Devolving design: what Wales teaches us about scaling public design

Themes: Democratising design in Wales | Systems thinking in public service design | Centralised vs decentralised services | Designing across levels of government | Placed-based and relational services

Public-sector design loves a playbook. But democracy doesn’t scale through templates.

Drawing on experience from Wales’ devolved public service ecosystem, this talk explores the tension between “rinse and repeat” design and the need to adapt to local political, cultural and institutional realities.

What should travel between systems, and what must change? Participants will leave with a practical lens for scaling design across places without flattening difference, and a glimpse into the relational, political and deeply human practice of public design in Wales.

Participant takeaways:

• understand the difference between transferable design principles and context-dependent practices
• recognise when replication creates friction or resistance in devolved systems
• reframe adaptation as a strength rather than fragmentation
• identify where your own organisation may be over-standardising or over-reinventing
• reflect on the power dynamics embedded in national policy and design narratives
• a practical model for “adapt and embed” design across places