Service Communities

Within local government there are often lots of people across lots of different, and often disconnected, parts of the organisation involved in delivering the same public services. These cross-departmental boundaries have often been a block to the successful delivery and improvement of end-to-end public services.

Back in 2017, Government Digital Service piloted a new way of working on end-to-end service improvement. Creating networks of people from different departments, with different skills, who could work together to improve the same end-to-end service. These networks were given the name ‘Service Communities’.

The aim was that people in these communities would be united by the service they work on and would work collaboratively to develop the best, user-centred service possible. Despite the challenge to the status-quo that this way of working presents, it has been a proven success and has been adopted across a range of public sector organisations.

Since the pilot, many examples of service communities have formed, and community members have worked together productively to achieve service improvement. We hope that reading this might encourage you to think about bringing together your own service community, a community of allies who can push together to ensure the best outcomes for your citizens.

For more information, read the Government Digital Service blog, ‘What Service Communities are achieving across government’.