Hello, CIVICWORKS.

Essays, experiments and provocations on (re)thinking public innovation.

Oct 5 • Jack Strachan

1

September 2026

Alpha is discovery

What happens if our capacity to experiment grows much faster than our capacity to change the institutions those experiments expose?

Sep 29 • Jack Strachan

10

4

August 2026

The future isn’t multidisciplinary

Have multidisciplinary teams become the new silos?

Aug 25 • Jack Strachan

13

2

2

July 2026

The bureaucracy we need, and the bureaucracy we can cut

What Whitehall’s latest deckchair shuffle tells us about navigating bureaucracy and finding a better way forward

Jul 28 • Jack Strachan

20

2

June 2026

Practice notes on testing and learning

Field notes on starting small, learning in public, and building the confidence to change

Jun 30 • Jack Strachan

17

1

1

May 2026

Stop Building Innovation Labs

Labs were never the point. The conditions surrounding them were.

May 26 • Jack Strachan

42

3

4

April 2026

The Public Design Gap: Are we really hiring for transformation?

What the UK’s Digital and Data Capability Framework reveals about government reform

Apr 28 • Jack Strachan

31

5

1

March 2026

Policy Futures Studios: Building An Anticipatory State

Futures is not missing from government. It’s just not where decisions are made.

Mar 25 • Jack Strachan

13

2

2

February 2026

What the UK fintech market can learn from Korea – and itself

Designing fintech markets for public value

Feb 24 • Jack Strachan

5

1

Practice notes on including citizens in the design process

Field notes on trust, participatory scaffolding and shared agency

Feb 13 • Jack Strachan

11

4

1

January 2026

Beyond the waterfall state: why missions need a different decision-making architecture

Why government keeps forcing uncertainty through systems designed for stability – and what an alternative might look like

Jan 29 • Jack Strachan

18

3

3

December 2025

Rebuilding the missing middle: why social infrastructure institutions matter for neighbourhood renewal

Reflections on neighbourhood missions, place-based policy, and the institutions required to sustain change in the missing middle

Dec 22, 2025 • Jack Strachan

6