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Victoria - Agile Government

Reports:

Towards Agile Government - pdf format format (506kb). (This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). State Services Authority, 2008.

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This report is a joint publication produced by Simon Parker, Head of Public Services, and Jamie Bartlett, Researcher, Demos, together with the State Services Authority.

In 2006, the State Services Authority released a report on The Future of the Public Sector in 2025. The report identified seven future issues and challenges for the public sector. One of these was fostering agility to support a high performing public sector. The uncertainty that the future holds means that the public sector cannot predict many of the challenges that it will confront. As such, the public sector requires agility in its systems and structures to respond to future issues.

This report is the culmination of a collaboration between Demos and the State Services Authority which set out to explore the idea of agile government in more depth. The project was launched at a seminar in June 2007 held in Demos’ offices in London. The purpose of the seminar was to test early thinking about what agile government might mean. In September 2007, Demos and the State Services Authority then released a provocation paper to generate ideas and provoke debate about what agility means and how it could be applied to government. The paper outlined a preliminary definition of agility and explored its capabilities and challenges for government.

In October 2007, Demos researchers spent two weeks in Victoria, Australia to conduct seminars, workshops, and case study interviews. The purpose of the research visit was to:

test the ideas outlined in the agile government provocation paper
develop a deeper understanding of agility and ground the project in current public sector practice.

The field research involved a wide cross-section of participants. Participants came from all Victorian government departments as well as academia, think tanks, and public sector agencies from other Australian jurisdictions. They held diverse roles encompassing policy, strategy, service delivery, regulation, and executive management. Participants brought a depth of public sector experience to the project including industry policy, infrastructure, environmental sustainability, policing, economic policy, health, and early childhood development. Project participants are listed at Appendix A.

Agile government: a provocation paper - in pdf format (238kb). (This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). Demos, State Services Authority, 2007. "This provocation paper is a joint publication by Demos and the State Services Authority. The purpose of the paper is to generate ideas and provoke debate about the concept of agile government. The paper does not represent Victorian government policy..."

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"In this paper Demos and the State Services Authority explore the concept of agility and what it might mean for government. We examine characteristics of agile organisations and how these characteristics relate to the public sector environment. We argue that the fundamental challenge for government is to become more agile not just in the way that they meet changing citizen needs, but also to become agile in shaping what those needs are in the first place. This combination of effective shaping, adaptation and execution is the goal of much organisational theory, and government may have some unique advantages and challenges in achieving it.

The purpose of this paper is not to arrive at a prescription for how to create agile government. Rather, it seeks to provoke debate about how developing agility might equip government and the public sector to respond to new challenges in a changing world..."

Agile government, by Jason Ryan. Network of Public Service Communicators Blog, November 4th, 2007. "Demos and the Victorian State Services Authority have embarked on a project to explore the concept of agile government. The first product of this collaboration was what they described as a provocation paper, released in September, and called - as you might expect - agile government..."

Chasing Agility - A new report from the Victorian government claims that the complexity and uncertainty that the public sector faces is driving the need for governments to foster agility in its people, systems and outlook, by Sue Bushell. CIO, 15 May 2008. "A failure to share data effectively between and within agencies and aversion to risk can be amongst the biggest impediments to agile government, according to a new report from the Victorian government..."