Driving Innovation in Federal Civil Service

OHCSF seeks to create an innovation culture across the service to shift the perception of MDAs as cost centers to revenue earners

OHCSF’s has proposed establishing commercial business units across MDAs which will drive innovation across the service e.g., ‘fee for service’ where MDAs earn revenue for services like consulting, training, facility rental etc.
Fee for service’ approach is limited in maximising government revenue:
i. Majority of government revenue comes from a few select sectors (e.g., FIRS, NNPC, NPA) and a targeted approach to empowering and strengthening these entities is more likely to increase overall revenue
ii. Many services provided by government may be uncompetitive relative to private sector options (e.g., facilities like FTCs are poorly maintained, training content is outdated, etc.)

Therefore, OHCSF will have a broader focus on driving innovation that provides better, cheaper and more accessible public services throughout the service. This can be done by following seven critical steps:
In the short term OHCSF will create awareness about innovation service wide and give people tools to innovate
In the medium term OHCSF will pilot a replicable model for delivering innovation set innovation goals, source ideas from staff e.g., via innovation challenges, create commercial business unit to test and, execute promising ideas and reward innovative employees through financial or non-financial awards.
In the long term OHCSF will assist MDA’s in replicating this model e.g., coordinate service wide innovation challenge.

Innovation Initiatives