The Tavistock Institute secured funding from the Local Government Association, the Improvement and Development Agency and the Cabinet Office for a project on innovation in public services. The aim of the project was to review the literature on innovation to identify lessons for the encouragement and replication of innovation in public services and to scope an action research approach to apply the lessons of the review to a number of current challenging policy areas.

Two workshops were held as part of the project, involving officials from central and local government, and the work has also drawn on a session on innovation at the LGA’s annual conference and an evening discussion on the topic.

This policy paper pulls together the results of that work.