Democratising the systems of power: London’s new models for safety, accountability and prevention

Themes: Social | Civic innovation

Across London, service design is reshaping systems traditionally closed to public influence, from policing oversight and violence prevention to prison rehabilitation.

Working with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, we co-designed 3 first-of-their-kind programmes that democratise decision making and improve outcomes, centred around those affected by system harm: victim-survivors, prisoners, and overpoliced and underrepresented communities.

Amplifying lived experience alone is not enough - democratisation requires a whole ecosystem approach. These programmes brought together statutory agencies, frontline practitioners, community organisations and partners across sectors to shape interventions and conditions for change.

This session explores how London is becoming a global trailblazer in delivering system-wide change and enabling genuine participation to influence high-stakes public systems - at a scale few cities can achieve.

Participant takeaways:

• learn how to democratise decision-making within systems traditionally resistant to participation
• identify practical methods for engaging the ‘hidden who’, people most affected but least heard, through trauma-informed, asset based and ecosystem-wide design approaches
• balance system-level strategy with human-centred lived experience, creating solutions that are legitimate, trusted and effective
• learn what it takes to build strong, long-term partnerships across public sector institutions and communities in politically sensitive, contested, high-stakes environments and contexts
• design placemaking solutions that can be scaled for a global city like London