Design Challenge Competition - Successful Challenges

We’re excited to announce that our panel of judges for our Design Challenge competition, in partnership with Scottish Digital Academy and Snook, have selected 2 Design Challenges that we will be progressing with initially. East Renfrewshire Council and Fife Council have been successful in securing the opportunity to work closely with Snook over the upcoming months to discover, define, develop and deliver their challenge submission, kicked-off on Monday 15th January 2024.

• East Renfrewshire Council have identified the need to better understand key financial barriers faced by families living in, or at risk of poverty. They would like to use multiple data sources, that currently sit separately, to design and target appropriate interventions.

Rui Cardoso, Head of Insights at Smart Data Foundry and one of the Design Challenge judges commented:

“When used correctly, data can be one of the greatest tools in informing how resources should be targeted by local authorities. Limited or outdated information can undermine the efficacy and impact of decisions, impeding progress and leaving vulnerable populations at risk. The importance of such insights is vital to enabling strategic interventions, particularly when it comes to highlighting the experiences of vulnerable and low-income groups. In submitting this bid, East Renfrewshire Council are building on the experience gained from the cost-of-living dashboard and are proposing a challenge that aims to demonstrate the potential of using data in making informed decisions to help vulnerable groups”.

• Fife Council are aiming to enhance lives, while reducing burden on resources. The current public sector fragmented systems hinder cohesive support, and they would like to be able to use unified and predictive data to improve customer journeys and experiences.

Aaron Slater, Digital Inclusion Manager at Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) and one of the Design Challenge judges refers to digital inclusion and innovative service design:

“It’s been a real privilege to review the fifteen Design Challenge submissions, each unique and innovative in their own way. We live in a digital world, but not everyone is able to fully participate, especially those living in poverty. Innovative service design is a key enabler to understanding how to deliver better services and improve access for those who most rely on it. Both East Renfrewshire Council and Fife Council submitted ideas on how to use digital to improve the lives of people in their communities. I’m excited to see how they take this work forward”.

With the design sprints underway, it’s interesting to see how the problem statements are defined and the possibilities emerging based on user research. As well as the two successful submissions, we received an additional thirteen, each highlighting real and relevant issues across local government. We recognise the potential to create additional working groups and mirror the support provided by Snook. As well as trying to capture and scale the lessons learned from this process, we are now exploring how we can support the other local authorities to tackle their challenges collectively.

Verity Hislop, Senior Project Manager at the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government states: "If we truly want to progress and tackle challenges collectively by adopting service design approaches and principles, we must embed these ways of working into everything we do. It’s fantastic that we can progress the successful challenge submissions with fully funded support from Snook, however this is only the beginning. Now, we must consider the additional working groups and how we make this opportunity relevant to all those councils who took the time to share their challenges. We have an experienced panel of judges with diverse expertise, as well as long standing partnerships across the public sector. The real value is bringing everyone together and to approach this collectively to maximise positive outcomes”.