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Governance

Innovations in decision-making, whether in national or local politics or communities and places, are changing the way that people are involved in services. 

A key factor for success in innovation in public services is building trust between governing bodies and the public. One way to build that trust is through active and meaningful engagement between people and policy-makers.  Innovative ways of increasing trust, improving political engagement and allowing people to have greater influence on the decisions that affect them, can in turn result in more inclusive and innovative services.  Deliberative democracy methods enable the public to become better informed, and in turn engage in decision making processes in a meaningful way.  These can include citizens assemblies or juries, planning cells, deliberative polls or participatory budgeting.

We are engaged in better understanding the lasting impacts of such approaches, and looking for opportunities to gather evidence specific to the Welsh context.  We are drawing on evidence from other regions, and exploring ways to implement effective democratic innovations, and explore the effects they have on local decision making, and to the individuals who take part.

 

Case Studies

Toolkit

The Innovate to Save Playbook

In 2019, we published our guide to Repayable Finance for Innovation  - our goal was to share lessons learned from running Innovate to Save to help others in governments around the world do the same.

Since then, we've learned more that we want to add to those recommendations and so we are publishing the Innovate to Save Playbook, a how-to guide to running a programme that blends grants and loans together with tailored support to enable innovation to happen in public services.