What is to be done? Undoing the managerial capture of social innovation in Australia

The capture of the social innovation agenda in Australia by a public sector managerial class has been excruciating to observe. While social innovation in other countries has been a multi-stakeholder process oriented to comprensive and holistic societal innovation, in Australia it has been captured, funded, and distorted by a public sector managerial class divorced from civil society.  How has this happened and what can be done about it?

Three factors have been instrumental in this capture and distortion of the social innovation agenda in Australia.

First, the creation by governments of two social innovation agencies, TACSI (The Australian Centre for Social Innovation by the South Australian Government), and CSI (Centre for Social Impact by the Commonwealth Government) has been a fatally flawed exercise. When governments create and fund agencies, a public sector managerial culture is created in the image of their creator. TACSI and CSI were established by governments with taxpayers money ($6m and $12.5m respectively) and headed by bureaucrats (two officers in the Department of Premier and Cabinet). With these origins, it is no surprise that a public sector culture has been reproduced in the agencies. 

Indeed, what other culture could be created in these circumstances? A culture that values civil society? Hardly, since the money and decision-makers originate in government and not in civil society. A culture that values diverse and dissenting views? Hardly, since public sector cultures are command and control cultures. An entrepreneurial culture? Hardly, since living off taxpayers money is the natural order of things for public servants. Having to earn money in a marketplace before spending it is not a public sector way of doing things.

It is no surprise at all that such agencies will title a February series of talks: 'Changing the Way "We" Govern'. It is about those who Govern the rest of us, for those who Govern the rest of us.

Second, ASIX is not a creation of government, but it is nevertheless a creature of management consulting and service delivery businesses that are dependent on the public sector. It shares with TACSI and CSI a financial dependence on the public sector, channelled indirectly through consulting businesses and service delivery. It identifies with the managerial culture of the public sector. It too thinks of itself as being the "We" who "Govern".

It is entirely predictable, therefoe, that when TACSI, CSI and ASIX select speakers for their Social Innovation Dialogues, every speaker will be either a management consultant to the public sector, or a manager in a public sector funded service delivery instrument for those who Govern.

Third, the exclusion of people in civil society (people who engage in voluntary association - residents, parents, neighbours, consumers, carers, users of services, volunteers, participants in clubs and associations) is stark. Not one speaker, or writer, or social innovator named or drawn upon by these three organisations to speak or write or demonstrate, is from civil society. Every one, without exception, is a managment consultant or a management academic or a service delivery manager. There are no exceptions.

This blanket exclusion of civil society is astonishing. It bears no resemblance to the diverse social participation that is characteristic of UK social innovation.

In part this is a consequence of the managerialism derived from the origins of these three agencies and its cult of the professional. The fact that much of the content of social innovation internationally actually derives from a critique of this cult and the inclusion of the ideas and networks of citizens, users and consumers seems have passed these three organisations by without irony. Public sector professionalism in Australia is apparently a culture that is deeply antithetical to users of services and communities, judging by the actions of ASIX, CSI and TACSI. These three agencies seem determined to uphold the exclusion of what Charlie Leadbeater calls "passionate amateurs" from their version of social innovation. 

What, then, is to be done? Two things now seem essential:

1. Social innovators should call for CSI and TACSI to return their public funding to the taxpayers. It need not be immediate, but a schedule of repayment over a period say 12 months would permit a change of culture to emerge, without obfuscation and unnecessary delay. Only with a relinquishment of public funding will we see a relinquishment of identification with the culture of public sector managerialism. Without a relinquishment of funding, it is clear that we will not see a change of culture.

2. A moratorium on voices who are management consultants, management academics and service deliery managers, for a period of say 12 months, would  permit a stretching of the imagination to include voices from civil society. This moratorium need not be permanent, but it is essential to rectify the huge imbalance and profound distortion in what is being projected as social innovation in Australia.

Vern Hughes