What is the Futures Framework?
The Futures Framework is a register of consultants and researchers that can be called upon by HM Government (HMG) Departments and Agencies and UK public bodies to support conducting work to think strategically about the long-term future and further developing these capabilities in government.
Perform Green’s Futures Framework Prospectus provides a summary of
- our ‘Futures’ expertise
- profiles of our people and
- case studies of relevant Futures projects.
Why is Futures work vital?
It is essential that government thinks strategically about the long-term future when developing and implementing policy. ‘Futures’ is one area that is helping government to do this. Conducting Futures work means thinking about how the future might turn out and developing policies and strategies that are resilient to a variety of possible futures, and implementing practices that are agile to respond to different futures. Expertise is often required to guide people through the process and evidence to give them the best possible understanding of the world.
The demand for Futures work, and other ‘fields’ that can help people to think about the long-term future (e.g. whole system analysis, present-day scanning, decision making support) in government is currently outstripping the capacity of the governments expertise. The Futures Framework will assist policymakers to quickly and with minimal cost identify and procure Futures and related services and capability development opportunities. The Framework will be used by government departments and agencies to support a range of activities, including, but not limited to, the techniques in the Government’s published Futures Toolkit.
Systems Thinking
There is increasing recognition across the public sector of the importance of applying Systems Thinking approaches to tackle policy and service delivery challenges. Perform Green support our clients to apply whole-system approaches to deliver positive change, co-creating a green and smart society, to leave more sustainable places, organisations, communities and the wider and economy.
Although we are able to provide training workshops and mentoring, our approach to capability development is most often through supporting our clients to deliver real projects focussed on real-world outcomes. Our key area of expertise, and our preference is working alongside people are making systems thinking real to them. All of our work, training, tools, workshops come from personal experiences of working with systems thinking for over 20 years.
We provide packages of work tailored to the needs of each client, focussed on guiding each organisation towards developing the capacity and capability of organisations. In the course of supporting project and programme delivery, our support will typically include a combination of:
- being a critical thinking partner;
- 1-1 and workshop-based training;
- mentoring and coaching;
- the provision of systems thinking tools and guidance in how to use them, including a suite of materials called Creating the Conditions for Change developed by Pauline Roberts, an accessible kit to support people to apply systems thinking in practice. This is a creative and accessible way of applying the viable system model, which is the first of its kind and not in mainstream academics.
You can download our Systems Thinking prospectus here.
Perform Green’s Futures Expertise
The key areas of expertise Perform Green can deliver under this framework are:
- Services for describing and explaining the characteristics of a policy area (including trend and driver analysis, and whole system analysis)
- Services for describing what the future might be like
- Services for developing and testing policies and strategies, and related decisions, particularly for their robustness and resilience
- Services for developing Futures capability within the Civil Service (including skills related to the above activities)
- Services and expertise related to specific fields (including, but not limited to, specific scientific and technological, social and economic fields).
You can download our wider Futures Framework prospectus here.
Find out more about our clients and projects here:
Perform Green Clients
Find out more about our people and values here:
Perform Green People
Explore other services that we deliver here:
Perform Green Services
If you have any queries about the procurement of services through the Futures Framework or our services in general please get in touch with us at: info@performgreen.co.uk