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The people will decide

Managing government programmes that depend on citizen take-up

Government change programmes frequently depend on a complex series of decisions by millions of individual citizens to take up a new service. The DWP Payment Modernisation Programme, New Tax Credits and Photocard Driving Licences are examples of large Government programmes that rely on citizen take-up to deliver results. The success of the current drive to put services on-line, too, is dependent on citizen take-up.

To improve the chance of a successful outcome, a thorough understanding of citizen take-up is required: which Government actions create take-up, at what speed acceptance can be expected to occur, what type of choices citizens make, and so on.

If unexpected patterns of citizen take-up impact delivery, management teams need decision-making processes that will facilitate corrective action. These processes need to be fast because of the long lead times inherent in public sector change programmes.

PA’s 'Citizen Dynamics' approach recognises that traditional, static approaches to planning and reporting cannot cope with the inherent volatility of citizen take-up. Citizen Dynamics, in contrast, allows programme teams to engineer flexibility into their plans from the outset, so that they are always able to respond to divergences from anticipated take-up patterns. It does so through a cyclical approach to planning and analysis in which teams produce systematic forecasts with quantified confidence levels, identify alternative options for take-up management, and communicate the results in a structured, self-explanatory format to senior stakeholders.