It is continually recognised that the current economic climate requires new ideas and creativity to maintain and achieve quality support for people using social services. In social services, we are constantly told that ‘more of the same won’t work’, we have to ‘do more with less’ and that what is necessary are ‘ever-more innovative ways of providing social care that both meets the needs of the user and is at a lower cost’ (Christie, 2011[1]).
Right, so we need to innovate then.
But what do we mean by this? Are we expecting the emergence of an army of new social entrepreneurs? Are we expecting people to innovate alongside maintaining the status quo within their own organisations and environments? Some other combination?
For the past day or so, I’ve been struggling against my inner pragmatist to sit, reflect, and write down my thoughts about just two questions:
What is innovation in the social services sector?
What could it be?
Questions, you might think, that would be relatively simple to answer.
It would be easy to rhyme off a number of definitions and dichotomies from leading scholars and practitioners alike. We could get into theoretical debates about the difference between radical and incremental innovation, disruptive and continuous, what makes social innovation ‘social’ (more on that in another blog, I think). But what I’m interested in, really, is what this means practically for people on the ground. What it means for the practitioners working tirelessly day in and out to support people, for the middle managers who are being pulled in 101 different directions and for us, as an intermediary trying to build the capacity of the workforce so that they can have ideas and create an environment where those ideas can flourish.
One thing we know about innovation is that it is complex, it’s not-linear and it’s messy. It can start with a genius idea from a practitioner, it can start with a problem or policy and it can start with a need. Depending on where and how it starts greatly depends on the ease with which the idea will be implemented in practice (sorry!). The system that we have set up for social services in Scotland scarcely allows incremental change, never mind radical change (Duffy, 2013 – forthcoming). Therefore I’ve long since thought that radical innovation happens more easily on the fringes of systems – from the ‘outside-in’.
The current policy focus is that which is seeking radical innovation. Everyone gets excited about brand new or emerging ideas, radical projects or interventions that have been thought up that will revolutionise the way we work. These are all great (excellent, in fact) but they will likely come across a number of difficulties when we get to embed them within the system. When adding new ideas into an existing system it is usual that it will be difficult for that system to yield to what it is the new idea has to offer. Implementing these types of ideas will demand that people who use services, practitioners and those higher up the chain have a perspective which is comfortable with ambiguity and not afraid to get things wrong. All entirely possible. All very exciting. It’s the ‘how’ that intrigues me.
More recently, thinkers in the area (see for example, Mulgan, 2013[2]) are beginning to highlight that innovation may be more likely to come from connecting the dots between a range of different things, putting commonplace ideas together and making connections between them. Cleaning up a system which incorporates lots of different ideas can be innovative itself without any particularly novel components. These everyday innovations are vital, and we should not lose focus on them. These are the types of innovations that may be more likely to get taken up in practice, but they so rarely get the glory.
At IRISS, we are interested in understanding what works to enable effective implementation of both these approaches. In particular, we are interested in exploring how an idea becomes embedded in practice, how you stop doing what you were doing before, and how you share what went well and what didn’t.
For both types of innovation, though, we know that there is a need to remain outward facing. If ideas are a new mixture of old(ish) elements, it is important to constantly expand our experiences and horizons and expose ourselves to the ‘new’ and ‘different’. There is much that we can learn from what is happening on our doorstep, or round the corner, even, but we aren’t always conscious of what is there as we get caught up in the distraction of our own organisation, lives and situation.
And that is one reason that we have created this blog. It is all too easy for us at IRISS to stay behind the desk, get our heads down and never look up. But we won’t. We know that others are exploring and grappling with key concepts in this field and we want to learn and share our thoughts and ideas as well as hear from others – hear from you. We also know that there are enough of us that want to change and make a difference and we believe that that change is entirely possible.
We hope to use this space to encourage debate, discussion and to greet guest bloggers – so get in touch; we’d love to hear from you.
More soon.
[1] Christie Commission (2011) Commission on the future delivery of public services, Edinburgh: Scottish Government
[2] Mulgan 2013 podcast: http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/geoff-mulgan-achieving-more-less-innovators-catalyst)