Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has restated his administration’s commitment to a better, motivated, focused, and equipped public service that can confront the challenges of modern governance and administration in an emerging, dynamic, and rapidly growing global and smart city.
The Governor stated this during the 2023 Public Service Ideas Day and Award ceremony at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium in Alausa, Ikeja.
He said he remains a strong supporter of public service reform that will bring about a viable workforce that drives the policies and programmes of the present government.
Sanwo-Olu added that any government desirable to make positive change in the lives of the citizenry must have a motivated and trained workforce.
The primary objective of Public Ideas Day is to embed the culture of creativity and innovation in Public Service by empowering Officers to take ownership of creative ideas to solve the challenges within their Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
According to Sanwo-Olu who was represented by the Head of Service, Mr Bode Agoro, “It is crucial for government to embrace and cultivate a culture of innovation across all sector, which Lagos State government is already known to be at the forefront in Nigeria and still looking for avenue to do more.
“It is pertinent to state that, innovation in the public sector is not just about technological advancements. It is about finding creative solutions to complex problems, improving public services, and fostering a more efficient and responsive government.”
He disclosed that the Ideas Day innovation as one of the first steps towards promoting innovation in the state public sector is to create an environment that encourages freedom of space, thought, knowledge experimentation, and risk-taking.
“We must acknowledge that not all innovations will be successful, but by embracing failure as a learning opportunity, we can pave the way for groundbreaking solutions. Hence, we should encourage each other to think outside the box, and rewarding innovative ideas will help us continue to harness the full potential of our workforce” he said.
Sanwo-Olu noted further that collaboration is vital in driving innovation to break down the silos that exist within Ministries, Departments, and Agencies and foster a culture of teamwork and knowledge-sharing.
Revealing that innovation in the Lagos State Public Service is not just a buzzword, he said it is a tool to unlock the full potential of public servants and create an enabling environment for creativity, encouraging collaboration, leveraging technology, and providing strong leadership.
Agoro in his capacity as the Head of Service, recommends a robust reward of automatic advancement to the next grade level for the winner of the Ideas Day competition adding that this will complement the financial and percentage awards already on the ground.
He, however, encourages Public Servants to continue to embrace and cooperate with the Office of Transformation Creativity and Innovation (OTCI), as the internal consultant for the State on Corporate or Organizational Planning, Mandate Alignment and Mapping, Service Delivery, Reforms Linkage, Creativity and Innovation.
In her speech, the Director-General, Office of Transformation and Creativity, Mrs Toyin Ademuyiwa, said that the state government realised that the place of innovation and creativity is critical in the life of any human organisation, hence the need for creative problem solving has arisen as more management requires creative insights to find suitable solutions.
She, however, disclosed that the dynamics of public service delivery are fast changing, and to be relevant, efficient, and effective in a technology and knowledge-driven global system requires a lot of creativity and innovation in the way issues and challenges are addressed.
The Lagos State Public Service Ideas Day is a step in the direction to sensitize the entire staff of the public service to the new expectations.
After a keenly contested presentation Temitope Kayode a staff of the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, emerged overall winner for this year’s Ideas Day competition.
This year’s ideas day competition featured a panel discussion by renowned scholars titled: Growth mindset- The paradigm shift.
It also featured awards presentation to transformational leaders in the state public sector.
