Department’s permanent secretary Sir Peter Schofield tells committee of MPs that the pandemic cultivated bold new ideas for several reasons, including the diminished prospect of carrying the can for failure
Enabling departments to better innovate requires the systems that scrutinise and support government “forgiving” mistakes made when pursuing new ideas, according to the head of the Department of Work and Pensions.
In a recent appearance before parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, DWP permanent secretary Sir Peter Schofield was asked by Labour MP Chris Kane about the obstacles to innovation faced by Whitehall agencies.
In response, Schofield agreed with Kane’s suggestion that government might benefit from “seeing failure as an opportunity to learn, rather than an exercise in sharing out blame”.
Avoiding this kind of finger-pointing needs “is a challenge in the wider public debate that we often have, [and] this committee has a role to play just as much as leaders across the whole civil service”, the DWP chief said.
“As we innovate, are we willing to try things and willing to let them fail, because we have tried something new? You have to make them fail fast, so you don’t waste money and time on doing the wrong thing,” the permanent secretary added. “At the heart of this is creating a culture of empowerment and leadership across the civil service as a whole and within our departments.”
Schofield went on the describe the “huge amount of innovation and creativity” that took place during government’s response to the coronavirus crisis.
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This was facilitated, in part, by the fact that Covid provided a clear, singular and urgent area of focus – rather than the constantly competing and differing priorities most departments typically face. But, according to Schofield, the pandemic also helped alleviate the usual pressures created by the prospect of carrying the can for failed experiments.
“The amount of creativity and innovation that was going on at every level in DWP to find ways of changing processes, improving processes, bringing in automation, to have that objective was quite phenomenal,” he told the committee. “It did not require me or the leadership of DWP coming up with the ideas. These ideas were happening all across the organisation. There were three reasons they did.”
Schofield added: “First, we were very clear about the priority: paying people their benefits. We needed to do that. Secondly, there was, at that time, the opportunity to spend money on technology and to bring in new ways of working. Thirdly, there was no culture of blame. There was a willingness to take risks, because the risk of not paying was much greater than the risk of paying the wrong person. These three elements are so important for all of us as leaders across the organisation.”
Going forward, the whole system of government – and those that scrutinise it – could do a better job of understanding the inherent risks in pursuing innovative ideas.
“We all play a part, as I say, including parliament in forgiving us when we do the wrong thing because we are trying something new,” he said. “We need to create that sense of empowerment and creativity across all of the civil service. It is a culture thing and it is something that I feel very strongly about as a leader of a big organisation such as DWP.”
