Project team

ThinkPublic

Senior Producer

Deborah Szebeko, Ian Drysdale

Team

Emma Gasson, Alice Osborne, Emma Dyer, Nicola Ward

Profile

ThinkPublic is a pioneering agency focused on using collaborative design to improve service experiences and enable social innovation in the public and voluntary sectors. Founded by Deborah Szebeko, who was awarded the British Council’s UK Young Design Entrepreneur 2008/9, ThinkPublic brings fantastic insight to Dott’s Cornwall Works 50+ and Cornwall Works 50+ Cares projects. Identifying exciting opportunities for innovation and enterprise within the projects, the team – lead by Ian Drysdale – is also exploring the ways in which these services can really engage their users, open up and become more collaborative. Also driving the Cornwall Works 50+ and Cornwall Works 50+ Cares projects forward from the Cornwall-based ThinkPublic South West office were Emma Gasson (who’s leading on stakeholder engagement and service design) and Alice Osborne (leading on community engagement).

• Over 29,000 jobless people in Cornwall of working age claim benefits • 40%, 11,840 of those are over 50 • It costs £800,000 a day in working age benefits in Cornwall • A person who has received Incapacity Benefit for 6 months has a 50% chance of remaining on that benefit 4 years later • Once incapacitated for 12 months the average duration of stay is around 8 years... and you are more likely to retire or die than to ever go back to work

Project Statistics