© 2019 Menno Spaan, The Hague

ISBN:

Paperback: 978-94-92004-87-1

E-book: 978-94-92004-88-8

Original title: Van indammen naar laten stromen. Concreet werken aan innovatie van publieke organisaties (Amsterdam: Business Contact, 2018).

Translated from Dutch by Erwin Postma, Malaga.

Cover design: Studio Jan de Boer, Amsterdam

Cover image: https://beeldbank.rws.nl, Rijkswaterstaat, Ruimte voor de Rivier

Photo author: Michel Marang, Amsterdam

Inside work and illustrations: Willem van de Ven, Amsterdam

Ebook production: booqlab.com

This edition is published by Warden Press, Amsterdam

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Table of Contents

Preface

1. Innovation is a must! But how?

The importance of innovation

The unique nature of public organisations

What this book can do for you

My approach

Your route through this book

Case 1: Seize the moment, Molenwaard municipality

Case 2: Dare to provoke, The Hague municipality

Case 3: One step back, two steps forward, Bunnik municipality

Case 4: Pulling together as a recipe for better justice, Public Prosecutor’s Office

2. A targeted approach with the innovation model

What is innovation?

What is your innovation challenge?

The 4F Innovation Model

The innovation process steps: Fiddle, Flow, Focus, Fit in

Monitoring

Innovation strategy

Innovation success areas

An innovation-friendly ecosystem

Extra: how the 4F Innovation Model relates to other innovation models

3. The innovation process steps

Fiddle: the courage to do it

Flow: allowing a thousand flowers to bloom

Focus: taking creative ownership

Fit in: embedding the application

The process stages in practice

Case 5: Innovation can be the norm, South Holland province

Case 6: Putting collaboration on the map, Leidschendam-Voorburg municipality

Case 7: Reclaiming what’s valuable, a collaborative venture by the joint Dutch water boards

4. How to define your innovation strategy

Innovating under the radar

Innovating in the spotlight

Innovating in a dark basement

The context strategy

The copycat strategy

How the strategies interrelate

5. Entrepreneurship

Identifying and seizing opportunities

The courage to go do it

Using systems that reward entrepreneurship

Creating and using professional space

Taking a different approach in a political and administrative context

Exploring across organisational boundaries

Case 8: Giving rivers space to roam, Dutch Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management

Case 9: Particulate matter for thought, Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment

Case 10: Every problem is an opportunity, Dordrecht municipality

6. Innovative administration

Innovative administration defined

Seizing opportunities

The courage to stop doing it

Maintaining the balance with the primary process

Deploying innovation teams

How to handle those with political responsibilities

Collaboration and connection across organisational boundaries

7. Leadership

Working from a collective ambition

The courage to do it differently

Harnessing the power of the role model

Working with a leading coalition

Alignment with political and administrative responsibilities

Staying connected

Case 11 Clear the way for the doers!, Nijkerk municipality

Case 12: Change on the radar, the Justis screening authority

Case 13: Talk to the market and the market will talk back, Drechtsteden region

8. Implementation

Time and focus for the implementation process

The courage to keep doing it

Learning from mistakes and celebrating successes

Allocating responsibilities

Leaning on political and administrative responsibilities

Striking up partnerships

9. How to create an innovation-friendly ecosystem

Employees with the right skills

Employees with diverse backgrounds

Using engagement as the starting point

Working on a different culture

Leaders who do the right things

Sharing information

Monitoring the results

Creating room for reflection

Calling each other to account

A suitable work environment

Case 14 It’s all about identity, Zuidhorn municipality

Case 15 3D breakthrough, Dutch Land Registry Office

Case 16: Collective ideas for broader support, Zeist municipality

10. A plea for structural innovation

The public sector has a moral duty to innovate

Genuine innovations are impossible without public organisations

Public organisations can go out of business too

Public organisations must lead the technological revolution: it’s make or break

Innovation affects us all

Innovation is human nature

Innovation is in public organisations’ nature

Annex 1: What is your innovation challenge?

Annex 2: Success areas for innovation at public organisations

List of people involved

Acknowledgements

Notes

Preface

Making dikes lower instead of higher, and placing them further apart to give major rivers space to flow towards the sea. This is just one of the wonderful innovations that have materialised in the Netherlands and that I describe in this book. This new approach to flood prevention not only protects four million people against high water levels, but also adds value to their living environment. Farmers can let their cattle graze on floodplains, leisure seekers can enjoy nature and use dikes as vantage points to take in the stunning landscape, and cattle have higher ground to flee to when water levels rise.

With rising sea levels, innovation is crucial for the Netherlands. And due to the subsoil being far from stable in the river delta, and roads therefore constantly needing maintenance, the Netherlands has gained widespread experience with new applications that other countries could learn from. One example comes from another case presented in this book; the first-ever road, perhaps even on a global scale, where carbon emissions during construction and maintenance work are offset completely by the energy the road will generate. It is a road that, through thermal storage technology and other smart applications, is basically a power plant, marking a drastic overhaul of our thinking on the future of our infrastructure.

Living in a river delta not only produces issues that require creative and innovative solutions, it has also shaped the Netherlands culturally. When you live in a land that is constantly threatened by water, you look beyond mutual differences. Having all these rivers cross the land and being a country by the sea also offers great trade opportunities. Seizing these opportunities is what made the Netherlands a world power back in the seventeenth century, attracting large numbers of immigrants. To then be able to live together, you set aside any differences and set out to stay united.

This culture of going beyond differences is clearly reflected in the cases I have captured in this book. They show all sorts of collaboration: cross-team collaboration that ultimately led to a municipal organisation doing away with managers, collaboration between public-sector organisations and knowledge institutions in developing a 3D map, collaboration between the public sector, market parties, and the community in shaping one town’s urban planning and decisions on spending cuts.

The lessons presented in this book are relevant to public-sector organisations, but also to other organisations with a public focus, such as organisations operating in education and healthcare. Internationally, the Netherlands ranks highly when it comes to the quality of its public sector. The cases I have described come from innovation pioneers and have proven to be successful.

These cases (sixteen in total) are about innovations by local authorities, by a regional authority, by the national government, and by the Netherlands’ joint water boards. I have looked to offer a balanced mix of different kinds of innovations in public services. But I have also taken the size of organisations, and their location, into account. The western part of the Netherlands is effectively one huge conglomerate of cities. Several of the cases are set in these large cities, but I have also specifically sought to include cases set in smaller municipalities in other parts of the country. In the Netherlands, water boards are autonomous organisations with their own administration, elected by local residents every four years. One of the cases is about an innovation by the Netherlands’ joint water boards.

Why innovate?

Innovation cannot be directed, but it does not emerge by chance either. And this is exactly what makes it such a fascinating process. Everyone is involved. Going into it, you are not sure what you are looking for or will come up against, but you do know that it will be new and unknown, and that the only way to find out is to just get started. Innovation is, therefore, triggered by new ideas and enterprising doers. But after that, you need a process where workable ideas are taken to the next level in a clearly targeted way. It calls for a strategy that is right for the political and administrative context, as well as for administrative courage and a group of people who embrace the subject and show the tenacious perseverance needed to develop an application.

Innovation is not a luxury add-on to public organisations’ existing activities. Digital developments are coming thick and fast these days, changing how people relate to each other, how we behave, and how we think. Public organisations need to understand how these new technologies work and how they offer an anchor point for the reliability and accessibility of information, and then shape the playing field for deployment of these technologies in a way that ensures they serve the public good and prevents public organisations from being left behind. To get this right, it is crucial that public organisations take the lead and shape innovations in a structured manner.

But there are more reasons why innovation should be a prominent function at public organisations, such as to prevent public organisations being relegated to organisations that can only react to incidents, i.e. organisations without any kind of proactive involvement. If you set up a continuous flow of innovations, you will know when to use which applications. And you will be able to prevent projects without real potential for success passing a point of no return because politicians have openly committed to them and do not want failed projects to their name. It is a process that involves trialling different applications, allowing you to select the ones with the most potential at an early stage. And by launching multiple applications at the same time and setting up a selection process before you scale up innovations, you will prevent excessive outlay and failure of large-scale public projects.

But even more importantly, public organisations always need to be dedicated to improving their services, because everyone across society will depend on a public organisation at one point in their lives. Whether it be for a passport, benefit application, or our security, public organisations need to be there for us when we need them.

Examples of successful innovations deserve to be shared and learnt from. In fact, the people involved in the various cases presented in this book, some of whom I have been following for over five years, seem to now have reached a point where they want to share their innovations internationally. And so they should. After all, particulate matter does not stay within national borders. Blockchain needs an open-source code that is used internationally. 3D mapping applications need to be shared on an international scale, etc. I am, therefore, very proud to be able to present their applications to you in this book. This English version includes updates to those cases that had not been completed yet when the Dutch version was published. On top of that, I have enriched the case stories by pointing out the potential for replication of the innovations in other countries.

Regardless of your role in public service, the case stories will benefit you. But do beware, innovations cannot simply be copied. Innovation requires an intensive process that you have to set up meticulously. With this in mind, I have tried to be as specific as possible in describing how to make innovation happen in public organisations. This book does not offer a step-by-step plan to follow, but is more of a book of recipes for managers in the public sector, or, in the words of one of the reviewers of the Dutch version, ‘your handbook for innovation’.

You can dip into it to draw inspiration from a specific case, method, or idea, or take the associated test first: this is a book you can read in any order you want.

Whichever way you decide to read this book and apply the learnings, I hope you enjoy it and that it guides you to innovation success!

Menno Spaan

1 Innovation is a must! But how?

It is like when you are on a plane and find out that there is no pilot in the cockpit and the autopilot is flying the plane to an airport that is yet to be built. This is the metaphor that sociologist Zygmunt Bauman used to capture modern-day society’s perception of change. We live in a fluid society with a high degree of uncertainty due to the sensation that we are no longer in control, which is aggravated by the fact that people feel that government does not have all the answers either.¹ It becomes clear that public service organisations, amid the turbulence, should really be doing something they currently are not, but what exactly should they be doing? And how do you set that up when you know that innovation is precisely the kind of process that cannot be controlled?

Illustration The importance of innovation

Working at a public-sector organisation is not what it used to be. Public servants used to have clear standard working methods, rules, and procedures to adhere to because information came to them from the minister, state secretary or someone else with political responsibility in a clear-cut way. The implementation consisted of clearly defined tasks of which they could take ownership. Things are not like that anymore. The turbulence has increased enormously, with information coming in all the time and from everywhere, perception is becoming ever-more important. Politicians no longer automatically get the exposure they need to reach their voters, which they used to get from the written press. They are constantly fighting for attention, which only stirs up the turbulence. Long-term clear-cut policy lines are disrupted by the here and now. Increasing uncertainty leads to calls for a strong public sector. The law of the loudest voice plays a key role. Citizens and non-governmental organisations are increasingly taking things into their own hands, simply because they are more than capable. Issues that are impossible to solve are left for public organisations to deal with. On top of that, these organisations operate within a network with other parties on which they depend. In this force field, where others tend to be much better at steering perception than they are, public organisations are expected to be flawless, but also to act decisively and to complete an adequate number of tasks, cases, or ‘files’ within the set turnaround time.

This only increases the pressure that public organisations are under, and with that the belief that ‘improvement’ alone is not enough, but that things need to be done ‘differently’. The question is how to design a process that allows you to change your ways within the abovementioned hectic reality. It is a process that you have no control over and that lacks clear process steps for innovation. Besides, public organisations are traditionally not set up for it.

New technological possibilities require a timely and accurate response. Crime has moved into other domains and calls for digital policing, self-driving cars are forcing authorities to make changes to roads and parking facilities, big data is leading to all kinds of privacy-related issues, and robotisation is impacting the job market. Over the coming years, people working at public organisations will have their hands full with these developments. It is key for public organisations not to lag behind, but latch on and play a role in shaping the developments.

Innovations create opportunities: digitalisation can be used to optimise services to citizens, the use of big data offers a whole raft of possibilities for new forms of investigation and law enforcement. Innovations will give forensic institutions examining evidence new investigative resources that will empower them to solve so-called cold cases. Intelligence services can get hold of information in entirely new ways. But I also mean innovations that are closer to home: a parking attendant with a new scanning device that allows him or her to work a lot faster, or passport office staff with new equipment to streamline the passport application process.

And this is just the start. Technological innovations are coming thick and fast these days, making citizens and non-public organisations more and more self-reliant and leading to rising expectations in terms of what we expect from public organisations. Meanwhile, the working population is shrinking and the amount of money coming into the state’s coffers will diminish. Public organisations simply cannot afford to up their spending. After all, tax revenue will fall in the long term, forcing the public sector to work even more efficiently.

These developments and the described turbulence cause public organisations, and the public professionals working there, to need to be able to adapt quickly and flexibly. And they need to be smart and not think in terms of improvement (i.e. to optimise existing processes), but instead in terms of innovation (i.e. to introduce new working methods or products). More than ever before, public organisations are being challenged to use their innovation capability.

Illustration The unique nature of public organisations

To top off an already complex situation, there is the fact that public organisations are subject to additional rules and requirements. After all, policing is something you must do by the book. The tax system is the same for everyone. And public organisations need to be there for you whenever you are in need of help. As a result, people’s confidence in public organisations is not based solely on the results they achieve and efficiency of their operations. There are further requirements in terms of legitimacy, equality of rights, and protection of people’s legal interests. And seeing as they are publicly funded, we want these organisations to adequately account for their actions, work to high standards, and make no mistakes. It seems, therefore, a lot harder for public organisations to innovate than it is for private-sector organisations. The higher standards and additional requirements seem to be restraints on their innovation capability.

In his book entitled De eigen aard van de overheid² [The characteristic nature of the public sector], Hans Berg outlines what gives the public sector its unique nature, arguing that it comes from the fact that its tasks are ‘ungrateful’, often difficult or entirely impossible tasks that society has been unable to solve and that are subsequently left to the public sector to sort out. The examples he mentions include the refugee crisis, toxic waste processing and disposal, and drug addiction issues with a wide range of associated problems. What makes tackling these kinds of issues so complicated is that they tend to involve contradictory values and interests. Take the protection of workers’ rights, for example, which clashes with employers’ need for greater worker flexibility. There is no objective standard you can apply when weighing up these interests, meaning that at least one party will always be unhappy with your solution, according to Hans Berg. This makes it virtually impossible for the public sector to please everyone, as public servants can simply never get it right.

The unique nature of the public sector makes it seem as if public organisations are always doomed to play catch-up, which is a difficult situation when you want to innovate. Still, it also makes that there are no obvious solutions and that innovation is the only way to find solutions to the dilemmas that public organisations are grappling with. This book presents a wide range of different cases set at national government agencies, implementing bodies, a provincial authority, and local authorities to stay close to that unique nature of the public sector, while the conclusions drawn and dynamics described apply to all public organisations that are rooted in political and administrative systems in the Netherlands, i.e. that are part of the civil service system.³ This includes organisations such as educational institutions, healthcare providers, independent administrative bodies, and foundations.

The ‘point-scoring’ MP

Information is everywhere. Developing policy along clear-cut lines is a thing of the past. Media pick up the information and politicians want to score points with it. Politicians are continuously on the back foot and need an ability to play good shots nonetheless. In a policy paper that was published on 12 June 2016, entitled De campagne begint vroeg dit jaar (The campaign starts early this year), Professor of Constitutional Law and Administrative Law Wim Voermans and Geer Ten Waling took stock of how the number of parliamentary questions, motions, and media appearances by members of Dutch parliament has developed over the years, based on research by Leiden University’s Centre of Expertise for Political Legitimacy [Expertisecentrum Politieke Legitimiteit]. They found that the role of people’s representative is increasingly one of ‘rapid mobilisation of viewpoints’, and ‘scoring points’ as an individual member of parliament. Over 50 percent of parliamentary questions include direct references to media.⁴

Public-sector organisations naturally set themselves apart from private-sector ones on account of the fact that they are publicly funded. Their public funding means that public organisations need to work in a way that is not focused solely on the results of their work, but also on the way these results are achieved, and that while navigating a complex context of contradictory values and interests. Their operations also involve a form of political and administrative governance that comes with dynamics that are not always rational. On top of that, public organisations are, more so than their private-sector counterparts, dependent on other organisations and actors in a network, meaning that innovation basically requires this entire network of organisations and actors to innovate.⁵

So, what does that look like in practice? At a public organisation, you solve intricate problems and face complicated challenges, while your success hinges on support and cooperation from others, you will be hard-pressed to make things happen, and everyone will find out about any mistakes you make and slate you. Forget about taking small steps and experimenting as you learn, you are expected to get it right the first time. And so, you must think everything through twice before you take action. The unique nature of public organisations makes the people working there cautious.

Illustration What this book can do for you

This book is intended for everyone working in the public sector. It is a practical guide on how to pursue innovation of public organisations, while taking the unique nature of public organisations into account. There is no such thing as top-down innovation at public organisations, as innovation there emerges from the bottom-up through the circumstances you create together. This is a highly interesting fact, as it empowers everyone to contribute to innovation. Regardless of whether you have been working at an organisation for a few weeks or several decades, are experienced or just starting out, are young or old, a little bit of boldness can help you get started with innovation or even be decisive in making it a success. This could lead to some unique results.

In the fascinating give-and-take of turbulence, innovation opportunities, increasing pressure to innovate, and the complex requirements that public organisations have to meet, public professionals often turn out to be supremely capable of making innovations happen. This book presents several cases where they did just that. What is it that made these public professionals so successful? What makes these projects different? How do you pick your innovation target? How does it affect day-to-day operations? And above all, how do you take a structured approach to innovation within a political and administrative setting? These are the questions this book seeks to answer, looking also at situations where things went wrong, where envisioned innovations failed to materialise, even though millions were spent on them because they had to succeed. What went wrong? What can we learn from that? How do we prevent failure?

Innovation is a contradictory endeavour, as research has shown. On the one hand, it requires a culture where new ideas emerge, while on the other it involves making choices. It calls for creativity in management, but also assertive leadership, not only from the higher levels at the organisation, but also from employees who take ownership. And all of this in a political and administrative environment that is highly dynamic in its own distinctive way. Given that interventions can be contradictory, it is important to keep close track of the different stages of innovation and know how to handle these different stages. You need to be clear on what you want to achieve with your innovations, so as to be able to formulate a strategy and work specifically on the right success factors. This will give you something to hold on to, especially when things get tense and chaotic while the old and the new exist side by side.

Illustration My approach

What are the enabling conditions for successful innovation of public organisations? And how do you shape these? To answer these questions, I looked for cases of public organisations that have been successful. I found sixteen success stories of innovations that meet the strictest definition of what constitutes a successful innovation. This definition says that a successful innovation is not merely an improvement of something that already existed, but is truly an entirely different product or process that has been launched or implemented successfully.

The cases come from a cross-section of traditional public-sector organisations: central government, a provincial authority, local authorities, and water boards. I chose these organisations because of their distinctly public nature, which is precisely what this book focuses on. That said, other public organisations show similar dynamics and the results of my research are, therefore, also applicable to those organisations. Wherever I refer to ‘political and administrative support’ or ‘political and administrative responsibilities’ in this book, I mean both the political policymaking for the running of a public-sector organisation and the administrative governance of public organisations. Throughout this book, I will sometimes also use the terms ‘the government’ and ‘governments’ when highlighting the policy or role of the government.

The selection of cases covers a range of different innovations (product innovations and process innovations, with a mixture of innovations of products, services, technological innovations, and different organisational structures). The cases of successful innovation are the backbone of this book, as you will see elements of these cases reflected throughout, referencing the decisions that were made and the context that enabled the success of the innovations.

In each case, the innovation is described according to a fixed structure. I have interviewed stakeholders on different organisational levels, ranging from those with ultimate responsibility to middle management and employees. I ran the outcomes by a panel of experts who identified the primary criteria for success, whereby they also looked at unsuccessful cases.

When the Dutch version of this book was published last year, work was still ongoing on several of the innovations showcased in this book. Of these innovations, I have meanwhile been tracking several for over five years. For this English version, I went back and visited these innovators to incorporate their latest findings and experiences into the cases.

On top of that, I have added an international perspective to each case by going into the possibilities of applying these same innovations in other countries.

Digitalisation and robotisation

Roughly one quarter of all jobs is set to disappear due to digitalisation and robotisation, especially jobs involving routine work. If yours is an administrative job, chances are it will be displaced by technology. This is the chilling prospect painted by research conducted at Oxford University. Deloitte ran the same study in the Netherlands,⁶ with researchers looking at the extent to which a profession can be automated, categorising professions as being at high, medium, or low risk of automation. The high-risk category contains mainly administrative, service-providing, and sales-related jobs. These are set to be automated completely over the next ten to twenty years. The World Economic Forum expects 7.1 million jobs to disappear globally over the 2015-2020 period.⁷ Still, automation will also create two million new jobs, especially in technology, computing, mathematics, architecture, and building engineering. Organisations are going to change massively and inevitably need to largely reinvent themselves, and that goes for both public organisations and all other kinds of organisations.

Based on the outcomes, I put together the innovation model that is the starting point for this book. My model will enable you to get started with innovation at your organisation right away. And this is what it is all about for me, because innovation is a fun and interactive process with sometimes highly contradictory interventions. I wrote this book to help people understand how an innovation process is structured and how to set one up in your specific context. But I also expect something in return from you as the reader. The innovation process is impossible to capture in one-dimensional theory or to predict. Part of it you can influence, part of it just flows. And it is precisely these two force fields that make it such a fascinating process of weighing out the pros and cons, figuring things out, letting things happen, and persevering. This means you have to analyse, and be willing to take the bull by the horns yourself, take initiative, and learn from it.

Illustration Your route through this book

I want to do justice to the complexity of practices at organisations, and therefore urge you to read the whole book from cover to cover. That said, if you are impatient and have little time available due to the hustle and bustle of everyday life, you can go to Annex 1 and answer a few questions to figure out where you currently stand when it comes to an innovation at your organisation. You can then pick and choose chapters and sections to read based on what is relevant to you. If you want to identify interconnections between the outcomes, you will find Chapter 2 very handy, but other than that, you can chart your own route through this book.

Another option you can use to get a comprehensive analysis of the state of play at your organisation is to go to www.haagsebeek.nl/innovation. This is optional; it is by no means compulsory. And again, you can start with this analysis, but you can also answer the main questions at the start of each chapter first. You can also read the whole book or only those chapters you think are relevant to you. There is no fixed sequence!

The self-driving car

One example of rapid technological progress is the development of the self-driving car. Vehicles are becoming increasingly autonomous, with new features such as automatic braking, lane keeping assist, and automatic parking.⁸ At the time of writing, in 2019, there were already entirely self-driving cars (such as the Google car⁹). The expectation is that, despite setbacks that will inevitably occur at any one time, the car industry will, between 2025 and 2030, switch to exclusively manufacturing self-driving cars.¹⁰ The irreversible process leading up to this switch is moving along rapidly. It comes with attractive upsides.¹¹ Improved traffic flow as cars align their speed with each other will reduce congestion on our roads. And there will be fewer accidents, because 90 percent of road accidents today are caused by humans. And since self-driving cars achieve far better fuel economy, demand for fuel will drop. The changes to the road network, however, will be drastic. Passenger vehicles, but lorries and buses as well, will be able to communicate with each other and other devices, while speed limit signs and other traffic signs will become a surplus to travel requirements and roads will be laid out differently. Self-driving cars will lead to a reduction in car ownership and an increase in car sharing, which will, in turn, prompt changes to how cities are laid out. The government will have to support companies and knowledge institutions in making all of this possible in practice, such as by tailoring legislation and regulations to the new reality created by self-driving cars. It is extremely important that local and provincial authorities take these changes into account in their policies now, and not wait until self-driving cars are dominating our roads.

The cases that make up the backbone of this book are not presented in any kind of specific order, and can perfectly well be read as stand-alone innovation stories. In Chapter 2, I will describe the 4F Innovation Model, following which I will detail each component of the model in subsequent chapters. Chapter 3 will go into the question of how innovations come about at public organisations and how to organise this process. The strategy you can use to shape innovations while factoring in the political and administrative context in which public organisations operate will be covered in Chapter 4. Next, I will specify the success factors, grouped together in various success areas. Chapter 5 will subsequently work out the first of these success areas, entrepreneurship. The next success area, innovative administration, will be the subject of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 will describe the leadership success area. The final success area description will follow in Chapter 8, which focuses on implementation. The whole in which these success areas exist is the innovation-friendly ecosystem. How to create such an ecosystem where innovation can thrive is what Chapter 9 is all about.

As I wrote this book, I gradually acquired greater awareness of how extremely important it is to adopt a structural approach to innovation, but I also learnt a lot about the unique nature of public organisations that actually boosts their innovation capability. These realisations have ultimately led to the overarching conclusions I will present in Chapter 10.

Big data and the Internet of Things

Continuing digitalisation is leading to the proliferation of digital information flows. We are producing increasing volumes of ‘big data’ through our growing use of the Internet and all kinds of smart devices.¹² This comes with sweeping changes on both an economic and a social level. Big data can make processes faster, easier, and increase their security.¹³ The Internet of Things, i.e. interconnected physical devices that exchange information obtained through sensors over digital networks, will produce yet more data. Without any kind of human intervention, the dikes protecting the Netherlands from flooding can, thanks to smart sensors, nowadays report when exactly they need maintenance. Smart CCTV cameras help keep streets safe by identifying abnormal, anti-social, and criminal behaviour.¹⁴ Search engines alert us to a flu epidemic when there is a sudden spike in flu-related searches. Big data unsettles the balance of power, as new groups are managing to make smart use of the huge volumes of data. Big data also enables governments to monitor what is going on in society, allowing them also to assess the impact of their policies. Combining different kinds of data makes it possible to conduct targeted inspections and gives criminal investigators invaluable information. The big data boom will radically change how governments work. A key step in this respect is to extract the right and relevant information from the huge volumes of data.

Case 1

Seize the moment

Molenwaard Nearby,

Molenwaard municipality

The former Molenwaard municipality was the Netherlands’ first local council to operate without a town hall, instead renting office space at three locations across the municipality where civil servants can work whenever they want. They do not, however, have a fixed desk or workstation there. Not even the mayor has a fixed office. Citizens are not served at these back-office locations, because Molenwaard no longer has a service desk in the traditional sense of the concept. Instead, the Molenwaard local authority goes out into the community and is, therefore, always nearby.

Molenwaard Nearby

An average-size municipality of just under 30,000 inhabitants in the western part of the Netherlands, Molenwaard was created on 1 January 2013 through the merger of the Graafstroom, Liesveld, and Nieuw-Lekkerland municipalities. Prior to this date, these three local authorities had already merged all their administrative operations and started to think about what would ultimately become the Molenwaard Nearby concept. They looked into how the three local authorities could harmonise their policy and processes, as well as how they, despite becoming a much larger municipality, could still stay close to the community. Accommodation was also an issue they discussed, as they had to decide where to build the new Molenwaard town hall. They put together a business case that showed that a new town hall would cost Molenwaard around fifteen million euros, while each municipality had only set aside one million euros for a new town hall. Aside from that, it was the height of the recent economic crisis and it was simply not a sensible move to spend so much taxpayer money. It was in this context that the following question emerged: ‘What exactly do we need a town hall for?’ This is what set the ball rolling. The funds the three municipalities had reserved were spent on implementing the Molenwaard Nearby concept, which marked the start of the great rethink.

The Molenwaard municipality operates based on the idea that any place is suitable as a workplace for civil servants, given that their workplaces are hosted in a Virtual Office that can be accessed at home or at one of the existing village halls, local clubs, or even cafés in one of the municipality’s thirteen villages or at one of the buildings where the local authority rents office space. For personal dealings with citizens, the local authority basically goes out to where citizens or businesses are located. Molenwaard is mobile, digital, and nearby.

The innovation

The Molenwaard municipality was the first in the Netherlands to abandon the idea that a local council needs a physical town hall where citizens can go for all kinds of council services. Citizens can now apply for a wide range of products electronically. The only products for which citizens still have to stop by one of the council’s locations are a passport, ID card, or driving licence. Applications for these products are handled by appointment, whereby citizens can choose where they want to apply in the various villages. Passports, ID cards, and driving licences are delivered free of charge anywhere in the Netherlands.

The local authority has fully digitalised its internal processes, enabling its employees and the municipal executive to work anytime and anywhere. Given that the mayor and the members of the municipal executive do not have a fixed office, they meet local residents at home or at a school, while local businesses can schedule appointments on their own premises. Municipal council meetings are also held at different locations, including company canteens, sports clubs, or even a local resident’s living room. This, too, is Molenwaard Nearby.

Innovation process

The merger of the Graafstroom, Liesveld and Nieuw-Lekkerland municipalities opened many doors for Molenwaard Nearby. Following the merger, civil servants from the three municipalities had to work at temporary offices, uprooted from their usual workspace and routine. Molenwaard ultimately saw this uprooting as an opportunity to create a local council without a town hall. The municipal clerk at the time is seen as a visionary in making this switch, which he propelled with the help of his advisers. The current municipal clerk shares his enthusiasm. This is considered one of the success factors for Molenwaard Nearby: the vision was not only backed and conveyed by management and the municipality’s top administrative level, the idea was also embraced and internalised by the municipal executive and the municipal council. The vision was subsequently turned into the Molenwaard Nearby concept, which was built on six different mainstays that the project team worked on. Seeing as the three municipalities had each reserved one million euros to build a home for the Molenwaard council, there was sufficient budget available to implement the Molenwaard Nearby concept. Molenwaard Nearby was considered a dot on the horizon, a goal to work towards. It was ultimately reached by setting and achieving interim objectives that were monitored and evaluated. Molenwaard used expertise and skills available internally to develop and implement the concept, while also using external expertise as and when necessary. This latter external orientation proved an important aid in the change process. They looked into, for example, technological possibilities available in the outside world and how these could be turned into an effective working method for the municipality.

Replicability

How do you, as a local authority, stay connected to citizens when there are as many as 21 villages in your municipality? The former Molenwaard municipality took a revolutionary approach. Instead of having residents come to a town hall, civil servants went out into the community. The town hall turned out to be surplus to requirement. An innovation such as this one is particularly relevant for local authorities that serve various towns and villages that are spread out geographically.

Not only the management’s commitment to the vision was a success factor, so was the space for trial and error in the development process for Molenwaard Nearby. The management created frameworks within which the project team got to work and with this, giving plenty of scope for action. The core teams consisted of members who were appointed for each mainstay based on their capabilities and motivation to innovate. They were and are still seen as the ‘vanguard’ that considered innovation one of the core values of the Molenwaard culture and were able to instil this core value in others. Since Molenwaard Nearby is an innovation that affects the organisation as a whole, there was also extensive focus on getting civil servants involved in the development.

Management set an example to show what would be expected of employees, while Molenwaard also organised workshops and developed the e-buddy system that had employees with technical questions help each other out. Celebrating milestones reached along the way and recognising employees’ good work stimulated further innovation. With Molenwaard Nearby fully implemented, the final step was to switch the mindset and behaviour of the entire municipal organisation to the same mode.

Outcomes

Prior to the merger, the three municipalities had set aside one million euros each to build a new town hall. Instead of building a new town hall, these funds were invested in the implementation of Molenwaard Nearby. Molenwaard Nearby makes the municipality’s services a lot cheaper to run. The local council is one hundred percent digital, while still offering customised solutions for complex products or services, including having specialists visit citizens at home. Thanks to Molenwaard’s Virtual Office, civil servants can use any location as their workspace, and council services can come to citizens and be offered on site. It has increased proximity between citizens and their local authority, making council services a lot more personal.

Political and administrative context

Even before the three municipalities had merged, the question arose as to how to make the increase in physical scale of the municipality go hand in hand with a reduction of the virtual scale. The new municipal organisation wanted to reap the benefits of increased scale, while also reducing the distance between the municipal organisation and citizens that would come with the increased scale. This question created space to think about a new approach to a municipal organisation and municipal services. The drive of the municipal clerk and municipal executive played a key role in creating more space for innovation and making the most of that space. On top of that, the concept of Molenwaard Nearby was so revolutionary that the Dutch Ministry of the Interior also played a role. It was up to the municipal clerk and the project team to galvanize the ministry, to get the ministry to commit to pilots, and push the boundaries of the framework within which they could work and test.

Follow-up

In 2019, Molenwaard merged with the Giessenlanden municipality to form the Molenlanden municipality (approx. 43,500 inhabitants), which is made up of 21 villages. This merger prompted a reorientation of the vision with respect to the community-based approach to municipal services. It took time to align the two municipalities’ respective innovation processes.

In the new Molenlanden municipality, too, the concepts of participation, a community-based approach, and closeness to citizens come first. Although the former Giessenlanden town hall is used as a workplace for civil servants, it is not used as a location from which municipal services are provided. Municipal services are still provided in the community. Whenever this is not possible, however, citizens can go to one of the municipality’s five service points.

Providing municipal services without a town hall is one way to put citizens first, but not the only way. The Molenlanden municipal authority is, for example, also working on a 360-degree customer record. All applications submitted and services used are logged in this record, as is the number of times a local civil servant has accessed someone’s personal data. Citizens have access to their record and can enquire about the purposes for which their data was processed. In the same way as Molenwaard Nearby gave citizens control over where and when they engaged with their local council, this record now gives them control over their privacy. The municipality is also focused on developing so-called ‘virtual participation’ alongside physical participation. Citizens who cannot attend consultation meetings in person can give their opinion online. By providing facilities for virtual participation, Molenlanden allows citizens to get involved in different ways.

There are several ways you can realise an ambition. The idea that ‘citizens are in control’ is the basis for innovations in this case.

Case 2

Dare to provoke

Roofs of The Hague, The Hague municipality

Solar panel subsidy scheme

In their 2010 coalition agreement, the local government of the city of The Hague had freed up funds to help achieve the target of making ‘The Hague carbon neutral by 2040’. The municipal executive had set out to cut the city’s carbon footprint by as much as possible per euro spent. And they had earmarked part of the funds for a subsidy scheme for solar panels. Due to the fact that the decision-making process on how to spend these funds involved the necessary political toing and froing, there was little time left to actually spend the funds. What was needed was an innovation, which came in the form of a subsidy scheme that was written and adopted in only four weeks.

In the usual way, solar panels are subsidised by granting a fixed amount for the nominal power generated. The Hague (approx. 540,000 inhabitants) decided to take a different approach. They were the first local authority in the Netherlands to switch to a flexible subsidy scheme that allowed residents and businesses to apply for as much subsidy as they thought they would need. The Hague abandoned the idea of awarding a fixed subsidy for each solar panel. Applications from residents, institutions, and companies were assessed based on how the requested grant related to the total nominal power the applicant intended to install. The order in which subsidies were granted depended on how the funds requested related to the power that would be generated. Parties with the most favourable ratio were the first to receive a subsidy. And they continued to receive subsidy payments until the full subsidy was spent. Applicants who wanted a large grant per kilowatt of solar power installed ended up not getting a subsidy at all. This method made the most of the funds available for solar power subsidies, as more people received subsidies over the years, without the local authority having to free up more resources. The scheme ran for four years and was subjected to an annual review and amended as and when necessary.

The innovation

The decision to subsidise solar power in this way constituted an innovation because it introduced a more flexible way of applying for a subsidy. There was no longer a fixed grant per solar panel, as applicants could decide for themselves how much they wanted to apply for. This incited applicants to keep the amount they applied for down and use more of their own funds.

Replicability

How do you encourage people to make changes to their homes as part of the energy transition? The city of The Hague did it with a stimulating subsidy scheme that is not all about the financial resources, but about the goal: to generate as much solar power as possible at the lowest possible price This case teaches public organisations to change the way they think about stimuli for residents.

Outcomes

The scheme ran for four years. While applicants still had a lot of questions in the first year and had to find their footing in the new scheme, they did gradually get the hang of it in subsequent years. If they wanted too much, they would get nothing. Applicants therefore started to apply for smaller subsidies. As a result, the ratio of nominal power generated to euro of subsidy rose from 1.5 to 4.9. And among business users, it rose from 1.4 to 3.9.

In absolute figures, the total number of subsidies awarded on an annual basis grew from 134 to 326 between 2011 and 2014. Thanks to this scheme, The Hague became the city with the most solar panel connections in the Netherlands. As it turned out, many applicants who wanted too much and ended up getting nothing did install solar panels after all, paying for them out of their own pockets. During the subsidy application process, they had studied several quotes and decided to install solar panels without a grant.

Innovation process

The Roadmap for a Sustainable The Hague framework policy document, The 2040 Energy Vision for The Hague, and the Climate Plan for The Hague together set out the long-term plan for The Hague. The decision to subsidise solar panels was made based on the Energy Vision and was in keeping with the results of a 2013 backcasting study, which concluded that it was up to the city to take care of sustainabilisation, and up to the municipal authority to facilitate. There was no innovation strategy underlying the subsidy scheme. The innovation was prompted by the municipal council’s desire to make the most of the available resources. The scheme was designed and written with this objective in mind. Due to the political discussions on the subject, there was little time left to think about strategy and the actual scheme. And so, The Hague took a highly practical approach: design the scheme as best as possible to at least make it feasible to adequately justify the spending of public funds and subject the scheme to an annual review. This meant that the scheme was optimised along the way.

The scheme was designed and further developed by ‘strong-willed types’ who were not afraid to think outside the box, but also by more conservative types who had an ability to identify risks and who made sure the process stayed on track. This meant that there were different perspectives involved in the innovation, which ultimately resulted in a balanced scheme.

The Hague’s Sustainability department has a culture that is open to innovation from within the department, but also from outside the department. The department actively seeks input from across the city, based on their belief that residents and businesses themselves know best what suits their needs.

Political and administrative context

The 2010 coalition agreement of the local government had freed up funds to help achieve the target of making ‘The Hague carbon neutral by 2040’. In pursuing this aim, the municipal executive wanted to be able to see by how much the city’s carbon footprint was reduced by each euro of subsidy granted. This resulted in the scheme presented in this case, which was intended to make the solar panel subsidy scheme as efficient as possible. After four years, the scheme was discontinued because people basically no longer needed subsidies to purchase solar panels. As a matter of policy, no further funds were freed up to promote the installation of solar panels.

Case 3

One step back, two steps forward

Tackling the Tolhuislaan/Grotelaan junction,

Bunnik municipality

The municipality of Bunnik (15,200 inhabitants) has shown that innovation is not the sole preserve of larger municipalities. By changing its approach to the maintenance of outdoor spaces across the municipality, the Bunnik local authority managed to redesign the junction of Tolhuislaan and Grotelaan with maximum support from residents.

Tolhuislaan

The Bunnik local council received numerous messages from residents expressing concern over the safety of the Tolhuislaan-Grotelaan junction. A subsequent study by the council confirmed that this junction was indeed an unsafe route for children going to sports clubs and out-of-school facilities. And when a small accident occurred there, which luckily involved only minor material damage, the question of how to make this junction safer became even more pressing. As usual, it was up to Bunnik’s implementation and control department to come up with an answer. The municipal executive, however, wanted the local population to be involved in the decision-making process for the new road layout. But who exactly do you involve, and how? The traffic expert who was put in charge of the project quickly found an answer to the ‘who’ question: the people who would actually be using the road. The ‘how’ question was solved by putting up a sign by the junction calling for people to help with ideas on how to improve road safety at that particular spot. On the website that the council had set up for this purpose, road users could describe and draw their ideal junction on an aerial photo of the area. In three weeks, the appeal received over thirty responses from road users, one of which was ultimately selected and implemented.

The innovation