Innovation in local government is about improving the lives of the people in our
communities. Browse through our case studies to see the many innovative programmes councils are involved
in.
In Derby and Derbyshire, local government, the NHS and voluntary sector organisations have set up a partnership to encourage innovation and new ways of working in sexual health. The approach is helping to tackle some of the problems caused by the fragmentation of the system.
Babergh and Mid Suffolk used the National Tree Map to establish tree canopy cover across both predominantly rural districts, allowing them to understand tree cover to ward level and spatially, along with the value of benefits trees provide us with.
Newcastle City Council’s Net Zero Team and Strategic Transport Team collaborated with Northumbria University and CoWheels, to determine whether it was feasible to deploy an EV car club vehicle into a targeted neighbourhood in the Elswick Ward of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council has ringfenced apprenticeship and work experience opportunities through the council’s ‘inclusive offer’, a scheme which creates opportunities for young people who need extra support to benefit from work.
Swindon combined a case formulation approach with a focus on identity and its link to offending, to promote interventions with young people which moved away from ‘managing risk’ to supporting them to develop a pro-social identity which naturally shifted them away from risk and offending behaviour.
Cheshire Youth Justice Service have focussed on addressing young people’s unmet health needs to tackle reoffending. The creation of the Cheshire-wide youth justice partnership in 2017 highlighted inequalities in justice-involved children’s health provision, which they have worked to address, and are now taking an innovative social prescribing approach to meet the wider health needs of their youth justice cohort.
Four youth offending services across Avon and Somerset are taking a different approach to supporting young people displaying high risk and high vulnerability. They are working in partnership with their Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service and using a psychologically-informed approach that takes a longitudinal view of a child’s life experiences to understand their current needs.
Kirklees have taken a ‘right worker, right support, right time’ approach to engaging young people involved in the criminal justice system and affected by criminal exploitation. Their Youth Engagement Service brings together colleagues from various youth services and through their consistent engagement approach, has allowed Kirklees to provide support to previously unreached children who are at risk of offending or are already involved in the criminal justice system.
The publication of the Punishing Abuse report in the West Midlands sparked Coventry Youth Justice Service to think about how to take a whole family approach to supporting young people involved in the criminal justice system, in recognition of the fact that families and wider networks are a key factor in reducing reoffending and meeting young people’s underlying needs.