It’s been a month since 240 delegates gathered in Gateshead to network, share and explore how we can liberate public services. Since then, we’ve gone through the feedback (there was LOADS), reflected on our practice, thought about what we might do next… and we slept. It was an amazing and tiring day.

Here follows my reflections on the day; not something I was planning to write publicly but the feedback and enthusiasm we’ve received compels me to put something out there. So these are my own reflections of the day, rather than an attempt to summarise everything that happened.

The first striking thing about the day was just how invested everyone was in it. Normally, drop out rates for conferences (especially free ones) is about 20%, whereas we had just ten fewer people attend than were registered. People came from as far away as Italy, with other notable nomads come from Jersey, Somerset, Wales and Scotland. 

There was an excellent energy and vibe to the day. People were so very into it. Standing up there to open the conference reminded me of my wedding: I wanted to speak to everyone before the day was out but knew I wouldn’t be able to, people were connecting and forming bonds everywhere, the mood was energetic and buoyant…there was even cake. I saw and felt this, and the feedback we’ve had very much echoes this. It also consistently asks: what’s next?

Reluctant, resentful rebellion...?

In preparing for the conference, we worked hard to ensure that content was engaging and useful in as much as we hoped it would generate curiosity amongst those wanting to move towards more relational approaches to public service. What we didn’t really think as much about, but was very much reflected back at us, was the notion that this content collectively appears to articulate an ethos and build a groundswell. Donna Hall’s ‘Rebel Alliance’ served to collect these themes and galvanise a groundswell into a movement. 

I reflected on this differently after the conference than I did before it. I love the spirit of defiance and can-do. But I want ‘can-do’, an abstract and intentional idea, to move to ‘am-doing’, and ‘am-learning’. Less catchy, but in my experience, more potent. 

I want movement in lots of places, carried by those doing and learning and sharing, much more than I want a movement. Let’s focus upon and support the verb, more so than the noun.

So I guess I’m a reluctant rebel; it’s more about learning and purpose for me than winning an argument or leading a cause. Some have said that the conference has created or added to a platform that helps us to get organised. I would rather we all got busy; method over structure any day of the week for me. 

The reality is that we have to work with and support people who both ‘get it’ and don’t, or who couldn’t care either way. Tactically, ‘them and us’ (you’re in our movement or you’re not) is suboptimal. Not only does it risk entrenchment and a focus on win/lose, but it wastes time, and time is something we have increasingly less of. 

The current approach to designing, running and funding much of public service has persisted throughout the age of austerity. It’s lowered resource base and turned the focus to efficiency, forsaking efficacy and thus driving up demand. It’s arguable that there’s an ‘event horizon’ beyond which we can’t recover and that we’re approaching it fast. This requires learning, action and proliferation from as many sources as possible. One movement won’t do it, movement everywhere might. The more I reflected on the passion and energy that was palpable on that day, the more I felt that ‘now or never’ serves us far better than ‘us and them’. We have to help each other move and learn. A rebel alliance gets us started, but a learning alliance keeps it moving and growing. It’s our best chance. What we can do ‘On Monday’ is learn, experiment, iterate and share. That’s movement. Everyone: start somewhere, go everywhere. 

Like many others who shared their exasperation with me about the way things have become, I feel like a rather resentful rebel too. The notion that understanding people (rather than assessing them) and helping them to access their own agency have become acts of rebellion is rather depressing. I remember having to justify a caseworker buying a coat for a freezing young woman who presented one November afternoon with no possessions and no hope. I was upset and angry at the time, and I heard many similar tales from people in the room. 

But this was no council of despair. There was a lot of joy in some of what we were able to show with the forensic data around consumption and efficacy. We could show huge amounts of wasted consumption in transacting with people that weren’t understood before the Liberated Method was applied. 

When people’s resentment of having to justify human behaviour combined with an evidenced account of how wasteful not understanding people is, they were able to form what I considered be a very powerful provocation: Before anyone asks me for a business case for something that is more effective, show me the business case for staying as we are. All those that saw the marvellous Ron Charlton’s seminar on data would now attest with confidence that there simply isn’t one. Seeing that penny drop for so many was a real moment for me. People have told me since that this helped them and their long-held frustrations feel seen. Resentful rebellion felt like it was morphing into purposeful intention before our eyes. 

Data: the hunger is palpable

The feedback on the data that shows not only that is there is a case for change, but a case for a change towards relational public services. It felt compelling and many people have told me it felt validating; “I bloody knew it!”. It was also energising, and the idea that such data is hard to gather and yet does so much good shows how risk averse we’ve become as a sector. 

Lots of feedback centred on wanting to know more about how to get this information. Interestingly, commissioners were curious about how such data around consumption and waste might help commission better, or they wondered if commissioning at all was the method by which to apportion money. There was dissonance and a safe space to voice it, something we were very pleased about. 

Similarly with leadership, people in leadership positions wondering openly whether they would think and lead differently if they had this kind of data and insight (spoiler alert: almost certainly). This led to some coffee break discussions around learning, and whether a focus on learning was more productive ultimately than a focus on delivery (again, spoiler alert: it is). 

The data and insight that we’d used to change our thinking and practice was a theme running through the day. The day started with galvanising rebellion but tended increasingly towards knowledge and learning providing the power to start on Monday and let the rebellion take care of itself. 

Language and tropes

We were picked up on the use of language a few times, such as the phrase ‘air cover’ for the management protection required to try new things. There are so many pitfalls here and we were happy to learn. The wonderful Bryony Shannon from Doncaster Council, who I was delighted to see there on the day, writes wonderfully about this - go find her blog…

I would say that we are paying attention to this, and we’re aware that we’re developing a language around this work which is feeling its way. Relational Public Services, Liberated Method, Human Learning Systems, Bespoke by Default… I was asked a couple of times what I meant by certain phrases that I’ve become very used to trotting out and I realised that I hadn’t revisited them for a while and that things had changed since I last did. Please folks, don’t let us be consumed by our own jargon or worse, allow our shorthand to blunt our insights and iterations.

It’s not just our language, but also our biases which can trip us up or deprive us of movement. There was a vibe that civil servants ‘just don’t get it’ which made things less than comfortable for those that were there that very much do get it. Like I said before, I think ‘now or never’ gets us further than ‘us and them’. 

What’s next?

We did a lot of talking. I’d like to do a lot of listening and learning. I like the idea, suggested on X (formerly Twitter) that there’s an ‘un-conference’ where people bring content rather than attend to receive it (if I’ve understood that correctly?). I’d love to attend something like that.

I also felt a pang of doubt and guilt when I saw our caseworkers and peer support workers running around making the day work smoothly. These are the people that do the work and provide the basis for the evidence. They are the whole reason we have anything to talk about. If we do another one, I’d want it to focus on them, their learning and experiences. 

There’s also an instinct that says we should bring citizens in our work into such forums, but I feel uneasy about that. Who wants to be stared at and clapped at by a load of well meaning public servants? Their stories are central, but articulating them carefully and sensitively is vital… something for us to ponder. 

Changing Futures comes to an end in March 2025. I’d love to reconvene before then. Not sure when, where, why and how, but it was such a good day. My final thought as I left was that we had to do this again sometime, although I kept it quiet for a bit from a very tired and hardworking team!

Mark Smith

SRO, Changing Futures Northumbria