Innovation on the rocks

Session type:

Case Study

Presented by:

Tony Young

Department of Finance Northern Ireland

Malcolm Beattie

Department of Finance Northern Ireland

Session duration:

45 minutes

About the session

This is a story of how the NI Innovation Lab worked with the Rathlin Island community to empower them to make a decision on an opportunity presented to them by the Commissioners of Irish Lights. This island community with a population of less than 160 people was offered the site of the East Lighthouse to develop as they saw fit, as long as it can economically sustain itself.

Conference Themes: Power; Policy; Participation; UK; Local Government

About the speaker(s)

Tony Young

Tony is a service designer in the NI Public Sector Innovation Lab, where he has worked for more than 3 years now. He is also a civil servant with over 30 years’ experience serving the citizens of Northern Ireland.
This experience in the NI Civil Service has been varied, having worked in water quality and then nature conservation for over 10 years in the Environment and Heritage Service.
In the Department for Regional Development (DRD), Tony was involved in preparations for Freedom of Information legislation. He was also involved in the introduction of nidirect, being a theme manager for a number of years, whilst at the same time managing DRD’s websites until it became the Department for Infrastructure in 2016.

iLab_NI

Malcolm Beattie

Malcolm has worked in the civil service throughout his career and now heads up the NI Public Sector Innovation Lab. He was instrumental in its launch in 2014 and has overseen the evolution of the Lab to the point where it offers innovation through design, experimentation and creativity to address complex public sector problems.
His previous career was in social security, both as a divisional manager responsible for the delivery of sickness/incapacity benefits and then as the project manager for the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance. Malcolm spent a short time leading on service design within the Universal Credit programme before moving to his current role.

BeattieMalcolmR