AG SOC EI IAL BO NG DY EC O
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Tim Cairns IT Consultant
Gianluca Menini Product Designer
Introduction This project is a collaboration between Glasgow School of Art, the Institute of Design Innovation and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The aim of the project is to design for a hypothetical yet feasible ageing future so that older people continue to be socially, intellectually, physically and economically active as they enjoy a longer lifespan. Each group was asked to identify one of the aspects about ageing that interested us the most - we chose to look at economics and in particular how the Scottish people might be impacted by future economic changes.
Edmund White Illustrator
Qin Hu Architect
Contents Pages 2 - 3
Pages 48 - 61
Methodology
Analysis
Pages 8 - 11
Pages 64 - 71
Scenarios
Concepts
Pages 12 - 25
Pages 72 - 111
Group Members:
Research
Final Concept
Tim Cairns tim_cairns@hotmail.co.uk Qin Hu amyhu2020@gmail.com Gianluca Menini glcmenini@gmail.com Edmund White ed@eddemi.eu
Pages 26 - 45
Pages 112 - 113
Stakeholder Engagement
Conclusions
Methodology The project was a future casting exercise projecting thirty years forward. We decided to look at finance because it forms such a substantial factor in people’s lives, including their life expectancy. We were interested in the fact that many people, both young and old, are undereducated about personal finance, given that it has such a massive impact on their lives. As we decided to design for 2044 we looked at how people achieve financial well-being, through planning and decision making throughout the course of their lives. People become financially secure in old age by taking sensible actions throughout their life.
We choose to look at a wide range of ages – investigate how life has changed over the past 30 years and use that as a means of understanding how much can change in that life span. This led us to think in bigger terms about what might be possible by 2044. We developed a series of games, initially as engagement tools but subsequently as analysis and delivery tools. These tools were flexible enough to be considered as design outcomes in addition to the main concept.
5 Discover
What are the socio-economic challenges for an ageing population over the next 30 years in Scotland? 7 Discover
Discover 9 Discover
Future Scenarios As the project was a future casting exercise we investigated the “Speculative Everything” concept from MIT. This approach has a series of cones with narrowing areas of focus – from “the possible”, to “the plausible” and then finally “the preferable”. This prompted us to consider designing for both good and bad future scenarios. The scenarios considered the forthcoming referendum for Scottish Independence. As Scotland is currently preparing for an independence referendum in September 2014, this seemed a pertinent lens through which to view our design outcomes. How will the Scottish electorate vote in the referendum, and what will the economic consequences be for them?
11 Discover
Future Scenarios Scotland 2044
Successful Independent Scotland As oil becomes scarcer worldwide, the price of oil rises, which means that areas which were previously not viable to explore can now be exploited. This provides a boost to the economy. Renewable energy is also extended, the use of wave and wind power brings money into the economy. The Trident nuclear deterrent is scrapped and the cost savings from this are used to provide care for the elderly.
Unsuccessful Independent Scotland
YES NO
The rump of the UK (rUK) decides that Scotland cannot form a currency union based on the pound. (This is principally a political decision rather than an economic one). Scotland needs to form a new currency, tied to the Euro. The cost of doing this and providing an equivalent to the Bank of England proves highly expensive. Gradually the cost of supporting free education at the Scottish Universities becomes too expensive to be supported by the state and fees are charged similarly to rUK.
Unsuccessful Scotland remains part of the UK
Successful Scotland remains part of the UK The Westminster parliament sees that in the long term there is likely to be a further move to independence and to preclude this decides to devolve powers further on a regional basis including regions within England. This has a generally positive view on the economy with money being more widely spread across the UK - there is a gradual move away from a totally London centric focus. Housing becomes more affordable in London as some people move north.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) wins a substantial vote in the 2014 European elections and the Conservative Party moves to the right to attract this section of the electorate. The next election results in a hung parliament again and a coalition is formed between the Conservatives, UKIP and the Liberal Democrats. David Cameron tries, but fails, to negotiate, reduced powers for the EU. A referendum is held on continued membership of the EU and the UK decides to leave the EU. This brings in economic barriers to trade and has a dramatically negative effect on the economy.
13 Discover
DAA PROJECT
Design Led Innovation for active ageing http://daaproject.eu
Joseph F Coughlin Innovation and the future of ageing services http://bigthink.com
“Against the backdrop of an ageing society, where both public resources and the number of care workers available are dwindling, assistive technologies to help older people in their everyday lives will become more and more valuable. So far so good. But how would you feel, for example, if a robot rather than a real person was helping to dress your dependent grandmother?”
“Ageing services will also have many new dimensions requiring a workforce to be as techsavvy as they are caresavvy.... the baby boomers who will seek more than bingo in old age, virtual or otherwise.” United Nations
Report: Ageing 1950 to 2050 www.un.org
“The older population is growing faster than the total population in practically all regions of the world ― and the difference in growth rates is increasing.”
Article: The boomerang generation: Forced back to the nest by lack of jobs and high cost of living. (Dugan, 2014)
“The challenges of finding work and affordable housing go hand in hand ... people aged 17 to 24 seeking our advice on rent arrears ... has gone up 56 per cent ”
THE BOOMERANG GENERATION
TECHNOLOGY
GLOBAL ECONOMY
GLOBAL SOCIETY
Gillian Guy (Chief Executive of Citizens Advice Bureaux)
Graduates in the UK labour market 2013 www.ons.gov.uk
“The percentage of graduates in the population has risen from 17% in 1992 to 38% in 2012.”
EDUCATION PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
HEALTH CARE
RETIREMENT
Centre for public policy research
Professor Danny Dorling
Is the British education system designed to polarise people? (Dorling, 2014)
Growth and Labour Market Trends – trying to make sense of recent Scottish Economic Statistics www.gla.ac.uk
“The apparently relentless long term decline in the Manufacturing workforce since 1998 has occurred during good times and bad and also at the UK level. In that sense the recent rapid decline in the workforce is simply an acceleration of what has gone before. (Falls in manufacturing employment during the recent recession versus long term trends)”
OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS
Men in Sheds
http://menssheds.org.uk
“Health by Stealth” “re-creation of masculinity postretirement”
Department for Work and Pensions A comparative review of international approaches to mandatory retirement. https://www.gov.uk
“When it is made easy – and satisfying – for employees to make a phased transition into retirement, employees can be encouraged to work later.”
“Sub-prime degree not worth the pape they are written on being sold to the young”
es er
Desk Research The society we live in has changed dramatically over the past few decades and there are some trends that are evident. The world population is growing rapidly and in particular the proportion of old people is growing most rapidly.
There has been continuing rapid growth in technology, and this impacts people through many aspects of their life.
Housing has become less affordable and this has affected living patterns with younger people returning to the parental Within the workplace there has been a home in their twenties and thirties. long term decline in manufacturing in the UK and a need to create more service The number of people in higher based jobs. People need to be educated in education has continued to grow. This different ways to be capable of doing those has consequences for the way in which jobs. education is financed and for the quality of education that is delivered. Different patterns of retirement are emerging. There are opportunities for people to work longer if they want to, or need to.
15 Discover
HOUSING Affordability of housing has fallen dramatically over the past 30 years. House prices have grown faster than wages - young people today are struggling to get a foot on the housing ladder. This is in part due to an insufficient quantity of new houses being built, and in part by deregulation of the rental market.
WORK Change in working patterns over the past 60 years include an increase in women in the workplace, and a decrease in manufacturing jobs in the UK.
FINANCE / PENSIONS It is common for todays graduates to have large student debts, and consequently take longer to save deposits to buy a house. Todays graduates will also be expected to work longer to secure a pension for retirement. They will also be expected to live longer, which will require the pension to stretch further.
There has been an increase in internships that provide experience, but can exploit desperate job seekers. There has been a decline in equality with an increasing gap between the richest and poorest earners. The private sector is more fluid than the public sector.
EDUCATION Huge increase in the proportion of people of people who attend university / HE. Percentage of graduates up from 17% to 38% in the last two year period. Increases in university tuition fees and the cost of living in England and Wales has resulted in students from less wealthy backgrounds graduating with large debts from student loans.
Global Economy In the second half of the 20th century a process of Globalisation began to take place. This term refers to processes of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture.
These will include how different ideologies would influence the options available to the individual in terms of education, work, health care, housing, finances and engagement with local and international cultures.
The consequences on the individual have been gradual to emerge but have been profound. This project seeks to project what further consequences might emerge on an increasingly ageing UK population under a variety of different scenarios.
17 Discover
Home Ownership Pensions and finance Education and Work
02 future scenario
04 Provoke
01 today’s model
03 Question
Evolution of Questions We wanted to think carefully about how to ask people about personal finances. We had the idea of using Monopoly money to talk about mortgages or rent, utilities, food, debt, savings. This would be less intrusive than questions on how much people earned - talk in proportions not amounts. The idea of using games is elaborated on later in this journal, but the next game idea was using the chance and community chest cards. These could ask questions, perhaps of a more provocative nature. In the game context these could be enjoyable and the random nature of selecting a card could lead to surprising insights.
This led to thinking about an approach to developing questions. We created questions via an approach that built existing models in our key thematic areas, then developed a set of questions that would be relevant to each particular scenario. The approach took four steps: • • • •
Build a model of the existing thematic area Consider how that would be impacted by each scenario in turn Write a standard question Write a more provocative question
19 Discover
Home Ownership The financial arrangements surrounding housing have changed significantly over the last thirty years and in many ways these changes have exaggerated the gap between the rich and the poor. The 1980 Housing Act granted tenants the right to buy their council house at a substantial discount, and around two million did so. Typically the houses sold were in the most
YES
04 Provoke
WHAT WOULD YOU DO? Social housing is available to every one. You no longer have to consider home ownership.
desirable areas. Many of those properties have subsequently been sold to private landlords and helped fuel the transformation of the UK into what has been called “Generation Rent�. The value of houses has gone from 2.5 times the average salary to closer to 5 times, and first time buyers are expected to raise a significant deposit to buy a property.
Successful Independent Scotland decides to build more social housing of high quality including bungalows for older people.
02 future scenario
03 Question
Is home ownership the ideal model for housing in the future?
Reduced living costs Empty nest syndrome
01 today’s model Own outright Assisted by parents Shared ownership
Buying Shared accommodation
Rent from local authority / government Private landlord
Living Alone or with partner/ family
Renting From childhood to young adulthood
Multi-generational households
Living with parents 21 Discover
Pensions & Finance State pensions and workplace pensions have been radically changed over the past decade as a consequence of rising life expectancy. This has led to many companies ending final salary schemes for new employees, and some companies
have done this for existing employees too. Pensions have already become difficult to afford and as life expectancy continues to grow this will only become more problematic. Do people understand what they need to do for a secure requirement?
NO
Unsuccessful UK The state cannot afford to pay pension at their current level Pensions are halved. 04 Provoke
CHOOSE? You can retire healthy or wealthy
02 future scenario
03 Question
What levels of understanding do younger people have of financial planning for retirement?
Continue to enjoy work
01 today’s model
Sense of self worth
Need to supplement pension income
Social contacts
Continuing work
Pensions Defined Contribution
Defined Benefit
Employers
State
Equity Related (Shares)
Income from savings/investments Savings Savings / Investment
Pensions
Finance
23 Discover
Education Why did we consider education? As this is principally undertaken by the young we wondered if it should have a place in a project about ageing. However education is a fundamental factor that influences a person’s wealth, and certainly something that has a huge effect on social mobility. There are many interesting topics for investigation in education. The proportion
YES
04 Provoke
CHOOSE? free education or free state pension
of people who attend higher education has dramatically changed in the post war years. As a consequence it can now take a postgraduate degree to make yourself stand out from the crowd. The state has moved education costs to students, in the form of fee based education (in England) and the removal of grants. For the purposes of our project we wanted to
look at such things as: • • •
The costs of education to the individual the increasing duration that people spend in higher education the employability that a degree confers
How does a graduate balance the books in today’s world and what might change in 30 years to make this more palatable?
Unsuccessful Independent Scotland Due to the struggling economy and the EU competition laws, Scotland cannot continue to provide free education
02 future scenario
03 Question
Do the benefits of higher education justify the cost to the students?
Tuition Fees
Scholarship
Distance learning Doctorate
01 today’s model
Student Loan Masters
Degree
Salary & Qualification
Higher Education
Private Sector Access Courses
Public Sector School
Apprenticeship FE College
Grammar
Catchment area Private
Private State
Primary
Secondary
Further Education
School 25 Discover
Work Again we constructed a model that showed different forms of work. We discussed the relationship between work and education and the benefits to the individual of higher education or apprenticeships. One theme that came through was whether school and higher education were properly equipping students for the workplace.
One factor that fed into the work theme was that a “job for life” is now long gone. People can expect to move from one job to another as the employers needs change, and this can have a dramatic effect on all aspects of a person’s life, particularly at the start.
NO
Unsuccessful UK Unemployment levels continually rise.
04 Provoke
WHAT WOULD YOU DO? “You cannot get a job that uses your skills and education”
02 future scenario
03 Question
Do the benefits of higher education justify the cost to the student?
Career development loan
Incremental increase
Re-train
Bonus
Career break Director
01 today’s model
Minimum wage Living wage
Salary
Managerial
Wage
Supervisory Team Leader
Start-up
Career Development
Freelancer
Self Employed Work Experience
Expenses Paid / Unpaid
Paid salary
Long term / Short term
Education
Apprenticeship
Internship
Elder Care Unpaid care Child Care
Caring
Job Seekers Allowance State Welfare Savings
Permanent Temporary
Unemployed 27 Discover
Professor David Bell Economist
Ian Alexander Director of JM Architects
Focus Group 50 - 60 y/o
Expert Public Focus Group 25 - 35 y/o
Interviews with individuals
Kyle Thornton Chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament
Stakeholders We wanted to interview a mixture of Subject Matter Experts and individuals within a variety of different age groups. We were looking for experts in Housing, Economics and Politics. For individuals we wanted to talk to people within a variety of different age groups - people who have retired, who are approaching retirement, and younger people who have a variety of life decisions in front of them. For the younger people we considered them to be the “future old� - people who may be facing financial choices in later life based on their present day decisions about education, work, savings and influenced by their background - class, gender, nationality and race.
29 Discover
“Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems�
Engagement Method We wanted to talk to people about their personal finances and were concerned that some people would not be comfortable talking to us about their own financial circumstances. We came up with the idea of using a game - initially the Monopoly™ game to make the financial concepts more abstract. We had the idea of using monopoly money to ask people what proportions of money they spent on various things - rent/ mortgage, food, electricity and gas etc. The next idea was to use the Chance and Community Chest cards to put provocative questions across to people - these were re-designed as “What Would You Do?” and “Choose” cards to present sometimes stark choices to people. 31 Discover
Engagement Method 01- Exploring We started from the premise that we would construct a game with the cards and the money we’d already developed and construct a new board. How would the game play work? We began with a square board layout covered with a blank sheet of tracing paper. We decided that each edge of the board would roughly chronologically represent a thematic area of life. The first edge was education, followed by work, pensions and savings and retirement. Each side would have squares for the question cards.
ourselves before moving on to testing this with some communications design students and finally with some people.
We had started with completely blank sheets of tracing paper over the grid but found we did need to impose some structure. We also found that some people were more comfortable drawing than others but it worked well to have one person be the scribe for a group of people. It also worked better with small groups - two people plus one of the team seemed to work well. But wherever it was used it led to a relaxed and The approach then moved on to asking open way to prompt conversations that led people to co-design the game with us. This to some useful insights. would let them decide which areas of life were important to them. We tested this approach
33 Discover
Engagement Method 02 - Co-designing The second iteration of the game was with communications design students. This version was more chronological and less thematic. There were also several squares that poked fun at the middle aged and indeed younger people.
factors that you had no influence over had a massive influence in determining your opportunities in life. Gender, social class and educational attainments were key determinants of success.
It threw up some interesting topics for our analysis – some notable ones were, • •
the nature of unpaid internships and self-esteem. Kids leaving home “still drain your money, they just don’t hang out with you any more”
The big insight that came from this diagram was the “Wheel of Fate” whereby various
35 Discover
Engagement Method 03 - prototyping The group consisted of three participants who were all in their mid-to-late 20’s. One participant was a mature masters student at Glasgow University, the second was a politics graduate who is currently involved within a graduate training scheme, and the third is a bar worker who has not studied past further education level. Following the advice of the Communication Design students, we developed some prompt cards that could be used to provide starting ideas for the game, and also laid out the basic structure (work, pensions, education, and housing) of the board to provide a starting point. This engagement provided some good discussion points based around education, and the value of
degrees. The participant who is undertaking a graduate training scheme felt that his degree did not provide him with relevant skills and training for the workplace, and provided examples of Scandinavian countries that have flourished due to focused education plans that train students in sectors relevant to growth (in this example the technology and mobile phone industries in Finland).
state welfare to get her through life. These were primarily driven by the participant who himself dropped out of education, and provided a discussion point on levels of success that can be achieved within the workplace despite not having a higher qualification.
The topic of housing and pensions did not feature within this engagement. This is more Other interesting talking points related to than likely due to none of the participants people who drop out of education, and the owning property, and being of an age in different life journeys and ‘impact points’ which pensions are not a pressing concern. along the way. One example being a wannabe rock-star who achieves fame but as a result dies of a drug overdose, and a teenager who drops out of school after falling pregnant who becomes reliant on 37 Discover
Engagement Method Summary There were various threads that led from dropping out of education, with some leading to success – through independence, entrepreneurship and artistic success. Also interestingly were thoughts around the level of academic achievement – what are the skills with relevance for the job market that are being taught in higher education, versus reaching the pinnacle of academic achievement? This also produced insights into the actual use of a tool. Some people found drawing slightly intimidating due to their lack of drafting skills, but it worked to have one person draw other people’s ideas. There were some interesting things we found using this approach, outside the actual insights
that it generated. The use of the tracing paper meant that the participant was being asked to write on a blank sheet of paper, hidden by the structure imposed underneath.
We never actually developed a fully functioning game as an engagement tool, but it did lead us to several insights that fed into our concepts
This meant that they were given a greater degree of freedom of expression than other engagement tools. Adding some structure helped but there certainly was a greater degree of freedom. There was a further insight into the design process though. What we had ostensibly asked them was “help us design the game mechanics”, but what we actually made them do was “tell us about the aspects of your life that affect your personal wealth”. 39 Discover
“the state pension is a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich” Professor David Bell Professor David Bell is a Professor of Economics at Stirling University and a policy advisor to the Scottish Government. He is a Research Fellow in Constitutional Change. Prof Casalegno from MIT had suggested we needed to get the right economist to speak to, and we succeeded though personal contacts and persistence - he is a very busy man. He was able to talk to us on all our themes, and indeed had knowledge of our scenarios. He suggested from our introduction that we had enough scope for three PhD’s in our questions. Of course, at this stage of the project we were partially still in the discovery phase and not yet narrowing down our focus.
Professor Bell’s comment that “the state pension is a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich” (because poor people die younger) stood out as an area that for exploration and led to the “Robin Hood” pensions ideas.
41 Discover
“all the best social housing is sold off” Ian Alexander Ian Alexander is a regional director for JM Architects. Ian has worked for over 20 years in private architecture practice and teaches at the Mackintosh School of Architecture at GSA. We thought he would be worthwhile speaking to in particular because he worked on the “Homes for the Future” project in Glasgow in 1999. Ian supplied one of the insights that sparked some of the detail behind our final concept – that “all the best social housing is sold off”. Ian also met with us a second time to listen to our proposal and was both impressed by the idea and helpful with the numbers.
43 Discover
“I can’t think of anything worse than the same job for life” Kyle Thornton years old). He was very open and spoke with “Jobs for life” was an interesting talking point. According to some of the desk research confidence. young people are more likely to work several He said that young people did not see jobs within their working life. An assumption planning for the future as important. could be made that this relates to job Increasingly consideration is given to insecurity. However it might be a change apprenticeships as an alternative to in attitudes towards jobs in the younger degrees. Certain degrees are seen as generations, that a job for life is less desirable being “Sub Prime” – not seen as valuable as some might want to learn a range of skills by employers, and hence the greater value and experience different work environments given to apprenticeships. Young people are within the course of their life. far more aware of the ‘extra’ efforts required to secure jobs – it’s not enough just to get a Within the interview Kyle answered questions degree. The older generation are having to both as a representative of Scottish youth, support the young financially through higher and from his own personal perspective as education. a young person (who turned out to be the youngest participant within our project at 19 45 Kyle is the Chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament. This involves being the representative voice of young people across the country in parliament, and within the media. During the time this project has taken place he has been involved in BBC TV and radio debates based around Scotland’s independence referendum, and played a key role in the campaign to allow 16 year olds to vote in the referendum. On top of this he is currently studying for a degree in Politics at Glasgow University.
Discover
“The need to re-shape society based on older people won’t fit current business needs. It’s difficult to sustain: hectic and fast paced job markets don’t want and don’t need old people.”
“Our generation lost connections with our neighbours, we are not used to sharing spaces anymore. But it’s a mindset that is changing deeply within new generations”
“Once you buy a house, and get your mortgage, you’re limiting half of your life choices until you pay it back!”
Interviews with individuals
“In the future I think the education system will change: only those who have the right skills will have the possibility to study in higher education.”
“Since I started to receive an annual pension statement from the government, I started to think more about it. I feel I’m already building for my future, even if I’m just a student with a part-time job.”
Cristiano (24)
Italian student currently studying at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Insights from individuals We interviewed a number of retired individuals. These people had seen a wide variety of changes in the workplace, in the education system, in pensions and finance since their youth. None of them had attended higher education institutes, although one attended the Open University once her children had all gone to school. Both women remarked upon how the pension system had changed significantly since they started work. At that point, women were expected to live from their husband’s pension in retirement. They were expected to leave work when they started a family. The man was able to retire early but this was on the back of having done jobs in the evening as well as his day job to support his family. One of the women had rented until middle age and only then bought her council
house through the right to buy scheme. We interviewed a number of younger people both using our engagement tools and using standard interview techniques. For those we interviewed via Skype it was not practical to use the engagement tools. The affordability of housing was a significant problem for people and many could not see themselves ever buying a property. The cost of education is problematic. In particular an undergraduate degree has lost value in the job market, meaning that many felt obliged to study for a Masters, adding further to the debt burden. Personal finance is not taught at all in schools and most young people are unaware of how best to plan for the future.
We interviewed middle aged people including several from Italy where the economic situation was different from the UK. The economy in Italy has gone badly downhill recently and people who felt secure no longer do so. There is a loss of job opportunities and savings and investments are not worth what they used to be.
47 Discover
Define 49 Define
Introduction to Analysis We decided to investigate the use of a tool to gather, group and analyse our insights. Mural.ly is an online resource where you can create “murals” which are essentially an electronic representation of a wall containing post its and supporting text and images. We grouped our insights by main thematic area and then by more detailed themes that at times cut across the broad thematic area - which the colour coding helped make visible. This helped us identify tensions and then from that opportunities. Murally was a useful tool in several respects:
• Enables people to work simultaneously on the same image • Enables people to work remotely • Post its can be copied and can exist in multiple places - they may be relevant to more than one grouping or thematic area • it was simple to colour code thematically - this highlighted things that were not initially visible during our initial physical post-it exercise • Can annotate notes, which was useful to aid traceability 51 Define
Insights, Tensions & Themes We had started with our broad themes and pulled out insights in the areas of housing (green post-its), Work and Education (Blue), Pensions (orange) and Social/Family (red). We had tagged each post-it with a little dot to identify where the insight came from.
We had intended from fairly early on in the project to look at our material in the context of four political scenarios. Now we thought we could look at it in the context of other factors that could influence a person’s financial opportunities such as class, gender and race. These had appeared on our “wheel of We then re-grouped them along different fate” within one of the versions of the game. thematic lines. We thought it might throw up some insights where there were multiple high level thematic colours surrounding a detailed theme. Part of the reason behind using Mural.ly was simply to try out some different approaches to working with our data. However we found problems with the quantity of data we had and the way we wanted to work with it. 53 Define
ANALYSIS SYSTEM Scenario
1
Topic
Unemplyed
NO VOTE
Scotland remains part of the UK
2
NOT SUCCESSFUL
Speculatio
Unemployed
n
What if benefits continue to tighten to save money?
3 4
1x
Amplify
2
What if Scotland puts measures 1x in place to counteract new welfare policies?
Analysis Method We wanted to analyse all the topics we had identified and examine each of them in the context of the four different political scenarios. We also wanted to look at what the effect would be for people of different classes where the impact of any political change might be quite distinct. Finally we wanted to “push the boundaries” of each idea - to see how far it could go while still being realistic. This would lead to us thinking about, for example, “In an independent, economically unsuccessful Scotland, how would a working class person be impacted by changes to the state pension” asking what ifs and then continuing to extend the original thoughts.
What became clear was that there was simply too much information to process in this way and we began to look for a new way to handle this. The game came back into play and we developed a new approach to selecting the material to deal with. Firstly we wrote out each of the topics under their key thematic area on one side of the board. We divided the board into four triangles, one per political scenario, and a circle representing social class. We then used the “spinner” idea from the earlier game development to select a scenario, a class, a topic and an “amplification factor” which was used to force us to stretch the idea multiple times. The following pages illustrate the questions and opportunities this method generated.
We designed and built the tool and together we ran through multiple spins which generated lots of “what if” questions. We then used these to generate opportunities which in turn led to concepts. This was illustrated in a way which shows the connections all the way from insights through to concepts.
55 Define
HIGHER EDUCATION
ONLINE EDUCATION
APPRENTICESHIPS
What if tuition fees are implemented and uncapped to match the rest of the UK?
What if in a bid to attract more students from the rest of the UK Scotland introduces fast track two year degrees with online learning for one year to supplement the 3rd/4th year?
What if apprenticeships have a big increase in popularity?
SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - NOT SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 3
What if the Scottish student loan system is expensive and unaffordable to most people? What if Scotland introduces a two tier education system (paid and free online)?
HIGHER EDUCATION SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 2
What if an independent Scotland takes the opportunity to reform higher education?
SCENARIO - NO VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 5
What if schools in Scotland offer online education in a “Khan Academy” approach? What if the role of a teacher is reduced to a teaching assistant?
SCENARIO - NO VOTE ECONOMY - NOT SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 4
What if apprenticeships take on a tuition fee model due to supply and demand?
What if international apprentices become more common? What if employers and educational institutes collaborated to form a new type of education?
What if schools can generate money through sponsorship and advertising? What if education is no longer funded by the state?
What if institutions are divided into institutions of thinking and doing?
EDUCATION Opportunities to: Make stronger connections between employers and educational institutes?
Re-brand apprenticeships? Apprenticeships will be offered in the same way as university degrees with prospectuses, campuses and accommodation.
Explore alternative funding methods for postgraduate study?
57 Define
BUY TO LET / SHARED OWNERSHIP
HOUSING CO-OPERATIVES
What if the housing shortage continues to grow?
What if Scotland wants to discourage Buy to Let Landlords?
What if housing associations became housing co-ops?
What if people continue to rent for longer?
What if younger generations need to retain the flexibility that renting offers?
EMPTY ROOMS
SCENARIO - NO VOTE ECONOMY - NOT SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 7
What if people start families in shared accommodation? What if people no longer aspire to own their homes? What if people who claim benefits lose the right to choose where they live (after a certain amount of time)? What if the government introduces low cost, high density accommodation for poorer people/the unemployed? What if unemployment benefit was abolished?
SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 4
SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 3
What if the shared ownership model could be extended? What if people could own a share of the housing market?
What if, by buying into a house via a co-op, you are not restricted to one place (nationally)? What if buy-to-let was prohibited?
HOUSING Opportunities to:
Could there be different forms of taxation related to housing (see Land Tax, Council Tax,Stamp Duty) that would lead to less inequality?
Could house sharing among the elderly (widowed, divorced, single) help boost housing stock and reduce care requirements?
Push the housing market away from speculation and towards meeting human needs?
Design more flexible forms of housing both in terms of walls/ partitioning, facilities and flexibility of ownership?
Could there be a new form of mortgage/ rent that would have less commitment than at present on the part of the renter/ house owner? (Virtual Home Ownership)
Look at the problems that the “bedroom tax� was brought in to address but in a more caring context?
Adopt the housing cooperative approach on a national scale?
Could younger people be given free rent in return for caring for the elderly in their houses?
CONTINUE TO WORK PAST RETIREMENT AGE SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - NOT SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 7 What if the state pension is reduced? What if the retirement age is raised to 75? What if state pensions are abolished outright? What if there are not enough relevant jobs for retired people? What if later retirement means that there are insufficient jobs for younger people? What if the lack of jobs for younger people results in higher levels of emigration? What if Britain becomes a retired/aged island?
AGE OF RETIREMENT
STATE PENSIONS
What if the retirement age is raised faster than life expectancy?
What if Scotland reforms its pension policy?
SCENARIO - NO VOTE ECONOMY - NOT SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 6
What if richer people benefit increasingly disproportionately from the raised pension age? What if there is a further decline in saving for retirement? What if you never retire? What if retirement age is based on proximity to death? What if people over the age of 60 are assessed every two years to determine when they get a state pension?
SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 7
What if state pensions were tailored to individual circumstances? What if we could track a person’s wealth throughout their life? What if people from poorer backgrounds, with lower life expectancy, got their pensions sooner? What if private pensions are nationalised? What if taking the profit out of private pension providers could provide a larger pension for everybody? What if we made “Robin Hood” pensions?
PENSIONS Opportunities to: Change the laws relating to pensions to distribute money more equally between the rich and the poor?
Design different forms of training and career development to support people working for longer than at present?
Design a co-operative pension scheme owned and managed by the contributors/pensioners rather than a private company
Provide pensions based on people’s estimated proximity to death rather than their distance from birth? 59 Define
SELF EMPLOYMENT
PART TIME WORK
INTERNSHIPS
What if tighter controls on immigration resulted in a shortage of manual skilled labourers?
What if more people end up in part-time work?
What if internships became regulated (in terms of pay and rights)?
What if retirement is phased (full-time, part-time, 2 days per week)?
What if internships are forced to pay the minimum wage?
SCENARIO - NO VOTE ECONOMY - NOT SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 7
What if more people take up skilled trades as opposed to University study?
!!! This area was parked as irrelevant to the research insights gathered !!!
SCENARIO - NO VOTE ECONOMY - NOT SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 3
What if entry into employment is phased in line with phased retirements?
SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 6
What if employers had to provide some formal training to interns? What if there is a bursary system in place to ensure fairness in who can gain access to internships? What if, at the end of any tuition internship, a summary assessment is mandatory that leads to either employment or intern redundancy? What if employers are subsidised to offer more tuition internships?
WORK
Opportunities to: Design a new internship system which can be regulated?
Develop/reform services to suit a growing number of part time workers?
Form a system of phased retirement in conjunction with phased entry to the workplace? 61 Define
Analysis Method By choosing things at random certain patterns began to emerge. There were many places where we felt that social class did not have a major impact and ultimately we stopped using this as a factor we selected at random. There was one topic that we analysed twice in the context of two different scenarios - we looked at Higher Education in the context of an Independent Successful Scotland and in an Independent Unsuccessful Scotland and came up with different design opportunities. There was only one topic where we simply gave up - there was not enough supporting evidence in our research to investigate this area to any great depth.
The opportunities felt more interesting in the scenarios of an independent, successful Scotland. This was perhaps because there would be more change under independence and more opportunity to finance the type of programmes that the Scottish people might want - supporting a more egalitarian society. In essence the game has become a design outcome in its own right. It is a tool that can be used to spark thinking by making the design team look at variety of different things in a random way - inspiring ideas rather than ploughing through huge quantities of material in a systematic and perhaps more dry way. 63 Define
Develop 65 Develop
STATE PENSIONS
SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 7
What if we made “Robin Hood” pensions? Concept Development - Pensions There were two concepts relating to the “fairness” of the state pension - both named “Robin Hood Pensions”. This comes from the insights that people from poorer backgrounds benefit less from the state pension than wealthier people, since they die sooner. The idea was to consider how this could be made fairer, either by looking at where people lived during their lifetime, and the other by carrying out periodic health checks after the age of 60. Based on this the pension age could be lowered or the amount of pension increased for poorer people.
aware. The first concept would make all pension providers supply people’s pension information to the government including their National Insurance number. This would be made available to individuals on a website that would have all this information aggregated together. This would be particularly useful for people who have pensions with multiple current and former employers.
have a form of financial training that would be given to all people at the age of 21 and would be rewarded with a small sum (say £100) to their pension to encourage uptake of the scheme.
The site would also enable people to run “what if” projections to see what effect adding money or working longer would have Secondly there were two concepts on the pension they would receive. The around making people more financially second financial awareness concept was to 67 Develop
HOUSING CO-OPERATIVES SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 3
What if buy-to-let was prohibited? Generating Concepts - Housing The current housing model contains shared ownership schemes in which the tenant buys a share of the property they live in. It does provide some benefits to the tenant but in a relatively limited way. This prompted thoughts about how this scheme could be made more flexible and address some of the issues raised by our interviewees. There were a number of opportunities that fed into the concept and ultimately this became our final design outcome.
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Mini Concept Narrative Institutions of Thinking & Doing William is applying to study at higher education level. He would like to be an architect, but knows that this is a difficult industry to get into due to the number of people competing for jobs.
Before designing his course of study, William can see that the architecture industry is in need of technically skilled people.
William opted to do a 2 year course at a skills institute and gained a diploma in CAD and Architecture.
William got a job at an architecture firm as a digital visualiser.
Five years later William was hoping to progress. The architecture industry now requires people with more creative skills and knowledge.
William decides to return back to study and gain some knowledge institution academic qualifications. This qualifies him with the equivalent to a degree in Architecture.
William returns to his previous architecture firm as a lead designer.
HIGHER EDUCATION SCENARIO - YES VOTE ECONOMY - SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 2
What if HE institutions are divided into institutions of doing & thinking? Concept Development - Education The best concepts sat somewhere on the cusp between work and education. There was a concept around Higher/Vocational Education reform wherein Higher Education institutions are split into three – an institution of thinking, of skills and of experience. These were looking to address the problems of current Higher Education not meeting the needs of the workplace.
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PART TIME WORK
SCENARIO - NO VOTE ECONOMY - NOT SUCCESSFUL AMPLIFY X 3
What if entry into employment is phased in line with phased retirements? Concept Development - Work The second concept was Phased Retirement/ Phased Entry into work. The idea was that between 60 and 70 a person phases down the number of hours worked per week, rather than have a shock to the system when they stop suddenly. They would phase down the number of hours worked while mentoring new employees who would be part time in work and part time in education.
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Housing associations
Home Ownership Social Housing
NEW HOUSING ORGANISATION
(at) Home
Renting Private
ABERDEEN
GLASGOW
DUNDEE
EDINBURGH
What if you could own equity in homes, not just the home you live in, but the whole property market? Final Concept (At) Home is a Housing Service which is a blend of home ownership and renting, but unlike current shared ownership models you do not buy a share of a particular property. The final concept is a Housing Service which will build 25,000 houses in the major Scottish cities. It combines aspects of Housing Associations and private ownership, and is targeted at people who would like to buy a property but can’t afford to do so. It will rent houses to people similarly to a Housing Association, but the Unique Selling Point of the scheme will be that you buy shares in the national scheme as part of your monthly payment. This is like shared equity but you will own a small share of the whole 25,000 houses, not the home you live in. It will be
set up by the Scottish Government after independence, initially owned by the state but as people live in the homes and invest in the scheme they will gradually own a larger share of the service. This sounds simple enough but the benefits that accrue from this are distinctive. You can start buying a property without having a large deposit. You can move house within the scheme without buying and selling (and incurring estate agents and stamp duty costs). You can invest at a level you can afford. You can join the scheme in a flatshare. People who have not yet reached a level of career stability, and who might not expect to live long term in their current location, can still invest in housing.
This service helps younger people buy property and accumulate wealth in the housing market. It redirects benefits of housing wealth back to the people who live in a house instead of buy to let landlords. Housing forms a large part of people’s financial security, and the current “Generation Rent” are more likely to retire in poverty without housing assets. This service addresses that.
75 Develop
Deliver 77 Deliver
What are the socioeconomic challenges for an ageing population over the next 30 years in Scotland? Proposal Delivery What we found through many of our interviewees as well as our desk research was that there is a generational problem with the affordability of housing. Suppose we continue the way the housing market has been evolving. If it does not change, then by 2044 there will be a large number of people approaching retirement age who have no assets in the housing market. Much of their money will have gone into the hands of buy to let landlords. Furthermore, in addition to affordability, there were problems with mobility and job security in today’s society. Many people do not want to commit to a mortgage when they are unsure whether they will live in one place for more than a year or two.
We had also seen that on a small scale, housing co-operatives and shared equity had some promise as alternatives to private renting. What if people could buy equity in the properties that they own, not individually, but collectively? Suppose an independent Scotland wanted to promote a greater level of fairness in the housing market?
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NEW HOUSING ORGANISATION
(at) Home
ABERDEEN
EDINBURGH
GLASGOW
Blueprint 01: Joining (At) Home
DUNDEE
Blueprint 02: Living (At) Home
Blueprint 03: Exiting (At) Home
Service Blueprint We developed a service blueprint and a user journey to illustrate our concept. The blueprint has been separated into three sections: • • •
Joining (At) Home Living (At) Home Exiting (At) Home.
These will be illustrated over the next three pages. The user journey shows how the service would work for Charlie and Louise-Margret, who join the service in their twenties and live at Home in a series of properties throughout their lives. 81 Deliver
Blueprint 01: Joining (At) Home Becoming Aware
Customer Actions
Housing Agency
Join Scheme
Move In
Credit Checks Agree Equity Level
Set Up Billing
Manage Vacancies
Move in Process (Keys, Utlity Billing)
Viewing Availability
Online
Front Office
Search
Meet housemates / View Property & Decide
Front Office (Compare with Estate Agent)
Arrange viewings. Arrange meetings for shared units (with flatmates)
Sales & Marketing Agency Housing Committee (Employees & Tenants)
Back Office
Finance
Updating Availability
Housing & Availability
Blueprint Structure. Page 01 - Joining up Page 02 - Living Page 03 - Exiting
01 Join
02 Living
03 Exit
Joining (at)Home There will be a marketing presence for the equity level that a person wants to invest. scheme to make people aware of it and of This can be from the minimum level of 0.5%, the type of ways in which it can help you. to a basic 1%, standard 2.5% and maximum 5% level. People will be able to search online for properties that meet their needs. There are Note that unlike mortgages there is no a variety of different property types, one, deposit to pay. Once the person has agreed two and three bedroom plus the ability to flat to join the scheme the moving in process share. sets up billing for rent/equity is plus billing for utilities, and arrangements are made for keys If they decide they want a unit within a flat to be handed over. share an interview is set up with the potential flatmates. Either party can decide they do not want to share. On applying to join the scheme, credit checks will be carried out. The housing department will decide what is affordable including the
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Blueprint 02: Living (At) Home Payments
Customer Actions
Front Office
Online
Online Banking Direct Debits
Housing Agency
Card Payments
Valuation
Re-location
Repairs
Relocation Request
Repair Request
Discuss Communal work
Housing Committee (Employees & Tenants) Payent Processing, Arrears
Finance
Housing & Availability
Blueprint Structure. Page 01 - Joining up Page 02 - Living Page 03 - Exiting
01 Join
Complaints
Discuss Communal work
Arbitration
Print Share Certificates / Valuation report
Sales & Marketing Agency
Back Office
Preventative maintenance
Evictions
02 Living
03 Exit
Valuation Manage Vacanicies (to joining-up vacancies
Repairs
Schedule Preventative maintenance.
Living (at)Home Payments Each month there will be a bill which includes both the rental and equity components. The bill processing function will deal with processing arrears and ultimately it could lead to evictions. Annually there will be a valuation process - this will provide an annual valuation for each customer. The valuation will be based upon the amount invested by the customer and the House Price Inflation index for Scotland. Individual valuations of houses will not be carried out. A share certificate will be issued annually telling the customer how many shares in the (At) Home scheme they now own.
Relocation A relocation process will be set up. This is one of the more interesting aspects of the scheme, compared to normal home ownership. If a customer wants to move somewhere else within Scotland and there is availability of houses within (At) Home they can remain within the scheme and simply move to a new property. There is no need for estate agents fees. There is no stamp duty to pay. Building and Maintenance There is a building and maintenance department that carries out periodic planned maintenance tasks plus repairs to the fabric of the building. These include preventative tasks (for example gutter clearing) and
painting of communal areas. They also carry out reactive work when a person has a problem. Arbitration There will be a complaints process for dealing with anti-social behaviour. There will be a panel consisting of fellow tenants who will provide arbitration services to decide on appropriate action to take.
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Blueprint 03: Exiting (At) Home Customer Actions
Exit Request
Equity Release
Stay Invested
Share Certificate
Online Banking Direct Debits
Online Housing Agency
Front Office
Property Release
Final Valuation
Sales & Marketing Agency
Draft Valuation Report
Re-market
Final Valuation Cert.
Valuation (draft)
Final Valuation
Payment. Share Purchase
Housing Committee (Employees & Tenants) Back Office
Finance
Housing & Availability Blueprint Structure. Page 01 - Joining up Page 02 - Living Page 03 - Exiting
01 Join
02 Living
Valuation (draft)
03 Exit
Property Examination, condition assessment
Exiting (at)Home Exit When a tenant wants to move to a property outside the scheme, they initiate the exit process. The finance department provide a draft valuation report for the property.
elsewhere. They may wish to cash in and use the equity as a deposit to buy a house. In either case the housing department will deal release the property back into the pool for re-allocation.
Equity Release For equity release, the customer is paid the final valuation and the (At) Home scheme purchases the shares - this is similar to a corporate share “buy-back” scheme. If the client stays invested then they are presented with a share certificate to the value of their final valuation scheme. Note that, as with any equity investment, the value of this certificate Stay Invested The tenant decides if they want to stay can go down as well as up. invested in the scheme. They may wish to keep the investment in the scheme and rent Property Release The property release process takes care of an examination of the condition of the property and a final valuation. Monthly billing direct debits are cancelled. The property is made ready for the next person – any necessary repairs are carried out.
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The story of Charlie & Louise Margret
(at) Home
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Charlie is a young graduate. He gets his first job in Glasgow. He needs to move to Glasgow but is not particularly well off. He has noticed an advert in this Sunday’s Observer and is intrigued.
He searches online to find housing and finds the (At) Home scheme. He looks at a variety of different properties and finds one that suits him.
He has an online interview through Skype with an advisor who talks him through the financial options available to him. He decides to join the scheme and invests the minimum level.
He jumps on the train to move to Glasgow. ‌ and moves into his first shared flat. 91 Deliver
Charlie is offered a promotion at the company’s Aberdeen office.
He is aware that he can relocate within the (At) Home scheme and checks out what is possible online. He has accumulated some equity over the past five years. He has to decide the type of property and the level of investment he wants to make.
He jumps on his trusty motorbike to move to Aberdeen and moves into a penthouse apartment. It costs more than the flat in Glasgow as it’s a luxury pad so he keeps the level of his investment at the minimum.
Charlie has not been enjoying life in Aberdeen. He found the locals unfriendly. He decides to move back to Glasgow and checks out the relocation process again.
This time he has more money to play with and is a little more mature. He wants to raise his level of investment to save more. He also wants to move into a flat share because he has felt lonely in Aberdeen and enjoys the social side of flat sharing.
He gets in his car and drives to Glasgow ‌ where he moves into a flat share apartment. 93 Deliver
Charlie has fallen in love with Louise-Margret. They decide to pool their resources and get a flat together.
The value of their equity they have jointly invested over the years is added together and reduces the rental component they will pay each month.
They decide to invest 2.5% jointly. and re-locate to a two bedroom flat in Glasgow.
They now have two little terrors who could be doing with more time outdoors.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a house with a garden?
They move to a house with room for the kids to play outside.
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Charlie and Louise-Marget are growing old together in their home. Annually they get a valuation and a share certificate from the (At) Home scheme.
They have accumulated a level of equity that means they pay less and less rent as the years progress, and they are looking forward to retirement. Their pensions will let them buy some of the better things in life without being mostly spent on housing costs.
The scheme has made them able to start buying property at a relatively young age and made them more secure in old age.
The story of Charlie & Louise Margret
(at) Home
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Financials We constructed a high level financial model of how the scheme might work. This involves constructing 25,000 houses in the major cities across the country. There would be a mixture of one, two and three bedroom units plus a number of “communal living” units which would have five individual bedrooms plus two bathrooms, a kitchen and a shared living room. The mixture of the units would be
calculated as £2.45 billion pounds – this is a major financial commitment which would add around 1.5% to Scotland’s share of the national debt post-independence. But it would also add £3 billion pounds to the country’s assets.
There are substantial running costs associated with the project. We have estimated that it will require an organisation of 500 people to manage, and there will be 15,000 one bedroom units interest and debt repayment to pay. Overall 7,000 two bedroom units in the first year, running costs would be £147 2,000 three bedroom units million pounds, based on paying off 1.5% of 1,000 five bedroom shared units (targeted at the debt incurred in the building programme. students/young people) The people living in these homes would pay a The cost of constructing these has been monthly fee consisting of two components –
a rent component and an equity component. The rent component has been calculated to cover the running costs of the programme including the financing and the maintenance and repairs. The equity component will allow people to invest at four different levels – at the bare minimum this will be half a percent of the value of the house and it can be up to five percent. Only people living in the houses will be allowed to invest in the programme, though once people leave the scheme they will be allowed to sell their investment.
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Financials Continued The levels of rent would be consistent The scheme could choose to treat this £81 million at the end of year one. This is due to £44 million having been invested, and with the current renting market place. For investment in a few different ways. example, a person investing the minimum £37 million debt repaid. in a one bedroom flat would pay £483 per • If there was felt to be a need for month. A family in a three bed investing the more houses, this could fund further minimum would pay £858. construction. • The debt could be repaid more quickly For the purpose of our model we have • The money could be retained as estimated that different proportions of people working capital. would invest at different levels based on their • Or a mixture of the above. financial circumstances. For example, in our shared units we estimated that 80% of At the end of the first year the investors people would invest the bare minimum, with would own 6.8% of the organisation, with the higher levels of investment in the other units. government owning the remainder. Before Overall we estimated that £44 million would we consider fluctuations in house prices, the be invested in the first year. scheme would be better off to the tune of 101 Deliver
Financials continued The scheme would be subject to a level of risk based on the rise or fall of house prices. Using the Halifax House Price index as a gauge, where the value of houses fell by -0.4% in Scotland over the last year, the value of houses would have fallen by £12 million. But this is more than compensated for by the repayment of interest and the additional investment. However there are circumstances under which the investors, and the government, could make a loss on their investment. If house prices fall consistently then the value of the investment will drop. But at the minimum level of investment people
are paying no more than they would in the private rental market. For the individual, although house prices can go down, there is more financial flexibility. If a person had bought a house, and the value of the house declined, then they are in “negative equity”. If changes to their work or family circumstances mean they need to move, then selling at this stage means that the loss is realised at this point. But under the scheme, they do not need to sell – they can stay invested in the scheme when they move and they do not incur estate agent costs or stamp duty either.
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Stakeholder Delivery We delivered the concept back to two of the key expert stakeholders. In order to maintain a narrative to this project as a whole, we decided that this delivery should reflect some of the methods and tools used in the journey of the project. We took our analysis game and developed it one last time into a delivery game. Of course the delivery game had more to it than just a continuation of the gamification methods used within this project. The concept we had developed had many benefits to it that required some sort of descriptive element or story. Using some of the language of monopoly with a twist allowed us to highlight some of these benefits without the need for lengthy descriptions. By using a map of Scotland with the major cities highlighted, some little model houses,
and flags to symbolise the house you live in, we could provide scenarios to the players for which they could respond with their thoughts, and intended actions if it was a real life scenario. Each player can create a scenario from rolling a dice. This would feature a work/education situation, a location, and a marital status. Within the game there are then scenarios that are thrown in to cause turbulence. You need to move to another city because of work. You are expecting a child. You need to go back to education. These ’shake-ups’ are factors that affect where are required to live, the way in which we live and our finances.
This game does not work like a typical game - with a goal to achieve, a winner or an end! However it does prove to be a good tool for engaging the stakeholder, and providing a variety of contexts to ground our new service.
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Stakeholder Delivery We invited Kyle Thornton back to talk through the (at)home concept, and test out the delivery tool. We also used the Charlie and Louise Margaret storyboards as a secondary tool. These proved useful in telling a story that is more ‘real’ and helped to explain how the service could work across a number of scenarios that include more than one person.
access a person would have to their equity accumuled. Would it be accessible at any time to cash in? If this was the case then he would have no hesitation in joining. Another comment made referred to the profits made by the government. Although it would be expected that a certain amount would be re-invested into new homes, and improving existing homes, could some money be invested back into the communities in which The feedback we received from Kyle was the housing is placed? very positive. Although he aspires to own a home, he liked the opportunities the service In response to the delivery method Kyle provided in accumulating equity. was very enthusiastic about the game and the technique in describing the service. I One concern he had was about how much think it was unexpected, and not something
that he is used to when asked to undertake interviews, or an experience that is likely to be comparable with the study of politics that he is used to. He remains interested in the project and the research techniques used.
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Stakeholder Delivery We took our final concept back to Ian for his thoughts and comments. We walked through the final presentation which we had just delivered to the tutors, and asked for advice in certain areas. He was in general impressed by the idea.
He thought that the mass procurement that a scheme such as this would make good economic sense. There would be a risk that you could create a monolithic inefficient organisation to manage the properties. Could this be an idea that would be franchised? Perhaps it could have representatives in each We talked about the financials a little. For of the Housing Associations in Scotland? social housing he estimated that a two bedroom house would cost around £100K He talked about the social make-up of to build, which would include the building the scheme. You need to think about the contractors profits. The house would sell for longevity and cohesion of neighbourhoods – between £120K and £130K. This did not have a mix of long and short term residents, include the site (land) costs. The Scottish be careful not to turn them into dormitories. Local Authorities own large areas of land, He mentioned the desire from people to prior to the financial crash they were selling personalise homes, beyond basic painting this off but it did not happen any more. and decorating. Need to think about how to cater for more substantial modifications.
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Conclusion The project has been successful on two counts. Firstly it has developed a viable proposal for a housing service that would benefit a large number of people. Secondly, it has developed tools that are a positive design outcome in their own right.
describing the service. Initially the design team used elements of Monopoly to desensitize discussions on an individual’s personal finances. This moved on to asking participants to co-design a game with the designers, which threw light on topics that would impact people’s financial well-being in The housing service provides a way into their journey through life. home ownership for people who may not otherwise have found this possible, and The data was then analysed using another in that way helps them have a secure game which choose topics at random, and future in their old age. The concept is fairly asked the team to examine those topics straightforward but has come about through in the context of four different political a highly innovative design process. scenarios. These scenarios were chosen to consider what Scotland might look like The design process featured some in 2044, if the 2014 referendum votes Yes inventive use of games as engagement or No, and if the economic outcome is tools, for the analysis of data, and for positive or negative. Finally the game asked
the players to exaggerate their responses to those topics and scenarios a number of times, to stretch the imagination of the team. The final game described the design outcome and can be used to let people see how the (at)Home scheme could work for them. How are housing needs affected by life events: a change of job, moving to another city, or another country, the birth of a child, retiring? In each of those scenarios the player is shown how the scheme will cater for those changes.
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Acknowledgements Tutors Elio Caccavale Stuart Bailey Brian Dixon Mairi MacKenzie
Subject Matter Experts Professor David Bell Ian Alexander Kyle Thornton ... and all our individual interviewees
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