Introduction

The Association Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group and the Design Business Association undertook this inquiry, building on the findings of the Cox Review of Creativity in Business, to assess the relationship between government and its design providers, and to explore design's potential to unlock innovation for the public sector. We take the term design in its broadest sense, as a verb rather than a noun, as a set of tools that enables a better way of doing things - whether that means designing effective policy, designing out waste, or designing services that work for users.

Two themes - the need to carefully monitor and manage the government-market relationship, and the need to innovate to achieve smarter procurement - are highlighted as procurement priorities in the recent BIS publication, Going for Growth. For both of these objectives, government's engagement with the SMEs is seen as key. In the recent Policy Through Procurement Action Plan, 'the key agendas that government intends to pursue at PtP priorities' include 'small and medium sized enterprises - lowering barriers to their participation.'

The inquiry found that the drive to improve standards of procurement for creative services (the government-market relationship for the design industry) and enable access for SMEs, as recommended by Cox and reiterated in Policy Through Procurement, has seen limited success, and the increasing pressure to innovate within government could be the catalyst for an improved relationship between the public sector and the design industry.

There is now a real opportunity to move to outcome-based commissioning, for the public services to re-design their routes to procurement. Such a paradigm shift would support SME engagement, and, most importantly, benefit the end-user. But such a shift - such a comprehensive organisational culture change - will require action on multiple fronts.

This inquiry has considered the areas of knowledge, skills and process in turn, making recommendations for improvement on each.

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Design and the Public Good - (PDF - 1.9MB)

About Design Business Association

The Design Business Association is the trade association for the design industry in the UK. They promote professional excellence, productive partnerships between commerce and the design industry and champion effective design which improves the quality of people's lives.
www.dba.org.uk

Associate Parliamentary Design & Innovation Group

The APDIG is the leading advocate for design and innovation whose mission is to communicate within Parliament the enormous potential value of design, innovation and the creative industries for both the public and private sector - and society at large. They promote exchange and understanding, to enable Parliamentarians to enhance their knowledge of the issues and priorities of design and innovation sectors.