As part of the work that we are doing with the LG Service Design Group which was launched by Somerset Council in Spring of this year, we are going to be hosting a series of virtual & interactive sessions learning from some of the many fantastic Service Design professionals working within Local Government.

First up was this session being led by Vicky Bichard, Lead Service Designer at Medway Council

Medway had 29 service areas running 72 different workflows. Officers were chasing duplicate reports. Residents were lost in long journeys to do simple things.

The fix was not a new system. It was service design, applied properly.

Mapping journeys until the same patterns showed up across services, and then designing once and reusing.

Around 75% of the manual triage and duplication work officers were doing has since gone.

The harder part was culture. Vicky shared how Medway built a Centre of Excellence and a network of service design champions so that colleagues in any role can design better services, rather than waiting for the design team to do it for them.

Click here for Vicky’s slidedeck