Sustainable and effective systems change: leadership, collaboration and hard work

Youth Futures Foundation is the ‘What Works Centre’ for youth employment with a remit to collate, generate and curate evidence about ‘what works’ in helping marginalised young people get good work.

This is the first in a series of blogs, written by our Research Manager, Peter Traynor, on our recent systematic review of systems change interventions. The study was conducted by the Institute for Employment Studies and the Global Development Network and reviewed the literature on systems change interventions, with a focus on youth employment. The research was commissioned to inform the approach taken by Connected Futures – Youth Futures’ flagship systems change programme.

Tackling youth unemployment

The government has set out a range of bold and ambitious plans for the United Kingdom and some of these would certainly come within the definition of systems change. The just-released Get Britain Working white paper for instance is heavily focused on systems change in tackling economic inactivity. Among other things the paper proposes devolved funding to mobilise local leadership, and place-based ‘youth trailblazers’ to foster engagement with support.

The findings of the systematic review provide clear and useful recommendations for policy makers seeking to achieve sustainable systems change in the employment system, and guidance for practitioners, funders and employers who should be at the heart of any attempts at systems change and can use this study to guide their activities and hold policy makers to account.

Some key takeaways from the review are:

1. Governments cannot achieve change on their own but must draw on the guidance and experience of a broad array of stakeholders, including the intended beneficiaries of any change. Working with stakeholders takes time, effort and commitment,
2. Systems change is difficult and there are many barriers to effective systems change, as outlined below. Key to overcoming these barriers is a clear blueprint for sustainable and measurable change.

Creating systems change

Based on the literature, the research team defined a system as composed of ‘interacting, interdependent parts – including people, services, organisations, institutions, policies, laws, and organisational cultures’ – connected by ‘a web of relationships, that form a whole greater than the sum of its parts’. In this definition a system is not a static end result but an ongoing process. As the review notes there are some conditions for, and levers of, effective systemic change that can help in responding to the challenges described above:

• Employ adaptive collaborative leadership: this empowers stakeholders to take responsibility as ‘systems stewards’. Stakeholders can understand what is happening on the ground, whether that be employers, non-profit organisations working in the employment space, or young people who are the subject of and potential beneficiaries in any attempts to improve the employment system.
• Develop a clear blueprint for change: with consistent messaging this creates a shared sense of vision for stakeholders and helps to align interests in such a way that everyone is looking in the same direction and working together on common goals: repositioning stakeholders as active ‘change agents’ rather than passive or reluctant recipients.
• Strengthen service user voice: through partnership, coproduction and meaningful engagement. This would draw on expertise at all levels and builds trust and ensure that blueprints and action plans reflect not just ‘top-down’ aspirations but are also grounded ‘bottom up’ in experiences of policy delivery and practice. Our recent review of youth participation gives further insights into how this might be done in the youth employment space.
• Recognise the limitations posed by funding and governance structures: so that partners can develop a flexible and creative approach to funding, drawing on different pots when necessary and using approaches such as co-funding, joint budgets and ‘braided’ funding. Working to align interests in this way includes thinking about overlapping KPIs for the system change and individual organizational outcomes and making space for both.

Systems change in practice

Governments may have the resources and levers to achieve systems change, and traditionally top down, government-led approaches have been seen as most effective way to do this. Yet such attempts at change do not always achieve their stated objectives.

The authors of this review explored three examples of systems change in the youth employment space. One of these, the reform to the provision of careers information, advice and guidance (CIAG) did change the system, which did lead to some improvements but also failed to create the kind of in-depth and coherent system that those involved in the change as well as wider stakeholders wanted. The Department for Work and Pensions recently announced plans to merge the National Careers Service with Jobcentre Plus and this could provide an excellent opportunity to utilise the findings of this review to create sustainable and effective systems change. These cases studies will be explored in more depth in a future blog.

The study also developed further recommendations based on the review’s findings for achieving systems change in practice. The next blog in this series will present these. Youth Futures has created a policy brief that breaks down some aspects of the report in more detail.

Read the report executive summary here, and the full report here.