Brenton Caffin compares his experience of public innovation in Australia and overseas, and whether innovation's chequered history in Australia can be overcome to prove its worth to service delivery. He champions an innovation-through-action approach, and explores the experience of embedding innovative skills and practices through the lens of a project team in Western Australia. 

Too many efforts to build trust start from the premise of ‘once people understand the benefits they’ll give us social licence to do whatever is needed’. It would be very helpful to ask people what it would take to trust us. These are all things to discuss authentically, early, regularly and openly with citizen engagement to drive policy development.

There are some pretty fundamental reasons why governments continue spending money on poorly performing programs, explains DJPR deputy secretary David Clements. But he also has advice on how to make change in complex systems.

How could government procurement be made easier? Pia Andrews shares some insights on how procurement reform in itself can be something of a red herring unless it occurs within a broader program of reform.

For everything we do in public sectors, it is when we collaborate and draw on broader expertise and experiences that we get better outcomes. So, if is it such a biological imperative, why does participatory public governance seem so alien or novel to so many?

“Many hands make light work” is an old adage both familiar and comforting. One feels that if things get out of hand we can just throw more resources at the problem and it will suffice. However, we have made it harder on ourselves in three distinct ways, all of which are relevant to planning and programs in the public sector.

“Data sharing” has become a rather conflated discussion where all data is often assumed to be the same and the same solutions or frameworks that suit one need are assumed to suit everything. There is an overarching and growing myth that sharing more data will naturally lead to better outcomes and that we just need to get around these ‘pesky barriers’ to sharing data and things will be great. Although Pia Andrews still believes open data is important for democracy, economy and society, she knows that when it comes to sensitive data, especially unit record data with personal information, more sharing is simply not always the answer.

How do you build responsiveness to ongoing developments into a work program? And what inputs do you need to understand and respond to change? Pia Andrews gives some suggestions.

While the case for joined-up-government and cross-sectoral partnerships appears to have been convincingly made, the question of how to make this happen effectively still looms large. Many articles and studies focus on the institutional barriers that make it hard for governments to work collaboratively. However, while that is certainly important, Thea Snow focuses on a piece of the puzzle that is often neglected: the role of individuals in supporting collaboration to succeed.

How often do you have a chance to think about the long-term impact of what you are doing right now? How often do you consider (or get supported to consider) how a long-term goal should change what you are doing right now?

Despite the sheer scalability, connectivity, and use as highways for political messaging and public debate, most social media platforms were not designed with the purpose of engagement on policy issues . The repercussions for governments are not to be taken lightly. So, where do governments begin? Audrey Lobo-Pulo shows the way.

Trust is hard when you are so many things to so many people, especially when you are both the social worker and the cop. So, trust arguably needs to be about ensuring you are seen as trustworthy, fair, accountable and values-driven. Trust is something you need to earn every day, not something you ask for.

Even if people are motivated to understand something fundamentally new to their worldview, it doesn’t necessarily translate into how they behave. It is easier to improve something than change it. Pia Andrews provides some food for thought to encourage greater collective urgency for reforming the public sector to reflect the changing world and what sort of future we need and want as a society.

Openness is key to scaling anything. It is how we can influence the system and inspire and enable people to individually engage with and take responsibility for better outcomes and innovate at a grassroots level. It is how we ensure our work is evidence based, better informed and better tested, through public peer review.

When you study ‘policy’ in Australia, you are taught the ‘Public Policy Cycle’, which presents a linear method that doesn’t quite reflect the reality of working in public policy, and throughout public sectors we have lost a common language for what we mean.