Time to re-design governance

By Anna Nicholl

The challenge: decision-making in a different era

Everywhere we turn, it feels like we’re in trouble. Our institutions are either mired in scandal, unable to tackle the issues they were set up to address or simply not set up to address the challenges we now face. Solutions seem hopelessly expensive, whilst resources have run dry. Our very frameworks for finding solutions leave us stuck in the present, tied to the problems we need to solve.

Governance – how we make decisions and deliver against them – is core to this. Our current governance models were designed for a different era, to achieve different ambitions, to tackle different problems and work in a different context. Able to support previous generations to achieve their goals, they are not designed to help us to meet our goals for future wellbeing. Neither are they designed to meet the urgent challenges that the nature and climate crises now pose.

Rather than pumping resources into patching up failings to meet a previous standard, we need to let go of approaches that no longer work. This is an opportunity to dig deeper and explore how we can redesign governance models so that they are better able to help us meet the challenges of our time.

Why focus on governance?

Governance is about how we make decisions and act upon them. As such, it is fundamental. It is fundamental in achieving the sorts of shifts in practice that are needed if we are collectively to secure the wellbeing of future generations.

Governance happens across all sectors and at all levels, whether national governments, international bodies or community groups. The specifics vary enormously.  Each institution or group has different rules and different ways of doing things. Despite this, some dominant basic principles and assumptions are shared across many different types of institutions and layers of activity. They are grounded in a dominant culture and values, often unconsciously. They are also bound in laws and practice. The same fundamental principles of good governance are reflected in legislation across sectors. Whilst there are important differences in different places that we can learn from, similar principles can be seen across many national boundaries, encouraged and sometimes enforced under international frameworks.

Governance is about the rules of the game in managing conflicting interests and ambitions as we make and deliver decisions. Governance models reflect and reinforce values, hierarchies and power balances in society. We know that the decisions we are currently making, and the way we deliver them, pose an existential threat for future generations. Thinking about governance models that can promote the interests of future generations requires us to unpack the unconscious biases woven into our current models. This might reveal useful insights beyond governance.

How might social innovation methods help?

As an Innovator in Residence in sbarc|spark, I want to explore how social innovation methods might be able to help us address this. Social innovation tools can help us to step out of the here and now to think far and wide, back and fore. They can help us to stretch our imaginations, reframe problems and get beyond more obvious solutions. This is exactly what we need if we are to develop solutions beyond our current frameworks.

I want to draw on human centred design thinking in particular. This takes a systemic approach, using research and insights to inform design choices that meet the needs of users. In this case, one of the key questions will be who are the ‘users’? Whose ‘pains’ are we trying to address and whose ‘gains’ are we trying to secure. How might we imagine what these are for future generations? Where are the conflicts that need to be managed?

The aim of this short piece of work is only to contribute some further insights into what these different users might need from governance models and to explore what that might mean for design principles. If this resonates, there is potential to extend the work to think creatively about potential solutions and even to start to test them out.

The problem: a starting point

The first step is to try to clarify what exactly is the problem that needs to be addressed. What do we need collectively from our governance? What is it about governance today that isn’t working for various users? What would make it better for them? To do this, I aim to speak with a range of people involved in practice to draw on their experiences. I also hope to workshop ideas in relation to perspectives of future generations.

In the meantime, I have sketched out my initial thoughts on the problem.

What do we and future citizens need from governance today?

A shared ambition?

Our governance models need to enable us to take decisions and deliver them in ways that will progress towards shared ambitions for society today. But what are our shared ambitions? Does such a thing really exist? Probably not. This is all hugely contested and I’m not about to find the answer to world peace in this work.

The closest we have to this is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, developed in 2015 and agreed by 193 governments globally. Wales has gone a step further, translating and embedding these goals into domestic legislation in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. The Act was developed with broad consultation, not least through the Wales We Want national conversation.

Some argue, convincingly, that ‘sustainable development’ is no longer sufficient as a goal (RSA for example). Environmental, but also our social, economic and cultural capital is so depleted that aiming to sustain what is left is no longer enough. We need to shift our ambition to create regenerative futures. Not just preventing further destruction, we should be aspiring to replenish our planet and society through new and different types of growth that can lead to higher future wellbeing.

Whilst there are different nuances, and not everybody agrees, this is now a broad shared ambition. It is different from previous generations.

Meeting the challenges of our time

The challenges that our society faces as we try to achieve our ambitions are also distinct. We are living in what has been described as ‘polycrisis’ (see World Economic Forum). We face several simultaneous crises across a range of areas which are leaving us with high levels of uncertainty and rapid change.

These are often systems-wide where different inter-related elements within a particular system impact on the whole. They are also characterised by complexity where what happens in one system has a significant and (apparently) unpredictable impact on other seemingly unrelated systems. We are seeing this across environmental, social, economic and cultural areas. For example, the climate and nature crises, deteriorating global security and ongoing global inequality, large-scale involuntary migration, the cost-of-living crises, deteriorating public services, misinformation, digital inequality, cyber-crime, deteriorating mental health, increasing chronic health conditions – all operate at a systems level and all impact on other systems and therefore crises.

Our governance needs to enable us to make and implement good decisions, navigating a host of conflicting interests, in ways that enable us to navigate the big challenges of our time.

Reflecting the context in which we live

If we were to do a PESTEL exercise looking at the political, economic, social, technological and legal context we are in today, it would look very different from the same exercise 30 years ago. The implications for the technological developments are particularly striking. This has led to different ways in which we communicate, gather and analyse information, produce and distribute.

Whilst our governance models have also adapted, this has not kept up with changes in society. We need our governance models to reflect the current context and enable us to adapt to further changes we are likely to see in the coming 30 years.

Where are we now?

Speaking at the Governance Wales[1] conference in north Wales in May 2024, the Future Generations Commissioner was clear that our current governance is failing future generations. Government, business and no doubt civil society are collectively not making decisions or taking actions that support regenerative futures.

In the past 12 months there have been several scandals in major Welsh institutions linked to poor governance – S4C, Welsh Rugby Union, Museums Wales and South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. You will have your own examples in other sectors and there are plenty of examples elsewhere in the UK, including The Post Office and the Metropolitan Police. Governance failures are not boring bureaucratic problems. They have significant and detrimental impacts on people.

The Welsh Government’s response reflects the problem rather progressing towards a solution. It has been unable to react to early warning signs. It has not shown any interest in exploring systemic issues. Several people in senior governance roles in scandal-hit organisations have simply been appointed to leadership roles in alternative bodies. Its main response is for a group of civil servants to work internally on new guidance and then oversee its delivery. As the guidance will not be made public, it will be difficult to assess how effective it is but I feel confident in predicting this example of poor practice will have little impact in addressing the bigger problem.

Underneath these high-profile scandals, there are more mundane. These are often what lead to scandals and our failing to make decisions or take action to support the wellbeing of future generations.

I want to explore what might be built into our systems that makes it hard for people involved in governance to make and deliver against decisions that support the wellbeing of future generations. That includes cultural and structural issues. Whilst there are clearly bad eggs, some of the issues are embedded in our current legislation and guidance. This includes decision-making set out in The Green Book, risk management promoted by Audit Wales and the extent to which charities can take decisions that benefit future generations under charity law.

Seeds of change

There are also many examples of different models of governance being explored and developed that can support our ambitions for the wellbeing of future generations.

In a previous role, I was involved in a project led by Nesta and WCVA which explored community-led transformation. One of the main takeaways for me was that this wasn’t just about building capacity in communities. The change needed is much more about people in government, public bodies and voluntary organisations building their capacity to listen, learn and adaptthe way they make decisions and deliver so that we can realise shared ambitions across different levels.

My fellow Innovator in Residence in sbarc|spark, Usha Ladwa-Thomas, played a central role in developing Welsh Government’s Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan. The plan is unique in the way it was co-produced and has lived experiences at the heart of it. Diverse partners – academics, civil servants, public services and community mentors and leaders – worked hard to co-create something unique, each valued and trusted to play their role within the whole. Particularly striking was the willingness of senior leaders at both political and official level to trust, listen and learn through the decision-making process.

Other colleagues in sbarc|spark are aware of or working on innovative governance models, here and internationally. This includes work by Orkestra in developing an evidence base on making multilevel governance work and governance for innovation and sustainable development. Key ingredients include creating a common purpose, structured learning and working hard on building relationships. Another is Human Learning Systems, which aims to be a complexity friendly approach to public services. It has a host of resources, tools and case studies. The OECD Mission Action Lab is exploring how mission-orientated approaches can support more innovative and systemic policy making to tackle the major challenges we face today with urgency. One of their key areas of focus is governance.

Sbarc recently co-hosted a Future Generations and Institutional Design roundtable with TIAL (The Institutional Architecture Lab). The discussion was prompted by Geoff Mulgan and Robyn Bennett’s paper on How to reflect the interests of future generations in today’s decisions: what institutions, laws, and methods can help us?

Getting ready to learn and re-think

I’ve tried to set out my starting point here. I’m looking forward to delving into some of the evidence and ideas already out there, as well as listening to practitioners’ difficulties and dreams over the coming 6 months. As I connect with others to discover more, no doubt there will be plenty of cause to refine and re-think what’s here.

I’d love to connect others interested in this topic. If that’s you, please do get in touch.

anna@annanicholl.com

[1] ‘Governance Wales’, May 2024, jointly organised by Darwin Gray, Adra Housing Association and Mentera