holistically – looking for seamless end-to-end solutions and services.The key barriers to innovation identified by officials and articulated in the literature 349 are:• the under-developed innovation capability within the Service;• the risk adverse culture;• the perception that experimentation is career threatening;• the lack of clarity in the role of strategic leadership – that is, how to deal with risk, rewardand reliability;• the assumption that innovation has to be someone’s job 350 ; and• the over specification and systematising of process.A recent report from the UK, Beyond Light Bulbs and Pipelines: Leading and NurturingInnovation in the Public Sector outlines innovation models for how innovation happens in thepublic sector: 351… noting that they are neither exhaustive nor exclusive• research and development led – a traditional view of innovation where specialistsdevelop an idea. The paper suggests that this is useful for scientific and technologybasedproducts but not suitable for innovation in areas of service where there are highlevels of discretion or where a solution co-produced with users is needed;• high involvement – employees contribute to incremental problem solving/continuousimprovement. The authors suggest that this assists in situations where there is a needfor incremental process innovations and where there is little discretion;• network – the development, adaptation and adoption of ideas comes from networks.The paper notes that this is most appropriate when there are high levels of discretion,as in certain professions;347 Sunningdale Institute (2010) p. 6348State Services Authority (2008) p.2.349 Mulgan, G. (2007) Ready or not? Taking innovation in the public sector seriously. National Endowment for Science,Technology and the Arts, United Kingdom; Sunningdale Institute (2010) Maddock, S. &Robinson, B (2010) PlaceBased Innovation National School of Government Sunningdale; Australian National Audit Office (2009) Innovation inthe Public Sector: Enabling Better performance, Driving New Directions, Best Practice Guide, 2009. CommonwealthGovernment, Canberra.350 Mulgan, G. (2007) p.15.351 Sunningdale Institute (2010) p. 6.Capability, Capacity and Effectiveness: 270