Nottingham is one of 10 areas across the country set to benefit from better public services as part of a £100 million ‘Test, Learn and Grow’ programme to deliver the Government’s Plan for Change.
The 10 areas will get ‘innovation squads’ sent in to back community ideas and work with local services, testing solutions directly in local areas with frontline workers and communities who know best.
The teams from central government include tech specialists and other experts who will work alongside the council and service users to tackle some of the biggest challenges directly affecting local communities and people.
Nationally, the programme aims to focus on challenges including increasing the uptake of Best Start Family Hubs to support parents and young children, establishing neighbourhood health services, better support for children with special needs, getting more people into work, rolling out breakfast clubs, and tackling violence against women and girls.
The specific areas of focus for Nottingham will be determined over the summer in conjunction with the other areas across the country.
The approach has already been trialled successfully in four areas across England.
Earlier this year, ‘innovation squads’ tested new ways to get more families through the door of local family hubs in Sheffield, resulting in many more local families using the hubs. In Liverpool they worked with the council to build an innovative data-led platform to manage temporary accommodation.
Nottingham City Council Leader, Cllr Neghat Khan, said: “Nottingham’s involvement in this initiative has the potential to make a big difference to local people by supporting the city’s public services to work together with communities to identify specific challenges they face and finding innovative solutions.
“As a council we are very much focused on introducing new ways of working through our ongoing improvement journey, to ensure we can deliver what local people need and deserve.”
Cabinet Office Minister, Georgia Gould said: “For too long residents and frontline workers have had to navigate fragmented and underfunded public services, people feeling like they have to arm up to battle to get the support they need.
We are going to end this. The test, learn and grow programme will bring the centre of government out of Whitehall and into communities, working with those who deliver and use public services to solve problems together, as part of our Plan for Change. We will reform public services from the ground up so people always come first.”