Designing a service architecture for Dublin city: transforming Ireland’s largest local authority

Theme: Service Design Leadership

This session will offer a deep dive into the transformative work undertaken to design a service architecture for Dublin City Council, the largest local authority in Ireland. With over 600 services provided to over 1.4 million people across the Greater Dublin Area, the Council faced the challenge of fragmented service delivery, internal silos, and a growing demand for citizen-centred design.

Participants will hear directly from two service designers, who co-led the effort to bring clarity, coherence and structure to how services are designed, documented and improved. Using a service architecture approach, the team worked across departments to map out the service ecosystem, establish a shared vocabulary and co-design a foundation for systemic change.

This is a practical approach to delivering value at scale across government and offers a fresh perspective to practitioners of service design, to help enable better governance for impact, management of quality, flow and value to citizens.

We have found the service architecture especially powerful in helping navigate power dynamics across the organisation.

Participants will gain a strong understanding of what service architecture is, why it matters in the public sector, and how it can be implemented in practice. They will leave with practical frameworks, tools and confidence to begin or deepen this work in their own context. The aim is to make this work accessible and replicable for other local authorities or large organisations navigating similar challenges

Participant takeaways:

• A clear understanding of service architecture and its role in local government
• Practical frameworks for mapping and improving service delivery
• Insights into implementing large-scale service design projects in public sectors
• Strategies for overcoming resistance and fostering internal alignment
• A chance to apply some of the mapping techniques used in the project

This session:

• Includes interaction