Accelerating Innovation in Local Councils Research Findings

What encourages local government employees to innovate?
How do their views differ from those of chief executives?

Given the current financial pressures, most local councils would like to be able to achieve more radical innovations, more quickly. Ideally, they would like to implement more innovations that save costs as well as improving local residents’ lives.

Councils face many challenges in becoming more innovative. Most are large, complex and mature organizations, with an older, often professionalised, workforce, operating in the ‘goldfish bowl’ of political and public accountability.

This seminar will:

• Discuss the findings from recent focus groups that asked council employees what encourages them to positively contribute to innovations
• Highlight the similarities and differences between what employees said in the different councils participating
• Contrast employees’ comments with the views of the 18 chief executives previously interviewed
• Re-examine the Local Councils’ Innovation Framework, developed from the chief executive interviews, in the light of employees’ comments

The Framework is available here. For more information please click here.