Darius Farrokh Pocha

Social justice in a digital age Announcing a new project and a chance to relearn policyma...

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More here: https://medium.com/@jamestplunkett/the-practice-of-policymaking-4549fbd08866
And here: https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/social-justice-digital-age-new-ideas-more-digital-capitalism

A big thankyou to @jamestplunkett for inviting me & to James and @GraemeCooke3 for expertly chairing/synthesising the discussion. Government badly needs less knee-jerk rhetoric in the current climate & more of this kind of thoughtful debate.

…and that requires a re-framing of the narrative around public services towards support, advice & behaviour change rather than just providers of ‘blue light’ delivery.

Spiralling costs become a self-fulfilling prophecy/ political football. If we want to make care more ‘productive’ my belief is that we can dramatically reduce the overall cost by making progressive investments in earlier, positive interventions...

But budgets are finite. We do need to think in some senses about efficiency. The incremental tightening of public service budgets means the centre of gravity inexorably shifts to hyper-expensive, acute delivery by which time people’s life experience has been severely impacted.

So care costs as a rising proportion of GDP could (and arguably should) be regarded as a *good* thing. Progress, in fact.

In fact, it’s a perfectly reasonable view that childcare, healthcare & social care should be amongst the *most* valuable things that society produces.

But only the most libertarian view would be that childcare or end-of-life care should be ‘unproductive’. Or that we should not put a high value on the state making positive interventions.

So if you think about this through the lens of economics - and that is how policymakers and governments tend to see the world - then care is low productivity & therefore a problem.

How we value carers, charities & the time of families and neighbours is the clue here. As a society we’ve decided that this kind of work is low value & not a good metric of growth. You only have to look at wage trends amongst care-workers to see this playing out.

That’s the paradox: the most human aspects of care - helping someone out of bed, taking the time to talk to a child or an elderly person, making someone comfortable or calming their fears - don’t ‘scale’.

Care costs are a rising proportion of GDP. Why? Because an ageing population, increasing wage inequality, stress-related mental health issues etc. lead to more demand. By contrast products & services are getting inexorably cheaper, largely through digitisation.

Fascinating evening last week at @instituteforgov where I joined the @jrf_uk roundtable The Care Paradox: does high-tech = low-care?

It’s made me think deeply about the intersection of economics, politics and public services.

🧵👇

Really enjoyed being part of this fishbowl at #SDinGov on user-centred policy design. Great format, super-interesting contributions.

Great start to #SDinGov this morning - looking forward to hearing more at this talk by Andrew Knight from @UKpolicydesign and @lixindex

https://govservicedesign.net/programme/public-policy-design-making-design-core-business-government

What it takes to deliver public services at scale in the ... Primer by Create/Change · Episode

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5h7UxU1mQ1pXnF83OjiRDG?si=CxsuTjleTleVAY24BZDH-A

🎧 Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/what-it-takes-to-deliver-public-services-at-scale-in/id1646958320?i=1000580647556

Another great conversation: @RachelHope3 on how “frighteningly ambitious ideas and patient execution” can bring about innovation at scale.

📺 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nxBUyiJzC0U

🎧 Listen on Spotify:...

appearance too.

Off to Edinburgh for #SDinGov and looking forward to catching up with @Jo_Carter64 @sophiedennis and others, as well as sitting on this panel with @ayymanduh: https://govservicedesign.net/programme/what-user-centred-policy-design-good.

I gather @markdalgarno may put in an...

Great to be in the studio with the awesome @RachelHope3 Hope for our interview series PRIMER.

New video and podcast out next week.

Sign up to our newsletter: 👉https://createchange.io/newsletter-signup/

Radical optimism? Really enjoyed doing this interview with @jamestplunkett where he explores how we 'upgrade the state'. Listen on Spotify, Apple or Amazon or watch on YouTube. Links here: https://createchange.io/primer-upgrading-the-state-with-james-plunkett/

Quality time IRL with the CEOs @myrahunt @Harriet_CDPS! Fantastic day yesterday with @cdps_cymru handing over to the new Board and Chair and celebrating the work of @annkempster @simonrenault & @sallymeecham

#WALES #transformation

v disappointed to be missing @jereeve's leaving do from @educationgovuk this evening :(

Exceptional public servant, exceptional chap. Hope everyone's having a good time 🍸

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If you’re interested in radical thinking about how government and the third sector can help build a better state, listening to James will be 40 minutes of your life well spent...

This is a super-exciting new project. @markdalgarno and I are interviewing some of the people who are inspiring us the most. The first is @jamestplunkett on "upgrading the state" so it’s capable of governing a 21st Century economy.

Wales is giving people £1,600-a-month in a trial of basic... The Welsh Government has revealed exactly how its basic i...

Wales is trialling Basic Income with up to 500 care leavers getting £1600/month for two years: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/wales-basic-income-trial-how-24333095

cc @jamestplunkett

If you'd asked me to pick a super-power as a kid I'd have probably gone for the ability to fly. Nowadays I'd settle for being able to read 2X faster. This feels like an incredible brain unlock...

https://bionic-reading.com/

Can you move faster in Gov using Lean techniques? Expert independent consultant @Aoife has some ideas for that in this new video from @createchangeGOV
#lean #transformation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoNr71fwlk4

Hat tip to @marxculture who pointed me in the right direction back in 2017 at DfE.