'Checks needed' for ideas scheme

Jobcentre Plus was one of the projects highlighted by the MPs

Millions of pounds is being spent on trying to bring new ideas to public services without proper checks on the results, says a powerful group of MPs.

The Commons public accounts committee says the problem makes it hard to assess what the Invest to Save Budget has achieved or what has been learnt.

By July last year, the government had used the scheme, aimed at encouraging innovation in public service delivery, to fund 334 projects at a cost of £310m.

In a new report, the MPs say too few "cutting edge" projects have been proposed and says each department should make a senior official its innovation champion.

Wrong name?

After promising extra funds for education, health, transport and other public services, the government says it wants to ensure the money is well spent.

The committee says the lack of proper monitoring of the Invest to Save Budget means that where ideas do work, they may not be shared across Whitehall.

Controls should focus on managing risks and not be a barrier to change

Public accounts committee

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said: "The limited evaluation so far of projects supported by the Invest to Save Budget makes it hard to say what the programme has achieved.

"It is certainly disappointing that so few cutting edge projects have been put forward."

The committee was worried that the name of the scheme might discourage civil servants from being genuinely innovative because it seemed to stress the need to save money.

The variety of projects funded by the scheme has prompted fears that the impact of the cash might be limited by it being spread too widely.

In its report, the committee says: "Departments need to work together more to establish a nucleus of projects tackling similar issues with most potential to benefit from innovation."

Such an approach would help to prove ideas work and make other departments more likely to adopt them, it argues.

The MPs continue: "A willingness to adopt new innovative approaches to improve public services is more likely to become widespread if departments have confidence the risks associated with innovation are well managed...

"Controls should focus on managing risks and not be a barrier to change."

Learning lessons

The biggest project so far funded by the scheme was a trial of new ways to get people on benefits into work.

The ONE project at the Department of Work and Pensions received £80m, but it failed in its aim to increase long-term employment.

Expecting the scheme to work, the department used the idea to go ahead with the Jobcentre Plus scheme nationally before the trial's results were known, says the committee.

Despite the "disappointing outcome", Mr Leigh said the ONE project was a good example of risk taking.

He continued: "It is a shame that the department failed to capitalise on their initially sound management or risk and decided to roll out the full Jobcentre Plus initiative before knowing whether the pilot project was successful."