Suffolk County Council

Learning Labs

What is Suffolk's approach ?
Suffolk County Council employees highlighted the amount of change that they have been experiencing, and felt it was not being handled well with yet more change on the way, and continual improvement and constant evolution.

This change cannot be fragmented across services; the Comprehensive Performance Assessment will assess the performance of the whole organisation and its capacity to delivery improvement in services to the people of Suffolk. Culture change and capacity building is necessary.

How are the Labs breaking down barriers ?
Managing change is a process that involves every member of staff within an authority and needs to be tackled in an organised way. Suffolk has enabled staff of all levels within the authority to take an active role and listen and learn from each other. This means the breaking down of barriers and hierarchy, cross-departmental working and the joint cooperation from the very top of the authority.

Support and encouragement from Directors has given Learning Labs the opportunity to grow and prove how successful collaboration can be. The programme has made a real difference to more efficient internal working, such as new e-filing systems and external customer related projects such as one stop shops and e-library lab projects.

How are Labs changing the culture ?
Suffolk County Council have made a difference in terms of changing the culture of the organisation to encourage staff to 'say it the way it is' and challenge change, and for front line staff to have the confidence to change the way they do things by participating in Learning Labs using creative exercises to help them 'think outside the box' and see the bigger picture.
The Change Champion Network and Learning Labs are managed by a Project Manager which is part of 'Go for Change', Suffolk County Council's brand for managing internal change in a more positive way.

What can a Learning Labs offer ?
Experience shows that a Lab:

empowers and involves front line staff
enables creativity by rethinking practice
suspends organisational rules and assumptions
creates 'space' giving permission and time to reflect
challenges and changes existing practice
encourages participative and reflective openness
has an imaginative approach to problem-solving
has a clear brief and end result
is structured setting its own ground rules
is independently facilitated with no more than 12 people
is a vehicle for organisational development

What sort of issues are the Labs tackling ?
The success of Learning Labs has been due to the constructive input and dedication of all those involved in the programme.

Committee Papers Learning Lab - Cross-departmental - Explored ways to simplify and standardise the production, management and publication of Committee Report documents, making use of the Intranet and Internet. A project team comprising of the participants continues to meet and review the template and disseminate guidelines for usage to all staff across the County.

Core Assessment of Children - Multi-agency - Focussed on a single school pyramid area with an inter-agency pyramid including Education and Health, which was completed to fit in with training and implementation of legislation in April 2001.

Customer First Learning Lab - Cross-section of team - Examined the duty function of Suffolk Social Care and defined an efficient and effective configuration for rolling out the scheme across the County.

Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) Learning Lab - Business Support staff, Social Care Services - Generated and explored ways in which systems and processes could be changed and improved to be cost effective; what systems worked and did not work; and what changes could be made to save time and money.

Emergency Plans Learning Lab - Multi-agency - Discussed and agreed what emergency plans should look like by March 2003:

so they could be more customer-focused
be more demand led
be more flexible in their approach
enabled them to set up appropriate systems to fit all circumstances
be more responsive to customers

Home Care Review Learning Lab - Cross-section of Social Care practitioners - Explored ways of improving case review procedures in Adult Services, Older People and People with Physical and Sensory Disabilities teams.

Communications Learning Lab - Cross-section of Social Care staff - Addressed issues raised by the Front Line Staff Focus Group around communications, specifically to find new ways to improve communication with and between the Assessment and Care Management Teams in Adult Services across the County.

Accommodation and Equipment Learning Lab - Cross-departmental - Explored ways of streamlining and improving accommodation and equipment booking procedures across the County Council and external providers.

Filing Systems Learning Lab - Cross-section of Education front line staff - Examined the current filing systems in use by the Education Department and recommended suggestions for improvements.

More Information
For more information about Suffolk's Labs contact:

Debra Lawrence
Project Manager Change Champions / Learning Labs
Go Suffolk Team
Tel: 01473 588868
Mailto: Debra.Lawrence@fire.suffolkcc.gov.uk
URL: http://www.suffolkcc.gov.uk
Mobile 07885 377579

The full report on Suffolk's Labs (Adobe 94 Kb)
Article on Empowering Labs in Suffolk (site link)
Impact of Labs on OD by Debra Lawrence (Word 445 Kb)
Report on Learning Labs in Suffolk (http link)