Photo: Istock
Using behavioural insights for effective change
STRATEGY
Cllr Peter Fleming
Chair, LGA improvement and innovation board
Councils are uniquely placed to make the real and effective changes needed at a local level. As well as providing essential services, they shape the places we live in, make our communities more cohesive and change the lives of those who live there.
Over the past decade, councils have faced unprecedented pressures in their funding and high demand on their legal duties, such as caring for older and disabled people, protecting children and reducing homelessness.
Despite these pressures, council innovations have improved services, reduced demand and enabled more residents to self-serve while improving their officers’ productivity and efficiency.
In the past five years, the LGA has worked with 26 councils to run its Behavioural Insights programme, which covers a wide variety of council service areas, including public health, adult social care, tackling domestic violence, housing and recycling.
Understanding behaviour
Behavioural insights are based on the idea that interventions aimed at encouraging people to make better choices for themselves and society will be more successful if they are based on improved understanding of how people behave (see box: Case studies).
Case studies
Liverpool City Council: the LGA worked with Liverpool City Council to reduce sugar consumption in the hospital retail environment. The project reduced sales of high-sugar content drinks by 7.4% by displaying red ‘STOP’ signs on shelves containing high-sugar drinks in hospital café fridges .
Worcestershire County Council: the LGA also worked with Worcestershire County Council, which conducted a randomised controlled trial with 705 domiciliary care users to reduce the number of unpaid service invoices and increase the number of people who sign up to direct debit. The test letters significantly increased direct debit sign-ups by 61%.
East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service: The service wanted to develop a new approach to tackling fires in the home. A randomised controlled trial tested an intervention based on novel messaging to 18-34-year olds living in private rented flats and shared houses in Brighton and Hove. The trial improved awareness of fire safety in 38% of respondents.
In its latest phase of the programme, the LGA has provided eight councils with a £20,000 grant each to design and run their own behaviour change projects. This will help those councils continue their improvement journey and enable them to deliver more efficient services for their residents.
“Interventions aimed at encouraging people to make better choices for themselves and society will be more successful if they are based on improved understanding of how people behave”
Making best practice common practice
More recently, the LGA launched its Behavioural Insights podcast, Nudges for Social Good, at its annual Behavioural Insights conference. The podcast aims to demystify behavioural insights and provide practical tips for other councils wanting to design and run their own behaviour change projects.
Councils have shown they are exemplars in making best practice common practice. The success of sector-led improvement, which combines a rigorous and authoritative approach has ensured that councils can continuously improve.
As behavioural insights continue to be applied to increasingly complex issues in local government, the LGA is looking to build an evidence base of what works that councils can apply to their own services locally.
