It’s hard to believe we’ve reached the end of another year. In last year’s reflection, we shared the life-changing work you, our partners and friends, embarked on as part of the nation’s pandemic response. We proudly supported you then and that innovative work continued through this year too.
Before we say farewell to another year, we wanted to celebrate some of the amazing things we’ve achieved and the important work we’ve done with passionate people across public services.
Continually learning and building better outcomes
Over the last twelve months, we’ve continued learning so much about our changing world. From responding to the urgency of the climate crisis, engaging citizens across the country in shaping the future of their places and supporting the health and public sector through consistent change, the focus has always remained on building better outcomes for people.
We’ve been proud to be part of important national initiatives, including helping local authorities access the Towns Fund to create sustainable change for their places, partnering with HM Land Registry on an ambitious change programme, supporting donors as part of the pandemic response with NHS Blood and Transplant and so much more. We’ve also had the privilege to continue our work (with) Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of the Digital Innovation Initiative across eight European capital cities.
Drawing on our experiences and new ways of working, we helped move participatory processes online, worked with Parkinson’s UK to help frontline teams deliver essential support remotely and supported the co-design and change of North East Lincolnshire’s The Union, bringing health and social care together, seamlessly.
Communities influencing change
The pandemic has brought our public sector organisations and communities together like never before, building new relationships and collaborating quickly to respond to urgent challenges. These partnerships gained momentum over the past twelve months as citizens continued to come together to make their voices heard and shape improvements in their communities.
Collaborating across places, we’ve seen authorities actively engaging residents in decision-making processes. Supporting Camden Council we designed and tested a new digital version for planning notices with participating residents. This year we were also able to successfully launch a place-based community platform with Hackney Council, helping residents find learning and employment opportunities.
To celebrate these relationships and brilliant people we began our People of Public Service series, highlighting leaders, frontline workers and everyone in between that are meeting the changing needs of their communities in innovative ways.
The climate era
This year, we’ve seen community action come to the forefront of the climate response. Working alongside a local authority in London committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions, we delivered a series of community engagement activities to put the community voice into a climate action plan. Continuing to put residents at the heart of the decision-making processes, we delivered Blackpool’s first climate assembly, supporting them through the process and leaving them with many residents eager to get involved in similar projects.
On a larger scale our public institutions have once again adapted and responded to one of the most important issues in a generation, creating momentum and designing services that directly address the climate crisis. We were proud to support West England Combined Authority to provide sustainable transport that helps citizens to live, work and grow and Oxford City Council to introduce a Zero Emission Zone. And as part of an Innovate UK project led by Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, we’ve also been part of Project Remedy, an initiative to introduce green energy systems locally.
More widely we’ve been involved in developing the Spatial Framework for the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, partnering with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on identifying better ways to collaborate, collect and use data for environmental developments.
Growth and new opportunities
In recent years, it’s no secret we’ve been on a journey of growth and change. That momentum hasn’t slowed this year. We iterated on our new remote and hybrid ways of working, continued growing our team and brought more capabilities into the mix.
We also launched our first podcast, The Local Authority Podcast, with our friends at the Local Government Chronicle. Together we’ve convened local and national leaders around some of the most pressing topics at the forefront of local government, including democracy and remote meetings, lessons from the pandemic, levelling up, climate change and community empowerment. As we move into a new year, we’ll continue to come together with leading figures from within and around local government to discuss the future of the sector and the ways we can embrace change.
Becoming TPXimpact
Over the last thirteen years, FutureGov has been part of an important movement for change. We’re humbled to have had the privilege of working on some truly life-changing work, standing alongside our colleagues in the public sector, supporting their aspirations to make impactful change happen.
As we make the transition into becoming TPXimpact, we’re excited to take our next step in creating even bigger change. This new phase of growth will help us use our collective resources and breadth of skills to work on profoundly different and complex challenges that will impact people’s lives on a much larger scale. With all the success and incredible work we’ve done together, we cannot underestimate how much more there is to do. We cannot wait to get started in the new year on even more important work addressing the urgent challenges of our planet, our places and our people.
Stay safe, have a wonderful holiday season and a much-deserved break. We cannot wait to see you again in the new year.
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