The government has called on “disruptors, innovators and creative thinkers” to help make the civil service more productive.
Senior minister Pat McFadden said he wants Whitehall to have more of a “start-up” mentality as he cited Airbnb, Whatsapp and Spotify as examples of the mindset the civil service should take on to be more productive and less bureaucratic.
However, during a speech in east London on Monday he was keen to emphasise how it is the “outdated” system, not the “hard working and diligent” civil servants, who are to blame for the lack of efficiency.
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Last week, Sir Keir Starmer accused “too many people in Whitehall” of being “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
But the cabinet office minister has now announced his government will provide a £100m fund for “test and learn” teams of problem solvers to find out how to improve public services.
He called on members of the public working in tech, policy officials and frontline workers to join the teams that will initially be in Manchester, Sheffield, Essex and Liverpool from January before being expanded across the country.
They will be given specific problems to tackle but will not be told how, as Mr McFadden said he wants them to mirror how tech start ups work by testing out different methods and scrapping them in the early stages if they do not work.
People who apply will be on a six or 12 month “tour of duty” so they can go back to their normal jobs after if they wish, he added.
The minister said people may remember a call for “weirdos and misfits” – a reference to Boris Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings calling for people with “unusual” qualities to apply to the civil service to shake it up.
Asked if he would give Mr Cummings a job, Mr McFadden said that was a matter for him, but added: “I’m not expecting an application.”
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Mr McFadden said: “Whatever term you want to use, we do want innovators and disruptors and original thinkers.
“And my message to creative thinkers is this is your chance to serve your country. Use your brainpower, your technological talents to fix some of the biggest problems we face today.
“Britain needs you. And if you choose to serve, I want government to empower you to help us deliver. To move fast and build things.”
The first problems teams will look at will be how to reduce the costs of temporary accommodation, which take up most of many councils’ budgets, and how family hubs can increase the number of disadvantaged families that can be reached.
The minister added that he does not expect the civil service, which has grown over the past eight years, to get smaller but wants to use solutions like AI to make their time more productive.
