ABSTRACT
Local governance currently operates within resource constraints, under pressure to not only deliver services but also simultaneously tackle multiple and challenging issues. This research reflects increasing levels of collaboration and integration by adopting the dual perspectives of a design researcher and a public manager with two primary objectives. First, the creation of ‘public value’; that is, the environmentally, socially, and economically beneficial outcomes that will have a positive impact on citizens’ lives. Second, the development of skills, capabilities, and ways of working to enable public servants to embed design and participation into their everyday, ‘native’ practice. Design principles and practices’ contribution to ‘flourishing’ public services is considered, alongside how design can itself ‘flourish’ in the ‘congenial environment’ of the public sphere. We argue that organisational ‘flourishing’ should be evaluated by its ‘fruitfulness’, with the flourishing public organisation being measured in terms of its creation of tangible public value outcomes.
