Citizen Services for a Public Agency.
How we redesign a public service around what citizens are actually trying to get done — and prove it in a pilot first.
The process works. It just asks people to do the impossible.
Applications get turned back almost as often as they are approved, and nearly always for a missing document nobody explained. Caseworkers spend their days on rework instead of judgement, and citizens phone repeatedly just to find out where they stand. Nothing in that is anyone's fault; it is what happens when a process is designed outward from the department rather than inward from the person.
This is an illustrative example of our method, not an account of a client engagement. Public services are often used by people who have no alternative, and change slowly because the risk of changing them is real. Work like this redesigns the service around what citizens are actually trying to get done, and proves the improvement in a live pilot before the funding case is written.
- About this example
- A representative illustration of how we work. No client is named and no client results are shown.
- Sector
- Government · Public agency
- Services
- Service design, research, measurement
We start with the people the old process has already failed.
Rather than argue for change on principle, we run it small, measure it honestly, and let the evidence make the case.
Follow the file
We trace real applications end to end, then sit with the citizens and the caseworkers on either side of them.
Redesign the ask
Plain-language forms, eligibility answered upfront, and a status people can check without phoning anyone.
Prove it small
A live pilot in a limited number of offices, with the success measures agreed before it starts so the business case writes itself.
How we redesign a public service around what citizens are actually trying to get done — and prove it in a pilot first.
- Forms and eligibility rules rewritten in plain language and tested with the people who had been turned back before.
- A status citizens can check for themselves, so caseworker time goes to judgement instead of rework.
- Success measures agreed before the pilot begins, so the business case rests on the client's own evidence rather than our assurances.
- A design the department can defend internally, because its own frontline helped build it.
Let's do this
for your people.
Tell us about the experience you want to deliver — for your customers, your employees, or your community. We'll help you get there.