James Plunkett

Can Test & Learn methods save the NHS? On the challenge of using these methods here

New post: Can we use 'test and learn' methods in the NHS? What would it take to do so? Long but important! I think this is one of the biiggest delivery questions facing the UK government.

medium.com/@jamestplunk...

Glad it resonated! Absolutely - I see that pattern all the time too. People with heads down, being pushed to crank out 1% efficiency on ultrasounds or other procedures/processes, with no time to rethink things (e.g. more preventative, etc.)

Can Test & Learn methods save the NHS? On the challenge of using these methods here

New post: Can we use 'test and learn' methods in the NHS? What would it take to do so? Long but important! I think this is one of the biiggest delivery questions facing the UK government.

medium.com/@jamestplunk...

Help us map disciplines of civic renewal — roles & skills communities need to revitalise civic life Help us map the disciplines of civic renewal — the roles and skills communities need to revitalise civic life If helping us map public sector reform communities wasn’t enough… We’re starting …

NEW @kinship.works for @jrf-uk.bsky.social

Help us map the disciplines of civic renewal

- We know community-led approaches to reviving civic life (Big Local, etc) work

- But we lack understanding of disciplines/professional roles that enable it

What should we look at?

medium.com/kinship-work...

I would say no is the short answer, but no doubt learning from it. Origin story is more around digital/agile methods/mixed discipline product teams, etc.

Excited to be finally giving a talk at TransformGov! 👏👇

A final Friday share of this new post, published this week. How do we activate citizen agency? Could we build an activation layer at the edges of public institutions? 👇

One for Wednesday. With bonus metaphors… 👇👀

How to activate citizen agency If communities have half the answer, what is the other half?

📣 New today: How to activate the agency of citizens. 📣

A post exploring methods for activating citizenship, using a case study of the Citizen First model developed by @publiclife.bsky.social and currently running in the Liverpool City Region. 1/n

medium.com/@jamestplunk...

How to activate citizen agency If communities have half the answer, what is the other half?

This post is the latest in a series we're publishing at @kinship.works in which we make human and civic alternatives to bureaucracy more legible. Drop us a line if you'd like to partner on a future post in the series. /End

Link to today's post is here! medium.com/@jamestplunk...

We think this could help to restore a sense of possibility and agency to public life, and also make public institutions less sclerotic — both outcomes that feel increasingly urgent. We also describe how a layer like this could be funded. 5/n

We float the idea of these methods working like an ‘activation layer’, a bit like the catalyst you get in a two-part resin. Heating up the interface between institutions and citizens, so that more ideas harden into sustainable ventures and innovations. 4/n

Communities have lots of ingredients to come up with solutions to problems: context, motivation, authenticity. But people often lack other ingredients: time, confidence, access to institutions. If we can provide these ingredients, it allows more ideas to 'harden' into impactful ventures. 3/n

We use Citizen First as a case study to describe how these methods function. But then we go further to explore a bold idea: what if we had a whole suite of these methods running permanently at the interface between public institutions and citizens? 2/n

How to activate citizen agency If communities have half the answer, what is the other half?

📣 New today: How to activate the agency of citizens. 📣

A post exploring methods for activating citizenship, using a case study of the Citizen First model developed by @publiclife.bsky.social and currently running in the Liverpool City Region. 1/n

medium.com/@jamestplunk...

Some Friday reading! 👇 ☕ 📖

Essential reading alongside today's final report from ICON, the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods.

In the report below we get deep into the practice of civic renewal. A positive, progressive, local mode of collective action, growing in the cracks of our struggling old system. 👇

Civic Rewilding: Applying the lessons from Big Local — Kinship Works In this final report we synthesise the evidence from Big Local, providing a practical guide to the craft of ‘civic rewilding’. This is a revised and expanded version of our earlier Working Paper, addi...

🎉 Launch day! 🎉 Today at @kinship.works we're publishing Civic Rewilding, our final report on the craft of civic renewal. We've synthesised the lessons from Big Local, one of the biggest ever experiments in rejuvinating the civic capacity of neighbourhoods. 1/n
www.kinship.works/publications...

We hope you find the report helpful. At Kinship Works we'll be announcing more projects soon to further deepen our understanding of civic renewal. Watch this space for more, or sign-up to our newsletter to hear directly: www.kinship.works. /End

And tomorrow the UK's Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods will be launching their final report. They've been doing excellent work, grounding neighbourhood renewal in evidence and exploring the links to broader priorities like economic growth. Info here: www.eventbrite.com/e/launch-of-.... 5/n

Learning from Big Local Explore learning, research and stories from Big Local, a community-led funding programme running from 2011 to 2026.

It's another big week for the movement - a bright spot in a grim political climate. Yesterday Local Trust went live with a new resource, Learning from Big Local, curating all the insights and research from Big Local into one place: www.learningfrombiglocal.org.uk 4/n

Power to the People How Labour can restore civic life and counter the "Britain is broken" narrative

If you're pressed for time, I explored the growing movement for civic renewal in a recent post for Sam Freedman's Substack: open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/p... 3/n

The report refreshes our earlier Working Paper, and this time we've made it more of a practical guide, with links to resources and further reading, case studies, and revisions in response to feedback. 2/n

Civic Rewilding: Applying the lessons from Big Local — Kinship Works In this final report we synthesise the evidence from Big Local, providing a practical guide to the craft of ‘civic rewilding’. This is a revised and expanded version of our earlier Working Paper, addi...

🎉 Launch day! 🎉 Today at @kinship.works we're publishing Civic Rewilding, our final report on the craft of civic renewal. We've synthesised the lessons from Big Local, one of the biggest ever experiments in rejuvinating the civic capacity of neighbourhoods. 1/n
www.kinship.works/publications...

Excellent canter through the field of civic renewal by @jamestplunkett.bsky.social.

"technocracy lacks an emotional register. It can’t speak in sentiments like pride, agency, and a felt sense of momentum - precisely the sentiments that are abundant in community-led development."

Absolutely. But it's very hard for a Pride in Place areas to navigate. Also lots of the individual entities will be too small to bid alone. (And public sector procurement is a nightmare.)

100%. I’m talking with a few people about how we could help with this. e.g. maybe we can pull together a consortium of people with deep expertise in community-led development (to make sure there’s always an option on the table that isn’t selling snake oil!)

TransformGov Talks: January 2026 · Luma Join us at 5.30pm for a 6pm start. Matt Wood-Hill, MHCLG, and Linda O'Halloran, TPXimpact on public service market-shaping Patrick Diamond, Professor in Public…

🚨 6PM, WED 28 January 🚨

At TPXImpact or online

Matt Wood-Hill, MHCLG, and Linda O’Halloran, TPXimpact on public service market-shaping.

​Patrick Diamond, Professor in Public Policy, Queen Mary, University of London, on government effectiveness

luma.com/pc7ji8sg

Please share! Thanks 🙏

A new guest post I’ve written for Sam Freedman’s Substack, exploring the evidence on civic renewal and Labour’s communitarian turn… 👇

Three technology-related things I'm really interested in, along the lines of @jamestplunkett.bsky.social's piece.

1. What (if any) central data/digital infrastructure supports local community activities? James mentions Polis for example. Perhaps OpenStreetMap might be another?