The GO Lab invites organisations who lead the way on tackling complex social issues to join our new project exploring emerging practice
The GO Lab’s purpose as an organisation is to enable a greater focus on outcomes in tackling the most complex social issues. Our model is to combine research and evidence with the development of tools and support for those overseeing the delivery of public service outcomes. We also seek to convene and build networks of these people, and others who have an interest in their practice.
Our initial work is on Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), where we are building the evidence base behind this particular tool, sharing the good and bad practice that we find, and enabling better SIBs through guidance and education. It is our aim is to extend our work on SIBs to the broader practices aimed at delivering better outcomes, focused on the most complex social problems. The GO Lab wants to learn more about how local public agencies are tackling complex social issues through their delivery and commissioning practices, in the context of falling budgets and rising demand. It is widely observed by a range of commentators that established practices are frequently ineffective for the most complex social problems.
We would like to bring together a group of organisations and people who offer thought and practice leadership in public service delivery to explore a series of questions around tackling complex social issues. Our intention will be to capture and understand emerging practice, to examine the challenges holding public bodies and providers back from emulating innovative or successful models, and to identify and disseminate some common factors that are present in the things that have worked.
There are three aims to the Project:
1. Problem definition
2. Exploration of practice
3. Support and elevation of practitioners
We are looking to discuss and refine the scope of the project with our partners. Our initial view is that the scope of the Project will be defined by the four parameters which follow.
Complex social issues: homelessness, youth unemployment, children in and close to care, and people with long term health issues. These issues place a great demand on local public services, and describe problems that have complex systemic challenges for multiple public bodies. They tend to have root causes and end effects which go far beyond the core policy area they sit within (which may be a budgetary and organisational silo). Collaborative and preventative solutions are much prized in these areas – but how often do they happen?
Focus on outcomes. How can a public agency conduct ‘outcome commissioning’, where they articulate the desired outcomes for citizens and create the means by which these outcomes can be achieved? We want to look both at how services have been provided through outsourcing and how these contracts have been procured, constituted and managed, but also at alternative routes where services remain in-house, but with a greater focus on outcomes through measurement and accountability structures.
Management and commissioning. Social outcomes for communities change because of practice on the ground. In this project, our focus is on the role of the management of local public agencies and how this steers and directs this practice, within the national policy context and the unique local circumstances. This will mean looking at leadership, contracting and governance arrangements, and information-sharing structures, and how these influence on-the-ground practice.
Local community. The focus on delivery in particular localities is key. We want to know, how can a public agency at a local level can play a powerful role in marshalling the resources of the whole community (including the private sector, VCSE sector, individual volunteers and fellow public agencies) to tackle problems in a different and more effective way, often working collaboratively?
At this stage, we would like to invite feedback and discussion from potential collaborators and other interested parties, to: