The UK’s public policy design community in still young. In its modern incarnation, policy design established a foothold in government with the birth of Policy Lab about 10 years ago. Since then, the concept has spread across the UK and evolved with many exciting variations in approach.

Policy design is the practice of making public policy and services in a design-led way that seeks to balance government intent with environmental systems and the needs of people. Andrew Knight, who heads up the UK’s Policy Design Community, says “Design is the practice of making things – and if there’s one thing that governments do, it is to make public policy and services – so design must be at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is to help policymakers innovate in a way that systematically drives more meaningful outcomes for citizens”. In practice, policy designers in government deploy a diverse toolkit that includes user centred design, systems thinking and agile, experimental design. Uniquely, design provides a lingua franca for multidisciplinary experts across governments to constructively collaborate.

Over the past 2-years, the UK’s public policy design community has seen exponential growth in membership. It now includes public sector design practitioners from over 60 organisations inside UK central, local and devolved government, plus hundreds of university researchers and practitioners employed outside of government.

The current spike in interest has been seeded by two important investments by the UK Government.

• Central government’s Policy Profession, who support over 30,000 policymakers in the UK, invested in sponsorship of the specialist community of practice for policy design. Richard Banks, who heads up the UK’s Policy Profession Unit, said “Policy Profession aspires to improve the capability of policymakers and to transform policymaking systems. Our sponsorship of the Policy Design Community is an important part of that agenda. We are investing in the build-up of this community of practice to promote the diverse nature of policy professional work”. This incisive sponsorship has enabled design practitioners from across the UK public sector to connect, learn and work together, develop next practice, and advocate for and embed design.
• The second key investment has been made by the UK Government-funded Arts and Humanities Research Council. They have invested in the new universities-led Design and Policy Network. This has provided a space where university researchers can have dialogues with practitioners on public policy design, connecting research and practice. It aims to map out the intersection between design and political science for future research, knowledge exchange and make recommendations to academic funders and to public bodies including the Civil Service. Set up in May 2022, the network has rapidly expanded and has over 300 UK and international members, the majority of whom are practitioners in policy design, policy implementation and public service design.

Both of these investments have helped uncover an iceberg of interest in public policy design. Most of the UK’s big departments of state now have some policy design capability, and many universities now teach and research public policy design. Growth and demand are expected to continue as officials and researchers around the world strive to find better ways to lever more value from public investments within increasingly complex environments.

The UK’s public policy design community has ambitious plans over the coming year including to teach design fundamentals to all government officials involved in making policy and services, formalise policy design as a career path in government, and create a new cadre of public design leader champions.