Local government is facing twin challenges – to renew public services and their relationship with citizens, and to manage grant reductions. There remains little evidence of how these two challenges can be tackled simultaneously. This research paper from the New Local Government Network argues that behaviour change approaches – popularised by Thaler and  Sunstein’s book Nudge – offer a crucial means to pursue these goals.  We need to learn more about how government can use these techniques to develop a new, more sustainable operating model for public services.

• By re-designing services in ways that ft with citizen motivations, local government can significantly reduce the costs of services – cost reductions emerging from projects detailed in the report are yielding 15-20 percent.
• The practice of government must change radically to enable these discussions to take place, to communicate effectively with clients and to understand where citizens may be ready to play a part.