1 June 2016
Bringing together high-ranking civil servants from across the OECD member countries, the half-day workshop took place on 2 May 2016 and started with a session on the LIPSE Work Package 4 findings on risk and innovation in public service organisations. CenSE’s Dr Sophie Flemig presented the key research findings and policy lessons, and answered questions on how to implement them in practice. Sophie emphasised the need for including the entire organisation and wider community in a discussion on the risks and benefits of innovation in order to reach a socially optimal level of risk and innovation in public services.
The second part of the afternoon was led by Marco Steinberger, founder of the Finnish independent research organisation Snowcone & Haystack. Marco echoed many of the LIPSE findings in his own research report for the OECD. In particular, he stressed the value of prototyping for managing risk in public sector innovation.
Invited by CenSE, Fraser McKinlay, Controller of Audit and Director of Performance Audit and Best Value at Audit Scotland, and social entrepreneur Hugh McCaw then reflected on the practitioner perspective in audit bodies and the Third Sector. This was followed by input from the delegates, sharing their experiences of risk management in their respective administrations.
The workshop received all-round positive feedback and marks the first of hopefully many future collaborations between CenSE and the OECD.
Further Information
The CenSE research on this topic stems from the EU-funded Learning from Innovation in Public Sector Environments (LIPSE) project.