One of the best descriptions of big forces for change in the way we conceive of, and deliver, social and human services, written by Hilary Cottam, a former CEO of the UK Design Council and with Charlie Leadbeater, founder of Participle, a public services design company that recently concluded its work.

“The current parameters of the debate around welfare reform are inadequate. A relentless focus on finance and costs has obscured the systemic challenges facing our post-war welfare institutions. Although exacerbated by the current financial crisis, these challenges have deeper roots, and are as much about culture, systems and relationships as they are about money.”

These are some notes I wrote on the future of human services and social care following a leadership forum with the Queensland Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services.

“Health, social care (community services) and education are all going through massive transformation -basically being rewired from the ground up – at a time when demand is growing and their joint and several economic significance in terms of generating jobs and contributing to economic growth, both directly and indirectly, is growing rapidly too. It is truly a perfect storm. It also creates a “double jeopardy” for change and renewal, in the sense that rising demand, and the need for deep structural change across the entire industry are happening at the same time. Obviously those two phenomena are linked.”

There is much confusion in the debate about contestability, commissioning and outsourcing in the public sector reform debate. This ANZSOG piece from Gary Sturgess is a good explanation of some of the differences and why contestability is so important.

“This paper argues that there is a middle way between monopoly and market-testing. It is possible to use performance benchmarking and the prospect of prompt intervention in case of underperformance to drive increased efficiency and effectiveness, while also recognising the importance of a public service ethos, and the value embedded in many of the systems, processes and relationships through which these services are currently delivered. That middle way is contestability.”

Gary’s work on contestability in public services is well known and widely regarded. This is a major exposition of the core arguments and concepts, as well as some examples in practice.

A blog post from Nesta’s Geoff Mulgan about the role of collective intelligence in models of government that work well on contemporary settings.

“All governments depend on operating systems –a mix of techniques, processes and technologies that help them to do their tasks, from collecting taxes to catching criminals, educating children to building roads. These can all be thought of as examples of the broader field of collective intelligence –concerned with how to mobilise multiple brains and technologies to help with the job of thinking. To function well, governments need to observe, assess, plan, imagine, remember and judge, and during every era the structures and processes of government have been strongly shaped by the available technologies for doing these tasks of thinking.”