New development: Public service innovation

To meet the future fitness of a changing public service, local government practitioners and public managers can advance more values-based approaches that are responsive to workforce planning needs and more accessible to the communities that they serve. First, co-designing human-centric public services with users to target genuine areas of need. Second, promoting good governance to embrace partnership and spread public service financial risk in finding sustainable solutions to real world complex challenges. Third, leveraging data-driven technologies that informs public service decision-making on areas of performance and improvement. Fourth, investing in training and lifelong learning to promote continuous professional development and building capacity to equip public workers with the skills for innovation is crucial. Finally, to attract gender equality, diversity and inclusion in public service recruitment strategies a more balanced approach to conflicting 'care' and 'control' practices. The authors reflect on their combined dialogues of public service innovation with local political leaders and combined authorities as a useful tool for policy-makers and practitioners in delivering a future fit-for-purpose public service. They consider this through a consideration of 'How should we recruit and retain a public service fit for purpose and what will it look like?' This thought-provoking question, initially posed in 'Public Money & Management' by Massey (2023), highlights a fast-moving and unpredictable public service landscape which is under threat from persistent financial under-investment and exposed to alarming and complex 21st-century global social, economic, political and environmental challenges. This new development article contributes to ongoing academic and policy debates on the importance of public service innovation and recruitment to advance so-called 'inclusive societies' (OECD, 2015).