Professor Clive Grinyer, head of service design at the Royal College of Art talks about collaborations with Cabinet Office, Ministry of Justice and local authorities

Public services are ahead of banks and large corporates in exploring and reaping the benefits of service design says Clive Grinyer, who leads RCA’s service design programme following a career with the likes of Barclays, Samsung, Orange and Cisco.

As he explains in this piece, service design is based on design thinking, which (like digital design) places much emphasis on the discovery of user need and rapid visualisation and prototyping, ahead of serious money being spent.

As such a service design approach reduces risk and allows organisations to get more for less – a factor that makes it particularly attractive for the public service organisations.

Students from the RCA’s Service Design MA are working on a range of projects with local authorities, covering issues like use of parks and balancing tourism with residents’ needs, as well as combating obesity and abuse.

Such collaborations are offered free-of-charge, but there is a queue for organisations wanting to get involved.