Public Service Reform Operational Summit: Workshop Feedback 14 October 2025

Workshop 5: True Innovation: Building a Better Civil Service

Summary of workshop:

The workshop featured presentations around what innovation means and the different ways it can help public sector organisations. The presentations also included a detailed walk through of the CivTech journey and described the experience for sponsors.

There followed a discussion on the challenges and opportunities for innovation within the delegates organisations. Using the CivTech approach, participants discussed how starting with the problem, rather than solution, can lead to more innovative outcomes. The session highlighted examples of innovation at project, platform, and policy levels.

Points of discussion:

During the presentations, there were questions about:

• The funding model of CivTech and how match funding works.
• If there’s a way to “mine” from the ideas that don’t make it all the way to the final stages of CivTech. i.e. can you go back and look for other ideas that didn’t get picked up?
• Do you need to consider if your problem’s solution will have a commercial viability? [NB. Commercial viability in this context is not about maximising profit. It is about generating sufficient revenue to sustain services and ensure that public investment delivers value. The goal is to make a solution worth investing in because it improves outcomes — not solely because it reduces cost. For example, Forestry and Land Scotland’s data solutions have helped increase efficiency and support delivery of forestry targets.]

Participants broke into groups to discuss problems they had in their organisation and what the possible outcomes could be.

Examples of problems and potential solutions highlighted by participants included:

Lack of joined-up services and preventative care

• Fragmented services, especially in elderly care, making it hard for people to get support. There’s no clear way to measure success and trust in the system is low.
• Crisis issues often pull resources away from preventative action. Example: water safety measures were introduced after multiple incidents.

Life event registration

• Registering life events is inefficient across Scotland. The technical infrastructure isn't fit for purpose, and it often leads to a complicated experience for users at what can sometimes be an already difficult time.
• A shared platform could make this process smoother and more consistent.

Funding models and prevention

• Councils receive short-term funding for specific outcomes (for example counselling sessions), but not for long-term prevention.
• Budgets for things like school uniforms or food support are managed separately, blocking joined-up planning.
• Participant suggestion: Could CivTech help develop a unified approach to funding and present it to Scottish Government finance teams?

Data sharing and collaboration

• Organisations use different systems, making data sharing difficult and this leads to inaccurate or delayed data, which affects policy decisions.
• Clinical demand mapping is done separately by each health board. Multiple different versions with no central coordination.
• Unequal wait times result depending on location.
• Participants suggested outcomes including equitable wait times, better planning, and measuring collaboration.

Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests

• FOI requests are being used in ways that disrupt services.
• They come in through multiple channels and consume large amounts of staff time.
• An innovative solution would involve FOIs handled without cost to the organisation, staff time freed up and user needs met without draining resources.

Actions:

• CivTech officials shared contact information and agreed to hold follow up individual conversations at a later date on specific problems a number of participants wished to discuss.