Contextualised and adapted Mindfulness Based Programmes can contribute to public sector ways of working, combining with organisational change approaches to support leaders and staff to develop and develop an understanding of the mind which is more social and contextualised. That can create change at a cultural and structural level.

Such approaches can help staff understand theories of mind that support perspective taking, increased empathy and their own and others’ biases. That supports better relational working.

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By applying a social model of stress and addressing bias they address the root causes of stress. The changes in culture and working practices that result can reduce the stress that comes from poor working practices. In Wales, we’ve been exploring how we might adapt mindfulness programmes to achieve these outcomes. Over seven years we have developed the Mindfulness Based Behavioural Insights and Decision Making (MBBI) programme, which Rachel Lilley has trialled with Welsh civil servants as part of her PhD research at Aberystwyth University.
MBBI began by looking at how mindfulness could be targeted at working practices in government and the public sector itself, relative to other wellbeing, self-improvement or compassion initiatives. The research showed that public sector workers spend most of their time working with their own and others’ minds – negotiating, understanding complex information, collaborating and managing relationships. But they have little opportunity to reflect on the insights of recent science into how our minds perceive information, the link between emotions and cognition or how bias filters our understanding.
Rachel developed a programme using mindfulness to help policy teams explore the latest theories of mind and worked with others to develop appropriate research methods. Once people developed knowledge and skills in these areas (rather than learning to simply deal with the stress of their job) they seemed to be less stressed. They were able to change their working methods in ways that built relationships and started to address biases.
The programme used a theoretical framework based on behavioural economics – a psychologically and neuro-scientifically informed approach to government. This made the programme relevant in this context, and also addressed some of the ethical issues that behaviourally-informed policies can raise.
Over 200 participants have been involved in the training over the past seven years. Recent programmes have included the Senior Civil Service Directors leading on Health, Treasury, Communities, Sustainability and Law. MBBI has also been used in policy areas such as Climate Change, Education, Housing Regulation, Agriculture and Environment, Economy and Transport and Strategic Budgeting.
Civil servants in the Welsh Government are now designing a ‘community of practice’: a space for active reflection and further personal development and a way of contributing to deepening behaviour and culture change within the organisation.
The team have also adapted MBBI to support the work of a Public Health team in Withernsea in East Riding, building the capacity of staff and facilitators to understand how their biases and misunderstandings of the mind influence community engagement and co-production.
The next steps are testing this approach across a number of different public sector settings; testing this and other innovations in MBPs designed for systems/culture change towards social and environmental outcomes (funding permitting); and developing a programme/training to share this approach more widely.