Built to scale: the Family Independence Initiative – Jane Mansour
In this post our guest blogger Jane Mansour showcases the Family Independence Initiative in Boston, Massachusetts. The project is a good example of the principles of ‘guerilla policy’ in action. Jane is an expert and consultant in international welfare to work and the commissioning and funding of public services. She blogs regularly at Buying QP. [...]
Making open policy a reality (part 2)
A couple of weeks ago the Government announced its plans for ‘open policy’. In this post and the previous post we suggest how it can make open policy a reality. As part of its recently published civil service reform plan, the Government has committed itself to ‘open policymaking’. It has announced a new “presumption in [...]
Making open policy a reality (part 1)
A couple of weeks ago the Government announced its plans for ‘open policy’. In this post and the following post we suggest how it can make open policy a reality. As part of its recently published civil service reform plan, the Government has committed itself to promote ‘open policymaking’. This includes: commissioning policy development from outside organisations such [...]
How can civil servants make better use of social media?
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been posting on how various bodies – think tanks, commissioners of public services, and trade bodies – can make better use of social media such as Twitter. In this post we consider how civil servants can use social media in their work – and suggest why many of [...]
How can trade bodies make greater use of social media to improve the impact of their policy and research work?
How can trade bodies make greater use of social media to improve the impact of their policy and research work? Chris Sherwood, Co-Founder of Guerilla Policy and Director of Innovation and Development at Scope, argues that public sector trade bodies could make much greater use of social media to improve the impact of their policy [...]
How could commissioners make greater use of social media?
How could commissioners make greater use of social media? Chris Sherwood, Co-Founder of Guerilla Policy and Director of Innovation and Development at Scope argues that commissioners should use social media as a way to collaborate with citizens to open up commissioning. In the previous two blogs I have argued that an open, iterative approach to [...]
What role could social media play in commissioning?
Chris Sherwood, Co-Founder of Guerilla Policy and Director of Innovation and Development at Scope argues that commissioners should use social media as a way to collaborate with citizens to open up commissioning. In the first blog we considered the need to open up commissioning and this is where social media can help. Social media offers [...]
Could social media help to open up commissioning?
Chris Sherwood, Co-Founder of Guerilla Policy and Director of Innovation and Development at Scope argues that commissioners should use social media as a way to collaborate with citizens to open up commissioning. This is the first in a series of blogs that will look at how commissioners can embrace social media. Opening up commissioning can [...]
Ten reasons why we need a new approach to developing social policy – 8. Policy would be more innovative
This is the eighth in a series of posts on why social policy should be developed by and with the people who use and provide public and voluntary services. We’re publishing the rest of the series over the next week, and we welcome your comments. With less money and, in the case of ‘rising tide’ issues [...]
Ten reasons why we need a new approach to developing social policy – 5. Policymakers and decision-makers could get intelligence more quickly
This is the fifth in a series of posts on why social policy should be developed by and with the people who use and provide public and voluntary services. We’re publishing the rest of the series over the next week and a half, and we welcome your comments. Ronald Reagan used to tell a joke about [...]
Collaboration beats competition for creating better social policy
We’re developing an online platform – and hopefully from that a community – to research and develop better social policy. Should we use an approach based on competition or collaboration? Both can be used to source new ideas, but our view is that collaboration is more appropriate than competition for social policy. Competition is most obviously represented [...]
What think tanks can learn from experiments in open journalism
No sector or industry is immune from the ‘open revolution’ – from software development, scientific research and publishing, to how businesses innovate more generally. Here are three experiments in ‘open journalism’ which also suggest how think tanks could work more openly. 1. Open sourcing The Guardian newspaper has embarked on a programme of open journalism. As Alan Rusbridger, the paper’s editor, has noted: [...]