The Place of Innovation in British Public Administration

With the entry of competition into the public sector, every public organization adopts the innovation approach in order to survive or to make a breakthrough in the increasing competitive environment. The human genius that can leave the industrial revolution machines far behind in world production; aims to catch the spark of innovation in public administration. How does the UK (UK) public administration implement innovation, the newest tool of business management?

Customer Satisfaction Oriented Innovation and Its Types

World production is evolving into other fields such as health, education and security, as well as areas such as automobile, steel, defense, aerospace and informatics. Unsolved problems such as global climate changes, international security, aging population and migration and the desire to learn about their solution alternatives necessitate innovation. Overcoming these problems, for which the new globalism cannot produce simultaneous solutions, increasingly requires the introduction of innovative solutions such as the introduction of new standards, criteria, evaluation mechanisms and the development of new approaches. For this reason, it is aimed that the government should lead the restructuring of public procurement in the UK to encourage innovation and to take steps that will trigger public-private-third sector and university collaborations for innovation.

Innovation can be radical or gradual. In any case, whether it is radical innovation with great breakthroughs in which products or production methods have never been tried and developed before, or whether it is incremental innovation as a result of a series of step-by-step development and improvement activities; The main goal of innovation in public institutions and organizations has to be customer satisfaction. Research and Development (R&D) in the public sector as well as in the private sector is one of the most important activities required for innovation and should be supported by entrepreneurial innovation. Thus, R&D results can be transformed into innovation. Therefore, “technological innovation” is combined with “organizational innovation” and “presentational innovation” and citizen (customer-beneficiary) satisfaction is ensured.

Innovation and Learning

Innovation and learning is the case when considering UK public administration (Innovation Special 2006:4-6): The current innovation process in central government is almost a top-down one, held by senior civil servants. Databases and financial resources are limited. The idea that useful suggestions of public officials who are face-to-face with citizens in the countryside should be taken into account, endorsed with a clear leadership and supported by excellent internal communication is dominant. In addition, ministries and public institutions and organizations are definitely their beneficiaries (customers), other stakeholders and employees in the system. should listen to each individual. A new innovation unit should be established, individual incentives should be set up in order to develop and increase the innovation that needs to progress, and why customers' gains will increase if they work cost-effectively when implemented; A convincing, equitable, measurable and guiding mechanism must be implemented as a truly innovative practice. In this, the bureaucratic culture based on not taking risks should be replaced with incentives that have experience in this field as much as possible.

Areas of Innovation in UK Public Administration

The UK has a world-leading innovative business community, a large number of innovative and bright people, strong colleges and universities, and a vibrant, vibrant third sector. The public administration, on the other hand, is an engine that activates all these qualified groups. The UK, which is generally a strong innovation country (European Innovation Scoreboard 2020), sees innovation practices gathered from the private sector in public administration as a product of motivation, talent and opportunities. These opportunities may arise from the effective use of R&D and technology, as well as adapting the experience and achievements of other organizations, sectors and countries to the UK.

In the UK, innovation can take place at all levels, in the form of new organization (PPP), new rewards (PDU) and new ways of communication (e.g. ministry portals), and at the beginning, middle and end of the process. Market-friendly and competitive structures in the public sector close the innovation gap between private and public, and the share of innovation in both increases synergistically. Likewise, while the share of innovation in the business world in the UK has increased from 49% (2001), to 68% (2008), the rate of citizens who are ranked 2nd among the most equitable markets and who are adequately or better informed about scientific developments is less than 39% ( 2005) increase to 56% (2007) 

is gone. The fact that 3.9% savings were achieved in the UK in February 2009 with an innovative system in medicine and pharmaceuticals and medical technologies in the NHS has been an example that paved the way for more resources to be provided for innovation. With the innovation carried out for diabetes patients within the NHS, its success in measuring the level of sugar in the blood without crossing the eye has contributed to the private sector's attention to public innovation and to increase mutual cooperation. As a matter of fact, the rate of those who made business license agreements from universities increased by 271% between 2001-06.

UK's productivity performance; KPY has been increasing regularly since 1997 in parallel with KY and Innovation practices. The government supports business innovation, creates strong and innovative research topics and bases, adopts the "open innovation" system in line with its increasingly international nature, supports sharing that will reveal innovation, making it an "innovative nation" in public administration and making certain places an "innovative space" with the public sector and other sectors. It successfully fulfills its role as a catalyst in the formation of broad collaborations between actors. In addition, this success is considered as a result of BK's strengths in connectivity and entrepreneurship.

In the UK, systems open to innovation are generally accepted in public administration. Public innovation, which has become more visible with the Internet and the WWW, has led to government-level innovative initiatives in the UK, such as the National Health Service (NHS) and open education universities. Much of the innovation in the UK, as it is around the world, is technology-based. Other minor changes are organic and occur in the structural system or business processes. In this sense, increasing performance in the public sector, for example, by making use of private sector management techniques, is an important source of innovation for the public. Since public sector innovation has been studied less before, private sector experiences should be utilized and its unique characteristics should be revealed (Nooteboom 2006:12). Because innovation is the most important factor in the continuous improvement of public services (Innovation Special 2006:1).

The most prominent areas of innovation are economics and finance. The innovation effect of up to 80% in the growth and production of the private sector is also felt in the public administration. Today's state; Although it has shrunk due to neoliberal policies and therefore withdrawn from the economic field to a large extent, still 25% of the British economy consists of public administration. Perhaps this is why 90% of ministries see innovation as a very important lever to achieve their goals.

Pressure of Performance Management in UK Public Administration

With the national public performance management applied in the UK public administration, cutting the resources of unsuccessful public institutions and even closing these institutions, exempting successful institutions from inspection or transferring additional resources according to performance (Ateş, 2017) create a serious pressure on innovation. Many strong public organizations place a special emphasis on ongoing innovation to push their business forward. A series of changes are brought about by the professional members of the management, and innovation and learning become indispensable in the public sector as well as in the private sector in public organizations that want to guarantee their existence.

UK Public Administration Perspective on Innovation

In the UK, which is more ambitious than EU countries, innovation is seen as indispensable for the country's future economic prosperity and quality of life. Likewise, innovation in the public sector aims to achieve efficiency results shaped by the push of technology and management on the one hand, and quality-enhancing results shaped by the attraction effect of citizen demands on the other. Beyond all these, with the rise of sustainable environmental understanding, sustainable innovation is accepted as the new savior of the world. Indeed, Whitehall, the heart of the UK central public administration, states that the next phase of public administration reforms will take place entirely on the innovation front, and for the last five or six years, innovation has been identified as a top priority for the public sector and senior civil servants.

Characteristics of UK Public Innovation

There are a number of key features of innovation in British public administration:

Innovativeness, which is shaped especially by social, economic and environmental problems and shaped by cooperation, is primarily developed by those close to the problem and by provincial officials.
Innovation shaped by technology rather than new ideas and new products is about new ways of working, new relationships, and radically new ways of delivering public service.
Innovation develops in an environment where there are multiple and competitive public products and services rather than monopoly public services. For this reason, the New Public Management approach offers an organizational climate and culture suitable for innovation.
Many innovations in the UK, 

Although it is done without government involvement, research shows that innovations in public administration need systematic, political and bureaucratic support. In this sense, resource allocation in the public sector gains importance. In general, 2-3% of resources can be allocated to innovation in the sectors.
A successful public administration, applying the innovation example at the national level or bringing private sector innovation to the public is seen as a separate innovation.
In order to realize innovation in the public sector, DIUS (Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills) in the UK cooperates with universities, business world and regional governments for local and regional innovation solutions. Again, the Whitehall Innovation Hub was established to acquire and disseminate innovation in the public sector. The British Court of Auditors has also started to review risk management and innovation in recent years.
Some tools such as procurement and procurement system, innovation planning, standard setting, regulation, resource allocation, knowledge and technology transfer and cooperation, measurement system development, training and innovation reports are used to develop and promote public administration innovation. Among these, the public procurement system and public tenders are important tools that encourage innovation.
13% of the productivity increase in the second half of the previous century is due to regulation and standard setting, which are the most important tools for public innovation. This places the UK in the sixth place as a regulatory environment out of 178 countries.
Collaboration is also vital. For example, the Ministry of Health conducts participatory work with industry in four areas: creating a single assessment path, increasing the demand for intelligence, making NHS procurement legislation open to innovation, and developing a metric system to measure progress. Despite all this, it is stated in new reports that supply innovation solutions are not fully rooted in the country and that the impact of the regulation may be limited and medium-term. Nevertheless, the government tries to guarantee open and competitive market and macroeconomic stability to create the conditions for innovation, and it tries to achieve innovative impact in a particular area, the public sector, by using public services, public procurement and regulation. Likewise, the R&D tax regulation (2000) prioritized research, technology and innovation in the public sector.
While innovation has expanded from the national dimension to the global dimension, especially since the beginning of the 1990s, it has spread to the base with the development of innovation strategies and programs in the dimensions of regions and cities. The UK aims to establish an “innovation nation” at all levels, such as individual and societal, provincial and regional levels, by working with all (local-national-international) actors in the field.
When it comes to innovation, the first thing that comes to mind is product, process, market innovation and organizational innovation. In public administrations, a distinction is made between policy and service innovation. In the UK, radical change, product and service innovation is associated with politicians, and innovations in product and service delivery methods are more associated with bureaucrats. In addition, corporate innovations are formed by the efforts of both parties.
Some geographies, countries and even cities appear to be more innovative. Once one of the “leaders of innovation,” the UK is in relative decline. In fact, the only country among innovation leaders and followers that could not improve its innovation performance between 2010 and 2012 is the UK (EU Innovation Union Scoreboard 2013:5,14). Regionally, East England and South East England are innovation leaders (EU Innovation Union Scoreboard 2013:63). At the city level, Manchester, Newcastle and York (2004) were designated as innovation cities, followed by Birmingham, Bristol and Nottingham (2005).
Recently, but before Brexit, according to the “European Barometers” survey, the rate of consumers being attracted to innovative products is 69% in the UK, compared to 57% across Europe. While the enthusiasm of consumers for innovation in EU7 countries is around 11%, this rate is 16% in the UK. The UK, which is ahead of EU countries in this field, especially wants to make good use of local, regional and international innovation areas. Because the UK is open to local, regional, national and international innovation in accordance with its traditional, historical and regional structure.

Problem areas of UK Public Innovation

Innovation in UK public administration has a number of challenges. Looking at these;

Central organizational organizations can make progress in the development and distribution of innovations at the pace of the "turtle walk". Therefore, there is still a long way to go in the public sector compared to the private sector. Because the public sector in general, innovation from within. 

It is weak in creating and learning from the outside, and although it contains many innovative people, it is incapable of using their talents and imaginations.
Likewise, there is a lack of vigilance, individual performance, incentive motivation and vision in public administrations. This lack of innovation in public administration is related to the traditional cumbersome structure of the organization based on strict rules and regulations.
On top of that, many public institutions welcome very few innovators, as they see innovation as a safe box that cannot be acted upon only by external political pressure.
There is also a lack of literature in public administration, and the number of studies in this area is limited. Expecting innovation from decision-making politicians instead of implementing public administration, lack of awareness and awareness in this field, and insufficient concentration of the academic environment are some of the other obstacles.
A practical problem is the “disheartening path” that can occur if public innovation fails.
Barriers considered to impede innovation in the UK, from least to most;
Lack of knowledge and technology
Lack of knowledge about the market
The need to meet pre-Brexit EU harmonization laws,
national laws,
uncertain demands,
Lack of qualified personnel
Financial discipline obligation,
economic risk,
And they are very high costs.
No one sees innovation as their own duty, risk avoidance, too many rules and obligations, uncertain results due to the difficulty of measuring the result of innovation, high walls between institutions, inappropriate structures such as monopoly, resistance to innovation, short-term horizons, narrow vision Other barriers to innovation in the public sector are the basics. So much so that although official statistics on innovation in the business sector have been around for twenty-five years, the lack of it for innovations in other (public-NGO) economic sector areas (Gault 2018:221) is a particular challenge.
The most problematic area of ​​innovation is the difficulty in finding an innovator due to the low intellectual capital. Because the country's strength is its entrepreneurship, and its weakness is its lack of innovation (EU Innovation Union Scoreboard 2013:54).
In short, when innovation is focused on the process rather than effects and results, when innovative players are deprived, stuck in official channels, when deterrents are preferred instead of incentives, when short-term and unrealistic expectations are dominant, when new innovation paths are abandoned, it suffocates and leads to new evils.

Evaluation

As a result, the UK's productivity performance has been steadily increasing since 1997 (Innovation Nation 2008:20), demonstrating that this is a parallel process to Public Performance Management, Quality Management and Innovation Nation practices. International trends and innovation in career guidance – Volume l. Thematic chapters (2020) have shown how important innovation is in the field of human resources by the UK. The United Kingdom is one of the most innovative countries in the world, ranked among the top 5 countries in the 2019 Global Innovation Index. Many of the world's largest and most dynamic companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Coca-Cola, have chosen the UK as their European headquarters is success.

Around 590,000 new businesses were created in the UK in 2017. This is the result of the UK's innovative spirit, entrepreneurial workforce and, according to Forbes, the UK is one of Europe's largest economies. The most business-friendly environment is found in the UK.

The British government supports business innovation, creates strong and innovative research topics and bases, adopts the "open innovation" system with the increasing international character of innovation, tries to provide sharing that will reveal innovation, engages in an "innovative nation" effort based on innovation in public administration, and By turning places into innovative areas, it provides wide cooperation between the public sector and other actors and aims to establish a more advanced system in the following years, according to the pilot index published in 2009 (Innovation Nation 2008:4-10). For this, the Global Entrepreneur Program (GEP) has been launched (UK innovation - great.gov.uk international, 2021). As a result of these determination and efforts, it can be commented that there is no other champion in the world in terms of realizing innovation in the public sector (Mulgan 2008:12). As a matter of fact, the BK, whose place has not changed in the 2011 indicators, is not one of the innovation leaders, but is seen as the top follower, and still progresses very slowly (The Innovation Union's Performance Scoreboard for Research and Innovation 2011). 

While the UK is now the most innovative country of the G7 and G20 (UK innovation - great.gov.uk international, 2021). It was criticized that fifteen years ago, there was a lack of "intellectual and entrepreneurial leaders" that emerged with "the elite administration's refusal to share power". This successful result may mean that the criticism has found its place.

In short, while Vaitheeswaran (2012) suggests adapting to technology quickly, being open to wisdom, getting rid of failure with grace and swiftness, the thesis that innovation should add resilient value to society in any case has found a strong application area in this country. The ability of management, which the elite management avoided to share, to evolve into governance has been effective in this successful result. The most robust way to achieve the "sustainable innovation" mentioned by Akenroye (2012: 12) is the empowerment of the people. Especially in terms of productivity and effectiveness, innovation provides significant benefits and reveals its strengths.

In short, in the case of life-risk taking and political support, many examples show that there is no shortage of public innovation and barriers are swept away. Increasingly, evidence shows that the river of innovation flows unpredictably and rather than following a straight line, it often sneaks forward unrecognized and in a marginal area (The Whitehall Innovation Hub 2008:7).