The Policy Lab, based at the UK Cabinet Office explores new innovations in policy-making. We are a small team of designers, ethnographers, policy-makers and researchers.

1. Welcome to
Policy Lab
Introduction

2. Who are we?
Why Government Labs?
What we do
Working with us
Our approach
Our methods
An impact case study
Finding out more

3. Who are
Policy Lab?

4. Who are we?
We are a creative space based at the
Cabinet Office where policy teams
across government can trial and test
new ways of working.
Through live projects we support
policy teams to work with a range of
experts to build the skills and
knowledge they need to develop
policy in a more open, data-driven,
digital and user-centred way.

5. Who are we?
We were set up in 2014 as part of the
Civil Service Reform plan. Since then,
we have worked with over 6,000 civil
servants on over 40 policies.
Our multi-award winning projects,
bespoke training and online materials
have increased the awareness of
cutting edge policy tools and
techniques across government.
Follow us @PolicyLabUK
Email us at
policylab@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

6. Who are we?
We employ a small core team of policy-makers, ethnographers
and designers based at the Cabinet Office supporting 17,000
policy-makers across the Government to trial and test new
ways of working.
Created for departments by departments, we work with a
range of experts to build the skills and knowledge policy-
makers need to develop policy in a more open, data-driven,
digital and user-centred way.

7. Who are we?
Our work sits on the edge of government opening up new opportunities
to collaborate with cutting edge external organisations in design, data
and digital. We offer secondments and internships to bring fresh thinking.

8. Who are we?
Data, design & data industry
experts
Secondees and alumni
Uscreates, Innovation Unit,
LiveWork, Studio INTO, Nonon,
CurrentWorks, Made Open,
FutureGov, Involve, Superflux,
Strange Telemetry, Data Design
and So Mo.
We are always interested in
hearing from design, digital and
data science agencies who
would like to share their work.
Andy Kepster, Cat Drew, Teresa
Leitao, Helen Smith, Valentina
Lopez, Iban Benzal, Holly
McConnell, Professor Lucy
Kimbell, Jasmine Robinson, Carol
Pizatto, Laurence Grinyer, Robbie
Allen, Jenna Gibbons, Julian
Tollestrup and Felipe Valencia-
Dongo.
We support secondments from
Universities including to date the
Royal College of Art, Cambridge
University, Northumbria
University and UAL.

9. Some of our projects
How can we
support people to
manage their
health conditions
& stay in work?
How can we
support victims of
crime in a digital
world?
How can we meet
the challenges of
an ageing
society?
How can we
prevent and help
people exit
homelessness?
How can we
improve the
experience of
tenants and
landlords?
How can we
create a vision for
the future of rail
with passengers
at its heart?
How can we
encourage
businesses to
provide better
childcare
solutions?
How can we
achieve £1trillion
exports by 2020?
How can we
increase the take-
up of free
childcare for 2
year olds?
How can we
encourage young
people to value
their National
Insurance Nos?
How can we
persuade people
to use mediation
services when
they separate?
How can we
prevent
absenteeism in
schools?

10. Some of our awards
How can we
support victims of
crime in a digital
world?
How can we
prevent and help
people exit
homelessness?
How can we
encourage
businesses to
provide better
childcare
solutions?
How can we
achieve £1trillion
exports by 2020?
Winner: Cabinet
Office Award for
partnerships
Finalist: Civil
Service Award
for Innovation
Winner: Future Policy Network
Award for ‘most inspiring
individual’ – Sanjan Sabherwal
Finalist: Cabinet Office
Award for Leadership –
Vasant Chari
Nominated by
UKTI: Civil
Service Award
for Innovation
Highly Commended:
Brilliant Civil Service
Award for Impact
Royal Society of Arts
Bicentenary Medal for
policy – Andrea Siodmok
Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law
for World Leading Design
Thinking – Andrea Siodmok

11. Some of our articles
How can we meet
the challenges of
an ageing
society?
Open Policy-Making
Toolkit on gov.uk
RSA journal: The Future
Policy-makers toolkit
Civil Service Quarterly:
The Lab Collective
Brighton University
Press: Discovering
Policy Lab publication
Discovering Policy Lab.
called

12. Some of our media
How can we meet
the challenges of
an ageing
society?
BBC Radio 4 The Fix
Some of our team
supported sessions in
both series.
TEDx Whitehall
Cat Drew design and
data TEDx talk .
TEDx Wales
Andrea Siodmok
Oxford Martin School
Andrea Siodmok
RSA about the role of
design thinking in
Government.
Andrea Siodmok

14. Some of our R&D
How can we meet
the challenges of
an ageing
society?
28 Levers for change
framework and toolkit for
policy-makers
Innovation funding
effectiveness with What
Works.
World first in Speculative
Design in Government with
GO Science

16. Department
for Transport
(DfT)
Department
for Business,
Energy and
Industrial
Strategy
(BEIS)
Department
for Education
(DfE)
Department
for Work and
Pensions
(DWP)
Ministry of
Justice
(MOJ)
Foreign and
Commonwealth
Office (FCO)
Department
for Exiting the
EU (DExEU)
Department
for
International
Development
(DFID)
Department for
Environment
and Rural
Affairs
(DEFRA)
Cabinet
Office
(CO)
70Whitehall
Ministry of
Defence
(MOD)
Department
of Health
(DH)
HM Treasury
(HMT)
Department
of Culture
Media and
Sport
(DCMS)
HM Revenue
and Customs
(HMRC)
Department
for
Communities
and Local
Government
(CLG)
Policy
Lab
Home Office
(HO)

17. Success
As a result of collaboration and new insights
our policy projects deliver better outcomes at
lower cost.
Our projects are being scaled and achieving
savings. The Police Digitisation project is
being rolled out across England & Wales,
saving £3.7m.
We have also reached many more through the
open policy-making toolkit, Policy Lab blog and
slideshare which altogether have had over
100,000 views.

18. Why
Government
Labs?

19. The 3 big Ds
Design
Digital
Data

20. Why design?
Design can:
• Save money. Understanding user
needs focuses our efforts on what
people need (not what they don’t);
prototyping spots errors early.
• Generate transformative ideas.
Reframing questions allow new ideas,
and creative techniques generate fresh
thinking.
• Create people-centred services.
User-centred design spends time with
real people understanding their needs
and designing services with them.
• Tackle complex problems. Design
works best on problems which require
action from multiple different people.

21. Why data?
Data science uses powerful computer
techniques to analyse traditional data sets
(like administration data or surveys) as
well as new ones (such as social media
data or digital data).
Algorithms work far quicker than humans,
meaning we can analyse huge amounts of
data quickly and find unexpected patterns
and insights

22. Why digital?
Digital technologies can help us reach out
to far more people to understand their
views and crowdsource ideas.
It can also provide much more efficient,
accessible and tailored services online.
Finally, providing digital services can
create digital data, which allows us to
understand how people are using them so
we can continue to improve them.

23. Purposeful Innovation
We help policy-makers to innovate. Our
goal is to deliver purposeful innovation.
Through a practical approach we help
teams identify new solutions that deliver
four key qualities (RISE):
• Responsive to the needs of citizen’s and
government.
• Inclusive and open in our approach and
outcomes.
• Systemic in our ambition, embracing
complexity and opportunities for collaboration.
• Effective in delivering significant measurable
impact and learning for the future.

24. We sit on the edge
We experiment with
new approaches here.
If they prove to be
valuable we bring them
into Government and
support their more
widespread use in
departments.

25. Skills, knowledge and expertise of the Lab
and its associates:
• Design Thinking
• Ethnography and user centred approaches
• New insights from data science and big data
• Prototyping, concept iteration and speculative
design.
• Service design
• Prototyping
• Journey mapping and personas
• Technology futures knowledge
• Strategy and objective setting
• Facilitation of away days and policy schools
• Creative workshops
What we offer

26. We open up policy-making
Transparency of information
Input of knowledge & experience
PublicClosed
Government
Expertise
Shared Expertise
Engagement in process
ParticipateInform
Accountability for outcomes
Government
responsibility
Shared
responsibility

27. We bring people together
Creating new forms of governance and system
stewardship to tackle complex intractable challenges

28. Additive Manufacturing
Quantum Computing
Maker Movement
Connected Home
Cyber Security
Internet of Things
(IOT)
Smart Cities
New Materials
Automation
Data
Democratisation
Artificial
Intelligence
Genomics
Precision
Medicine
Low carbon
economy
Nano technology
Augmented Reality
Flexible Manufacturing
Drones
Co-working spaces
Networked
Literacy
Virtual Reality
Data Science
Sensing Planet
Wearables
Consolidation
and Aggregation
Flexible working
Platform
Revolution
Citizens
Smart
Machines
Smart
Systems
Smart
Materials
Smart
Spaces
Data
Revolution
Machine Learning
Personal analytics
Commerce
in the
Cloud
Smart
Robots
Synthetic Biology
Agri-tech
Body Sensors
Smart Energy
Grids
P2P assets
Big Data
Bitcoin
We are future focused
Distributed Ledger
Technology (DLT)
Some of the emerging technologies
that could shape future services.

29. How can we make
it happen?
What happened?
Why did it
happen?
What will
happen?
We are evidence curators
Prescriptive
Analytics
Descriptive
Analytics
Diagnostic
Analytics
Predictive
Analytics
Policy analytics ladder
Hindsight
The ability to understand
something only after it
has happened or
developed.
Insight
The capacity to
acquire an accurate
and deep
understanding of
something.
Foresight
The ability to predict
what will be needed
or what might
happen in the future.
Outsight
The capacity to
create an overview of
something beyond
the bounds of the
present combining
various external data.
What is
happening?
Investigative
Analytics
Oversight
The means to assess
something through
indicators, checks
and balances and
standard setting data.
Increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
Adapted from Gartner

30. We focus on impact
Service Design
Service re-design & alternative
delivery mechanisms
There is no efficiency ‘silver bullet.’ There are many levers
that need to be pulled to improve efficiency.
Organisational Design
Talent, Culture and Workforce
Services Systems
Markets & Competition
Technology, Data & Targeting
Markets
Front-line service
integration
Empowering users: Co-
production & co-design
Prevention / early
intervention
Reconfiguring services
Workforce capability &
leadership
Shared services
Sharing best practice
Organisational structures
Cost benchmarking
Intelligent outsourcing
New entry competition/
market creation
Strengthened incentives
Effective use of ICT
Channel shift
Effective use of data
Technological advances
Digital & Data design
Technology, Data & Targeting
Platforms
Hard budget constraints, pay controls and spending flexibility

31. Policy dynamics
The institutions of polity
The art of politics
The craft of policy
The science of management
The pragmatics of delivery

32. Styles of Govt intervention
Providing and commissioning services
Laws
Regulation
Funding, taxes, tariffs and subsidies
Procurement, purchasing and buying powers
Leading, influencing and informing
Stewardship
Large scale
intervention
Low level
intervention

33. Leader
Regulator
Funder
Provider
Steward
Customer
Legislator
Framing, piloting and
market forming
Acting in mature markets
and policy ecosystemsEarly stage intervention
Scaling, mainstreaming
and market building
Strategy and skills planning
Prepare for changing workforce
demands and consequences of
change.
Fiscal incentives
Direct finance to stimulate new
thinking that can drive future
opportunities.
Governance
Ensure regulation supports the
conditions for change and delivers
the policy intent.
Reformer
Establish legitimacy, harnessing
political will for change.
Educating and informing
Ensure regulation is sufficiently
agile and permissive to enable
innovation.
Grants and subsidies
Incentivise behaviour change
through grants or other incentives
Building regulatory
environment
Ensure regulation enables the
intended policy outcomes.
Service provider
Provide services directly or
indirectly through funding and
target setting.
Agenda setting
Build awareness and confidence in
new opportunities by providing
thought leadership
Innovator
Create test beds, sandboxes and
trials in real world settings.
Encourage voluntary codes
Self-regulation, without
legislating, allowing for greater
flexibility.
Early adopter
Explore, experiment and trial new
opportunities with strategic value.
Collaborating
Providing platforms for citizens to
protect vested rights and
interests.
Platform provision
Scale up proven ideas through
existing infrastructure and public
services.
Compliance
Support enforcement and
harmonise regulatory compliance
environment.
Choice architect
‘Nudging’ behaviour so that the
default is both attractive and easy.
Convening power
Applying government’s convening
power to draw together expertise.
Connecting networks
Fostering a nexus where
government, experts and citizens
can co-create change.
Champion
Build a case for change and
alliances for action.
Co-producing
Co-deliver by steering different
actors from across the system to
deliver outcomes.
Standard setting
Develop standards for data
collection and presentation.
Intelligent customer
Utilise public procurement to
encourage investment and
innovation.
Catalyst
Review, identify and prioritise key
opportunities with strategic value.
Consumer, and supply-chain,
protection
Protection of consumer rights and
upholding of standards.
White papers &
draft bills
Publish proposals for consultation
and pre-legislative scrutiny.
Primary and Secondary Law
Support a bill through parliament
and enact legislation
Green papers
Publish proposals for discussion
with stakeholders and the public.
Amend rules
Statutory Instruments: rules,
orders, created by delegated
authorities (e.g. Secretary of
State).
Styles of government intervention*
* Examples of different formal and informal powers and levers for government policy-makers
Government as a...

34. What is
our approach?

35. How do we work?
Diagnose
Establish scope
& reframe
questions
Test and
refine shared ideas
and proposals
DeliverDesign
Generate insight
through big data
and user insight
Be open and collaborative
Generate fresh
ideas
Develop

36. Diagnose
Policy Justification and framing
the challenge. Developing and
analysing the existing
evidence base.
Design
Establishing the policy
theory of change,
impact measures and
constraints
Develop
Generate and
appraise options
against design intent
Deliver
Prototyping
options, refining
measures and
planning
implementation
PURPOSE
Goals

37. Three levels of impact
New skills,
knowledge
& Tools
New
Solutions
Inspiring
Projects
Improved
Performance
Innovative
Policy
New
Thinking
1. Delivering new policy
solutions through inspiring
practical projects
2. Building the skills and
knowledge of the policy
profession and civil service
3. Inspiring new thinking and
innovations in policy through
our experiments and writing.

38. 4 areas of work
Lab
Light
Lab
Experiments
Lab
Sprints
Lab
Demonstrators
Support for up to a
year to enable policy
teams to work in
new ways.
Wrap-around support
over a short intensive
period of time to
accelerate a project.
Short introductions to
using Lab tools and
techniques.
One-off trials of new
and emergent
techniques.
• Policy schools
• Awaydays
• Mental Health Social Impact Bond
(scoping workshop with stakeholders)
• Export Jam (idea generation with 200
businesses)
• Health & social care data (prototyping)
• Supporting victims of crime digitally
• Supporting people to manage their
health conditions at work
• Preventing homelessness
• Increasing uptake of free childcare for
2 year olds
• Supporting parents to stay in co-
parenting relationships
• Speculative design to explore the Future
of Rail and Ageing society
• Data visualisation of complex evidence

39. How do we work?
Diagnose DeliverDesign
Lab Light
Develop
Full demonstration projects
Lab sprints Lab sprints
Lab experiments Lab experiments Lab experiments Lab experiments
Lab sprints

40. Our methods

41. Our tools & techniques
Diagnose DeliverDiscover Develop
Policy canvas
Hopes & fears cards
Challenge setting
5 whys
Data discovery cards
Personas
User segmentation
User journeys
Desk research
Interviews
Data science
Evidence safari
Film ethnography
Service safaris
Crowdsourcing
Ideation sheets
Future speculations
Change cards
Role cards
Service blueprints
Desktop prototyping
Experience prototyping
Design ethnography
User journeys
Evidence safari
Ideas days or ‘jams’
Speculative design
Idea sketch sheets
‘Backstage’ policy levers

42. Our tools & techniques
SpecialistBasic
(or Lab in a day!)
Intermediate
User-insight
Data
Digital
Diagnosis
Idea
generation
Personas
User journeys
Service safaris
Photo-based interviews
Design ethnography
Film ethnography
Data discovery cards
Google trends
visual.ons.gov.uk
Online data visualisation tools,
e.g. RAW, Dataseed
Machine learning, predictive
modeling,
clustering/segmentation
Reading twitter/online fora
Posing questions on online
fora
Online questionnaires e.g.
Survey monkey
Online crowdsourcing
platforms
Online engagement tools
A/B testing
Ask ‘why?’ five times to get to
the root cause
Challenge setting
Hopes & fears cards
Policy canvas
Metric sheet
Evidence safari
Change cards
Brainstorming
Idea sketch sheets
Speculative designPolicy Jams or ideas days
What if…
Policy blueprints
Policy intervention cards

43. Open Policy Making
Open policy making is about
developing and
delivering policy in a fast-paced
and increasingly networked
and digital world through:
using collaborative approaches
in the policy making process, so
that policy is informed by a
broad range of input and
expertise and meets user needs.

44. Futures labs
Day long ‘futures labs’ can bring
together key people from
across the system to co-create
policy ideas, roadmaps and
action plans to bring different
expertise to bear on future
opportunities.

45. Hopes & fears cards
We use images at the
beginning of a project to get
people using a different side of
their brain, and to pick ones
that visually represent a hope
they have for the project or a
fear. It’s a good way to
understand the motivations of
different people in the room
right from the start.

46. Challenge setting
Challenge setting is our way of
finding the right question to
answer. It takes many
iterations!! By asking why five
times, we can get to the route
causes of the issue. And by
asking ‘how can we?’ (as
opposed to ‘how can I?’ we
open up possibilities to a wider
set of ideas which require
more than one department.

47. Personas
Personas are real or
hypothetical descriptions of
people who might be
experiencing the policy or
service. They help us to
empathise with people, think
about their needs and design
policy that fits them. We use
evidence to develop them and
do a segmentation to avoid
them becoming stereotypes.

48. Personas
Personas are real or
hypothetical descriptions of
people who might be
experiencing the policy or
service. They help us to
empathise with people, think
about their needs and design
policy that fits them. We use
evidence to develop them and
do a segmentation to avoid
them becoming stereotypes.

49. Journey mapping
‘User Journeys’ are a step by
step map showing how people
interact with services.
They can identify the highs and
lows and therefore what
aspects new ideas can build on
or improve.

50. Ethnography
‘Design ethnography’ is the
study of people and behaviours
from their point of view.
Building insight and ideas by
shadowing users or spending
time with them and discussing
their lived experience in real
life contexts. Films and photos
can be extremely powerful in
creating empathy and
generating ideas.

51. Data science
Through data science we can
identify new knowledge,
patterns and insights gained
from large volumes of data. We
can use new forms of real-time,
digital data. Data visualisations
like this Sankey diagram
allows non-analysts to spot
patterns and trends. And
powerful clustering techniques
can segment groups far faster
than any human can.

52. Evidence safari
An evidence safari is a
technique we use to get groups
of people to explore large
amounts of data quickly, spot
gaps and build insight from
which to generate ideas. Here,
we are using evidence in the
form of charts and graphs,
but also humanised into
persona stories that people can
relate to.

53. Idea sketch sheets
We use creative methods to
help people come up with new
ideas. Sketching can help share
germs of ideas during co-
design sessions with
stakeholders.

54. Open ideas days
Policy Jams and open ideas
days help engage wider
stakeholders with policy areas
and co-develop ideas. They
often start by exploring
evidence or asking
stakeholders to share their
experiences, and then generate
ideas as a result.

55. Speculative design
Speculative design imagines
possible (rather than probably
or predictable) futures and
then creates an object or image
from them. This tangible
‘thing’ allows to engage the
public in a debate about
whether we not we want that
type of future, and what we
would need to do to get there
(or avoid it). Research before
situations exist.

56. Service blueprints
‘Service blueprints’ and ‘Value
maps’ can help show the
relationship between different
parts of the system now and in
the future. We have adapted
these for Government so they
map out how a user
experiences a policy, as well as
the specifically Government
functions (legislation,
regulation, funding) make this
happen.

57. Service blueprints
‘Service blueprints’ and ‘Value
maps’ can help show the
relationship between different
parts of the system now and in
the future. We have adapted
these for Government so they
map out how a user
experiences a policy, as well as
the specifically Government
functions (legislation,
regulation, funding) make this
happen.

58. Prototyping
An early model or mock-up
built to test a concept, so it can
be replicated or learned from.
Prototypes help quickly build
a service or policy idea to test
assumptions. These can be
made out of paper (like this
online crime reporting tool) or
tried out in real situations.

59. Some of our savings

60. Some of our engagement

63. Finding out
more

64. Commissioning Lab
We are always open to enquiries for new
projects. We offer a quick overview of
Policy Lab and an opportunity to work up a
project idea in an introductory workshop for
policy teams who may be interested in
running a lab project.
For more information contact:
policylab@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Or read our guide to commissioning Policy
Lab.

65. Further information
We blog all the time here
And we put all of our tools on the Open
Policy Making toolkit here

66. Check out our latest videos from Lab:
Cat Drew shares her insights on design
and data in her TEDx talk .
Head of Lab, Andrea Siodmok speaks at
the RSA about the role of design thinking
in Government.
Further information

67. International visits
and visitors
Senior Whitehall Group
Presentation by Geoff Mulgan I-
teams report (pictured).
International workshops and
speeches:
Global Lab Leaders (Toronto,
Marseille)
Keynote speeches (Sweden,
Australia, New Zealand)
OECD change (Paris)
SEE / BEDA (Brussels)
Visitors:
Australia, Canada, Estonia, Israel,
New Zealand, UAE, US, China and
Japan.

68. Further information
We know this is a long powerpoint but if
you are still interested in finding out more
here is some more in depth reading:
Our former research fellow Lucy Kimbell
produced this booklet called Discovering
Policy Lab.
The RSA Journal article on Policy Lab
called ‘Designer Policies’
We are in this quarter’s CSQ
https://quarterly.blog.gov.uk/author/dr-
andrea-siodmok/