A Benefits Realisation Series, By Greg Howitt, Delivery and Strategy Director, BetterGov
Part 3: Social Value to Lasting Impact
In the first two parts of this series, I explored why benefits realisation must extend beyond programme closure and how organisations can create sustainable change through a product mindset. In this third instalment, I want to focus on something even more fundamental, social value and putting citizens at the centre of everything we do.
Throughout my career, one of my closest colleagues was also an elected member in an English local authority for over a decade. The reason I mention this is simple. Despite coming from different professional backgrounds, our values were remarkably aligned. We both believed that every decision, every investment, every programme and every transformation initiative should start with a single question
What problem are we trying to solve for the citizen?
For me, benefits realisation has always been about more than financial returns, efficiency savings or business cases. Of course, these things matter. Public sector organisations have a responsibility to demonstrate value for money and make the best use of public funds. However, I have learned over many years that if you start with the citizen and design great services, the financial benefits follow naturally.
Great processes deliver both financial and social benefits.
The challenge is that too often organisations focus on the output before understanding the outcome. They focus on systems before people. They focus on technology before need.
The most successful transformations I have led or supported have all started with understanding the real world challenges facing citizens, service users and communities. When we start there, we create solutions that not only save money but improve lives.
Humanising Benefits Realisation
This is not about User Centred Design methodologies, Government Digital Service standards or Digital Scotland Service Standards. I will cover those topics in the next part of this series.
Instead, I want to humanise benefits realisation.
When I talk to delivery teams, I rarely begin with discussions about cost savings. Those savings are often a natural consequence of getting things right. Instead, I celebrate impacts that are sometimes harder to quantify but are every bit as important.
I celebrate:
- Improved accessibility for citizens.
- Increased service adoption and engagement.
- Reduced complaints and Ombudsman referrals.
- Faster resolution times.
- Reduced repeat contact and avoidable demand.
- Improved colleague experience.
- Better outcomes for vulnerable individuals.
- Reduced housing failures and tenancy issues.
- Reduced hospital admissions through preventative interventions.
- Earlier support for adults and children requiring care services.
These are the outcomes that genuinely matter.
The reality is that forcing change on citizens is rarely successful. Creating services that citizens feel confident, empowered and capable of using is where true success lies.
Technology Should Help, Not Hinder
One lesson I have learned repeatedly throughout my career is that technology should never become a barrier between organisations and citizens.
Too often, solutions are introduced with the intention of reducing demand, only to create frustration and displacement elsewhere in the system.
Citizens will always find a way to get the support they need. If a channel is blocked, they will look for another route. If a process is confusing, they will seek assistance elsewhere. If a service becomes inaccessible, demand does not disappear. It simply moves.
And when it moves, it often costs more.
Technology should:
- Help citizens.
- Empower citizens.
- Create confidence.
- Improve accessibility.
- Reduce complexity.
- Strengthen trust.
- It should never intimidate, confuse or exclude.
Some of the proudest moments in my career have not been linked to budget savings or programme milestones. They have been moments where teams have delivered meaningful human outcomes.
I have told teams:
“Today, you have helped save a life. Today, you have improved somebody’s wellbeing. Today, you have reduced vulnerability risks. Today, you have freed up colleagues to spend more time helping those who need support the most.”
That is what public service transformation should aspire to achieve.
Everyday Heroes Across the Public Sector
One of the privileges of working across local government, central government, health, housing and public services is seeing the extraordinary impact that ordinary people deliver every day.
Public service professionals are often heroes without realising it.
Whether it is:
- Implementing IoT solutions that identify damp and mould before health impacts occur.
- Using analytics to enable preventative care and early intervention.
- Improving workflows that accelerate access to financial support.
- Streamlining processes that reduce waiting times.
- Designing services that support independent living.
Each of these changes can have a profound effect on citizens’ lives.
The true benefit for a citizen is not the technology itself. The true benefit is the feeling that the service has been designed around their needs. That it has been built with empathy. That it has been built because somebody cares.
The Domino Effect of Poor Decisions
Public sector leaders often face pressure to deliver efficiencies quickly. However, short term savings can sometimes create long term costs if citizen impacts are not properly understood.
Consider a simple example.
An organisation decides to remove or significantly restrict access to a benefits payment telephone service to reduce call volumes and save staffing costs.
On paper, the business case may appear compelling. Fewer calls. Reduced resource requirements. Immediate savings.
However, what happens if no citizen centred thinking accompanies the change?
Demand rarely disappears.
Instead, citizens may
- Send more emails.
- Contact alternative service teams.
- Submit complaints.
- Increase footfall at service centres.
- Escalate issues through elected members.
- Trigger Freedom of Information requests and Subject Access Requests.
- Seek support from Citizens Advice and other third sector organisations.
- Experience increased anxiety, stress and vulnerability.
- Require additional interventions from health and social care services.
- The apparent efficiency saving quickly becomes demand failure.
Costs are transferred rather than removed.
Complexity increases.
Trust decreases.
And the public purse ultimately absorbs the consequences.
This is why citizen centred thinking must sit at the heart of benefits realisation.
Sustainable Benefits Start With Citizens
Across every programme, transformation and service redesign I have supported, one principle has consistently held true
If we put citizens at the centre, sustainable benefits follow.
Citizens become more independent.
Services become more accessible.
Trust increases.
People gain greater visibility and control over the services they rely on.
Organisations reduce avoidable demand.
Colleagues can focus on complex cases where human intervention creates the greatest value.
Most importantly, public money is spent in a way that achieves lasting outcomes rather than short-term efficiencies.
As I discussed in previous parts of this series, leadership remains critical. Whether in local government, central government or arm’s length bodies, leaders must own the vision and strategy that places citizens at the heart of decision making.
The question we should continually ask ourselves is simple
Why create short-term benefits that generate long-term problems?
Real success comes from creating services that people want to use, can use and trust to use.
That is how benefits are sustained long after programmes end.
In Part 4 of this series, I will explore how User Centred Design (UCD) provides the foundation for sustainable benefits realisation, helping organisations build services that people can easily access, understand and adopt, while creating lasting operational, financial and social value.
