Some thoughts on procurement.

In the bad old days you could get public sector contracts depending on who you knew.
Procurement Rules were brought in to ensure an equal opportunity for all providers.
But it must be time to realise that this apparent transparency brings with it, its own problems - especially for service designers.

How can an organisation, such as a Council, put out a tender for an idea it doesn't know about?

Here is how it currently works:

• A Service Designer explains their idea to a Council.
• If the Council like it, they take the "outputs" and put them to tender.
• The Council judges the tenders and award the contracts.
• The Council then takes over the Design function.
• The Designer is left with no role.
• The original idea will be compromised as its design is being overseen by someone other than a designer, or the originator of the idea.

Our call to the entire Public Sector is to recognise 'Service Ideas' and 'Service Designs' as distinct outputs that can be put to tender.

Until we adopt a similar approach to Service Design as we do to Building, Product and other forms of Design, our fear is we will not see the transformation in public services called for by Central Government and desired by our communities.

Transformation through Design.

Bikes and Trains

I'm off to Newcastle this afternoon, so thought I'd do the right thing and cycle to the station and get the train.

1.  There is no guarantee of cycle storage being available - and it is just an open rack, which is, apparently, often full!

2.  However, I can take my bike on the train - fantastic!  Space is limited so I would need to check if I can make a Bike Reservation - at the station.  The operator I spoke with didn't see the problem with this. Can you?

Cameron