Government innovation in the UK has taken many forms over the years. Be it policy changes like community policing and the introduction of neighbourhood watch back in the 1980s to the introduction of digital passports and driving licenses in 2025, innovation is ever present in government, whatever its colour.
Yet, the one thing that is new (and continually changing) is the context within which innovation is taking place. Generally, a change in context drives a need for innovation, and we do not have to look too far back to find arguably the best example in our history of government innovation: our response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Whether it was digital innovation such as the NHS Digital Booking System, the test and trace app, digital GP appointments, or virtual wards and home monitoring, economic innovation such as the Furlough Scheme and partnerships with WhatsApp to deliver guidance, government had no choice but to innovate.
Importantly, however, innovation is not just about creating an end product or service. It is about the process and culture within which the end product is created that underpins innovation.
Innovation is more than just ‘doing.’ It is about ‘being.’
Failing forward with an innovative mindset
Until fairly recently, failure has been seen as a setback, a loss, or an error in judgement. Yet, for those who adopt an innovative mindset, failure is an opportunity to learn something we didn’t know before.
‘Failing forward’ is about discovery, design, building, testing, and iterating new ideas and concepts until you get to a point where you have a minimum viable product that is ready for public use. It is underpinned by a fundamentally different set of principles that challenges more traditional ways of thinking.
Plans and funding to build a ‘test and learn culture’, typical of start-ups across Whitehall will help to drive the adoption of this approach, which is key to delivering sustainable growth, building resilience, strengthening leadership and teamwork, and increasing the chances of future success.
Innovation at Serco: A case study
As part of the Restart Scheme run by Serco for the DWP across West Central England and Wales, +impact ran a longitudinal study to understand factors that influenced employment outcomes on the programme.
The innovative part of the longitudinal study is that it not only tracked the experiences of participants as they started and moved through the Restart Scheme, but it also collected data on people after they had left.
Between June 2022 and July 2024, +impact collected data across multiple waves to track how experience changed over time. In total, we collected 8,518 completed survey responses and conducted 142 interviews with 42 participants.
Of those who left the scheme, a third were employed six months later. A third of these were still seeking other job opportunities. Across those not working, two-thirds were seeking employment, including over half with long-term health conditions. Importantly, nearly half of those with health conditions out of work had high levels of motivation to find work – a finding contrary to common media coverage.
Four participant characteristics were found to affect job success: age, education level, unemployment length, and long-term health. Participants over 50 and those with long-term health conditions were 44% and 42% less likely to find employment, respectively.
Using the principles of agile project management, we ran rapid rounds of research to explore these challenges in more detail and made recommendations on how Serco could improve its delivery. This led to the creation of Restart Scheme Blue, a 12-week intensive job programme for people holding Level 5 or higher qualifications. Restart Scheme Blue now employs nine part-time mentors and as of February 2025, has helped over 190 people into work.
The study, the first of its kind on a live government employment contract, has provided valuable data for the employment sector as a whole, as well as identifying opportunities for operational improvement along the course of its delivery, such as the use of an AI tool to transcribe job coaching sessions in real time, enabling greater personal interactions during these meetings.
The reason this approach worked so well is because we adopted an innovation mindset: collaboration with the delivery team, creative thinking to solve problems in real time, ideation with SMEs and Restart Scheme participants to ensure we created user-centred solutions, and a clear roadmap to implement changes on the contract.
By fostering a culture of innovation, we were able to fail forward in small, but scalable steps that resulted in improved outcomes for those on the programme.
What does the future of innovation look like for the UK Government?
The immediate response might be to say technology, and this is partly true. The proliferation of tech, digitisation and AI is being embraced by the UK Government and it will have a part to play in delivering better lives for British citizens. However, innovation can not only be about technology.
It is also about adopting new policies, partnerships, and mindsets to drive a culture that allows innovative approaches to fail forwards in an effort to solve continually changing societal problems and to keep pace with shifting environmental, social, and political contexts.
As the old adage goes, “we don’t know what the future holds” but at Serco, we have the right mindset to ‘be’ innovative so that we can deliver the best services possible for citizens.
For more information about Serco visit Serco | UK Division
For more information about +impact visit +impact | Serco Plus Impact