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Created by the Public Governance Directorate

This website was created by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI), part of the OECD Public Governance Directorate (GOV).

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Many years of Australian debate and public division around same sex marriage culminated in a single, nation-wide postal survey. The Australian Bureau of Statistics was given only 99 days to prepare, conduct and release the results of a survey of Australia’s 16 million enrolled voters. An amazing 80% of citizens participated in this voluntary survey, enabled by innovative project management and customer-centric service delivery. The project was delivered for 2/3 of its budget, a $40m saving.
A customer-friendly emergency service model from Finland where the public can find all the assistance they need at one point of service, instead of across several sites. In addition to somatic emergency services, psychiatry, substance abuse and violence prevention, crisis and social work, and child protection are available. The interprofessional model means collaboration towards a shared goal. The operational model, available anywhere in the world, improves emergency services.
Social innovations offer many new solutions to today’s challenges. Yet, they encounter difficulties in becoming known. Social innovation Crossroad offers a precise vision of social innovations in France. To do so, a search engine gives access to 5000 projects already capitalized by 50 actors. Financers, coaches, academics and projects holders now get reliable information, automatically up-to-date and enter a new community. Small as well as big projects are highlighted the same way.
Sustainability bond with impact-linked return (SBIR) is an innovative funding model to unlock social impact investing which advances the potential to drive public sector change and to attract a broader range of investors, while also financing social infrastructure. The overall goal is to expand investor base for impact investing and build public sector capacity to tackle various social challenges.
Summer Design School is a new approach to teaching and learning human-centred innovation for government employees. It accelerates the development of critical thinking, creative collaboration, and human-centred design capabilities in civil servants with little to no previous exposure to design methods by means of an immersive, cross-sector, experience based curriculum.
Risk processes in the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) were inefficient, onerous and under scrutiny from a number of reviews. A revised Enterprise Risk Management Framework was released and supported by a simple risk methodology. The framework and methodology supports the ATO to achieve its strategic objectives, harness opportunities and better manage risk. The innovative approach moved risk to be part of the conversation and supports planning. The methodology ensures we harness opportunity, and…
In May 2016, the Mayor of San Francisco launched the Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Promise. This was a new initiative to improve the quality of life in San Francisco with a coordinated approach to delivering City services better and faster. He issued an Executive Directive to Department Heads responsible for quality of life issues directing them to prioritize services so all residents have access to clean, safe, maintained public spaces and facilities. To ensure success, the mayor created the…