Delivering customer focused public services

Description

"Government has been told it’s economically rational to spend £62,000 to get a longterm unemployed person on Incapacity Benefit back in to work. Using service design methods has helped Sunderland City Council, UK cut that figure to just £5,000."


Northern Way worklessness pilot: Sunderland City Council, UK

Worklessness as a result of long-term illness is a headline issue – six million people in the UK live in households where no one works, costing taxpayers an estimated £13 billion a year in benefits. In the City of Sunderland 26% of the working age population are economically inactive, with almost 4 times as many people claim Incapacity Benefit than Job Seekers Allowance.

One NorthEast, the Regional Development Agency for the North East of England, asked livework to run a pilot scheme with Sunderland City Council to explore how the long-term unemployed interact with employment services and to develop innovative ways to reach and support individuals into work.

Making it work

Over 280 practitioners, employers and clients contributed to the design of the Make it Work service that has trialled a number of new service propositions. To date the scheme has provided support to over 800 people, 200 of whom have already found employment. While David Freud, the government adviser on welfare, has estimated that it is economically rational to spend up to £62,000 on getting the average person on incapacity benefit into the world of work, the average costs per individual of our Northern Way Worklessness Pilot is less than £5,000.

February 2006 – ongoing

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Public Services by Design:
Transforming public services through expert mentoring

When persistent challenges can’t be solved by government alone, design is the means to stimulate innovation, solve some of society’s problems, and grow the economy by creating new markets and business opportunities. Public Services by Design helps the public sector innovate