Motivation matters in public sector innovation because new ideas only become better services when someone cares enough to propose them, test them and see them through. Technology, budgets and strategy documents all help, but every change in a school, hospital, council or government department still depends on people choosing to put in extra effort. This guide explains what the research says, using Public Service Motivation, self-determination theory and dated UK evidence.
Why public sector innovation depends on people
Public sector innovation means introducing new or improved ways of delivering public services and solving public problems. That could be a redesigned website for renewing a passport, a new way of booking hospital appointments or a different method for collecting recycling. The OECD’s Observatory of Public Sector Innovation describes four broad types in its Public Sector Innovation Facets model: mission-oriented, anticipatory, adaptive and enhancement-oriented innovation.
In every one of those types, somebody has to notice a problem, suggest a change and keep going when the first attempt does not work. The OECD’s 2017 report on core skills for public sector innovation makes the same point in its first call to action: that governments must invest in the capacity and capabilities of civil servants, who are the catalysts of innovation.
That is a useful corrective to a common assumption. Many people think innovation is driven mainly by gadgets, software or clever ideas. In practice an idea sitting in a notebook changes nothing. What matters is whether the person holding it is willing to argue for it, adapt it and take responsibility for the outcome.
Why innovation is harder in the public sector
Public organisations face pressures that many businesses do not. They are accountable to ministers, councillors and taxpayers. Spending is scrutinised, rules are strict and a mistake can become a news story. All of this is reasonable, because public money and public trust are at stake. The side effect is that trying something new can feel risky for the individual employee, while keeping to the established process feels safe.
There is also a measurement problem. A company can track sales. A school, a hospital or a benefits office has no single number that says “you improved”. So the reward for innovating is often less visible, and motivation has to come from somewhere other than a bonus or a share price.
This is why the question “what motivates public servants to innovate?” has attracted decades of research. The answer turns out to be more interesting than “pay them more”.
What is motivation?
Motivation is the set of reasons that make a person start an activity, keep doing it and put effort into doing it well. Psychologists usually separate two broad kinds.
- Intrinsic motivation is doing something because it is interesting, enjoyable or meaningful in itself. A developer fixes a confusing form because it bothers them that users get stuck.
- Extrinsic motivation is doing something to gain a reward or avoid a penalty: pay, promotion, praise, a deadline, a target or fear of criticism.
Neither is “good” or “bad”. Everyone needs to be paid, and rewards can be useful signals. The research question is how the two interact, because, as you will see below, some extrinsic rewards can quietly weaken intrinsic drive. If you want a plain-language introduction to this idea for study and work, see why motivation is important at the workplace.
Motivation also works at different levels. A person can be motivated by the task (“this problem is fascinating”), by the team (“I do not want to let colleagues down”) or by the mission (“this will help patients”). Public sector work offers a particularly strong mission level, and that is exactly what the next theory is about.
Public Service Motivation: a reason that is specific to public work
In 1990 James Perry and Lois Wise published “The Motivational Bases of Public Service” in the journal Public Administration Review (volume 50, issue 3, pages 367–373). They defined public service motivation (PSM) as “an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions and organizations” (Perry and Wise, 1990).
In everyday language, PSM is the pull some people feel towards work that serves the public: a wish to help others, to contribute to society and to do something that matters beyond their own pay cheque. It does not mean public servants are saints, and private sector workers can be just as generous. The claim is that public institutions attract and reward a particular set of motives.
The scale most researchers later used to measure PSM (Perry, 1996) has 24 items and four dimensions:
- Attraction to public policy making – interest in shaping decisions that affect communities.
- Commitment to the public interest – a sense of civic duty.
- Compassion – concern for people who are vulnerable or struggling.
- Self-sacrifice – willingness to put the public good ahead of personal gain.
A systematic review by Ritz, Brewer and Neumann, published in Public Administration Review in 2016, defines PSM as a predisposition to behave altruistically when performing job duties. It also found that good people-management practices, such as job enrichment, participation, professional development, flexible hours and fair rewards, are modestly associated with higher PSM. In other words, an organisation can nurture the motive or wear it down.
Research on motivation is a good example of how psychologists test ideas with surveys and experiments. If you are curious about how those methods work, read about the scientific method in psychology.
Self-determination theory: what keeps motivation healthy
Public Service Motivation explains why people are drawn to public work. Self-determination theory (SDT) explains what helps that drive survive once they are inside an organisation. It was developed by the psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, who formalised it in the mid-1980s, and it was set out for a wide audience in Ryan and Deci’s 2000 paper in American Psychologist.
SDT proposes that people have three basic psychological needs. When a workplace supports them, intrinsic motivation tends to grow. When it blocks them, motivation tends to shrink.
Now apply them to a public sector team. A caseworker who is allowed to redesign a confusing letter has autonomy. One who is given training in user research gains competence. One who works with colleagues and hears from the people the letter affects feels relatedness. Each need maps neatly onto something a manager can actually change.
When rewards backfire
One of the most cited findings in this field is the undermining effect. In experiments reported by Deci in 1971, people who were paid money for doing an activity they already found interesting later showed less intrinsic interest in it, whereas verbal praise did not reduce interest and tended to increase it. The usual explanation is that money began to feel like control: “I do this because I am paid” replaced “I do this because I like it”.
This does not mean pay is irrelevant. Findings from experiments depend on the task and on how a reward is presented. A reward that feels informational (“you did this well”) behaves differently from one that feels controlling (“do this or lose that”). The practical lesson for public organisations is to pay fairly, then lean on purpose, learning and recognition rather than on bonus schemes for creativity. The same logic applies to school work; compare extrinsic motivation and study strategies for GCSE grades.
Why might a large cash bonus for “the best new idea” reduce creativity in some teams? (3 marks)
It can make the work feel controlled by the reward (autonomy falls); it can shift attention from the problem to winning (intrinsic interest falls); and it may discourage sharing ideas with colleagues because they become competitors (relatedness falls). Link to Deci’s 1971 undermining effect.
What research says about motivation and public sector innovation
Do public servants with higher PSM actually innovate more? Studies from several countries report that they do. A paper by Miao and colleagues in Public Administration Review (2018) examined how leadership and PSM relate to innovative behaviour, and later studies in other countries have reported positive links between PSM and innovative work behaviour among public employees.
These studies have limits worth knowing, and a careful reader should notice them.
- Most are surveys, which show association rather than proof of cause. Innovative people may simply report higher PSM.
- Results differ by country, job type and which of the four PSM dimensions is measured. Not every dimension matters equally in every study.
- Context matters. Employees with high PSM still hold back if leaders punish mistakes or if rules leave no room for experiments.
So the fair summary is this: purpose-driven motivation is repeatedly linked with more innovative behaviour, and the working environment decides whether that motivation turns into action. Motivation helps, but the environment decides whether it turns into action.
Case study: GOV.UK and the Government Digital Service
One of the best-known UK examples of public sector innovation is GOV.UK. It began with a 2010 report by Martha Lane Fox, “Directgov 2010 and beyond: revolution not evolution”, which argued for transforming government’s online services. The Government Digital Service (GDS) was formed in April 2011 under a “digital by default” strategy. GOV.UK launched on 17 October 2012 and replaced two older sites, Directgov and Business Link.
Notice what GDS did beyond building a website. In 2012 it published government design principles that began with a simple rule: start with user needs. It worked in small iterative steps instead of one giant launch, and it grew from fewer than 200 staff in 2013 to about 500 by 2015. Later services built by the team include GOV.UK Pay, GOV.UK Notify and GOV.UK Forms, and GOV.UK Verify closed in April 2023, replaced by GOV.UK One Login. In January 2025 the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology announced that GDS and several related teams would merge into a reconstituted GDS.
Why is this a motivation story? Because the design principles gave civil servants permission and a purpose: make something simpler for the public. That supports all three SDT needs. Teams had autonomy to iterate, tools to build competence and a shared mission that created relatedness. This is an interpretation: no study cited here proves GDS succeeded because of motivation alone. It is an example of how the conditions described by SDT can look in practice.
UK evidence: what the Civil Service People Survey shows
The Civil Service People Survey is the UK government’s annual staff survey. In 2025, 343,961 civil servants from 102 organisations responded, a 59% response rate (61% in 2024).
The headline measure is the employee engagement index. In 2025 it was 65%, up one percentage point from 64% in 2024. The published highlights also report scores for individual themes. The one figure used here is pay and benefits:
| Theme (People Survey 2025) | Score | What it suggests for innovation |
|---|---|---|
| Pay and benefits | 40% (up 3 percentage points) | Pay is a weak point, so it cannot be the only lever |
| Learning and development | Fell 2 percentage points | Room to build competence |
| Organisational objectives and purpose | Stable | Sense of mission has held steady |
Read these as signals, not proof. Pay and benefits scored lowest of the themes mentioned here, learning and development fell slightly and purpose held steady. That fits the idea that public service motivation is a strength of the civil service but that other conditions, such as learning and pay, still need attention. Treat the “what it suggests” column as an interpretation: the survey measures opinions, not the causes of innovation.
The survey also asked civil servants who wanted to leave why. In 2025 the most common reasons given were a better pay and benefits package (39%), career progression (36%) and more interesting work (30%). Pay still matters. It simply is not the only thing, and in these figures it sits beside progression and learning. That fits SDT’s competence need: people want to grow.
The NHS: motivation under pressure
The NHS shows the other side of the story. Its annual Staff Survey is one of the largest workforce surveys in the UK. The 2025 results covered over 760,000 staff.
The survey includes questions on motivation, such as whether staff look forward to going to work, feel enthusiastic about their job and would recommend the NHS as a place to work. Exact scores are published each year in the national results briefing at nhsstaffsurveys.com.
Year-to-year changes in a survey of this size can be small, but they still show why leaders cannot assume that a strong sense of mission will last for ever. Purpose is a strong motive, but it is not an unlimited resource.
Be careful what you conclude. The surveys show how people feel, not why they feel it, and they do not tell us how many new ideas were lost. What they do show is that motivation is measurable, that it changes year by year and that it deserves the same attention as budgets and waiting lists.
What gets in the way of motivated innovation
If many public servants arrive with strong purpose, why is innovation still hard? The research and the survey patterns above point to a few recurring blockers.
- Fear of failure. When mistakes are punished, trying anything new is a personal risk. Supportive leadership creates what psychologists call psychological safety: the belief that you will not be punished for honest attempts or for raising concerns.
- Rigid rules and procedures. Rules protect the public, but if they leave no space to experiment, autonomy disappears.
- Weak change management. Survey results on leadership and managing change are a useful warning sign when staff are not convinced that change is well led.
- No time or tools. Ideas need time to test. Without it, even enthusiastic staff stop proposing them.
- Unfair or controlling rewards. Pay that feels unfair demotivates, and rewards that feel controlling can undermine intrinsic drive, as Deci’s early experiments showed.
Teams that overcome these blockers rarely do it alone. Innovation often needs people from different departments, professions and communities working together; our article on collaboration across networks explores why. Good collaboration also needs the right attitude to mistakes, which links to the growth mindset in teamwork.
OECD: skills and motivation go together
The OECD’s Observatory of Public Sector Innovation published a beta model of six core skills for public sector innovation. They are:
- Iteration – developing policies and services step by step, with prototypes and experiments.
- Data literacy – using data to inform innovation at every stage.
- User centricity – focusing on citizens’ needs.
- Curiosity – seeking and trying new ideas and ways of working.
- Storytelling – explaining change in an engaging way.
- Insurgency – challenging the status quo and working with unusual partners.
Notice how many of these are as much about attitude as technique. Curiosity and insurgency cannot be ordered into existence; they appear when people feel safe, capable and driven by purpose. Skills give someone the means to innovate; motivation supplies the will. A positive working climate also matters for wellbeing, which is a topic in our overview of positive psychology facts.
How leaders can motivate public sector innovation
Everything above points to one practical conclusion. Leaders cannot manufacture motivation, but they can build conditions in which it survives. Using SDT and the evidence in this article, a sensible set of habits looks like this.
- Explain the purpose: show how each piece of work helps real people.
- Give teams real choices about how they reach a goal (autonomy).
- Invest in training, coaching and time to learn (competence).
- Bring frontline staff and service users into the design of changes (relatedness).
- Run small experiments before large rollouts, and share what was learned.
- Treat honest failures as information, not as blame.
- Recognise good ideas with specific praise, and pay fairly.
- Show openness to change by changing something yourself.
The ticks in this checklist are saved in your browser, so you can use it as a self-audit for a team, a student society or a school project. It is not an official standard.
Why specific praise beats vague targets
Deci’s early work found that verbal praise did not reduce intrinsic interest and tended to increase it, whereas payment for an already interesting task did the opposite. Praise that names exactly what someone did, such as “your redesign removed two steps from the form”, tells the person they were effective, which feeds competence. A generic “well done” gives less information. Clear, realistic goals also help people see progress; see our guides to having realistic goals and achieving goals with minimum stress.
From motivation to public value
The chain below summarises the argument of this article. It is a model for thinking, not a law of nature: each arrow can break if the environment is wrong.
Public value here means better, faster and fairer services, wise use of public money and greater trust in institutions. Notice that motivation is the first link. Without it, ideas stay unspoken, experiments are never run and collaboration is a meeting rather than a habit. And if you or someone you work with is struggling at the first link, our article on what to do when you have no motivation to work offers practical first steps.
Check your understanding
Define public service motivation and name two of its four dimensions. (3 marks)
Public service motivation is an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions and organisations (Perry and Wise, 1990). Dimensions: attraction to public policy making, commitment to the public interest, compassion, self-sacrifice (any two).
Name the three basic psychological needs in self-determination theory and give a workplace example for one. (4 marks)
Autonomy, competence and relatedness. Example: letting a team choose how to redesign a service gives autonomy; training in user research builds competence; working closely with the people who use the service builds relatedness.
Frequently asked questions about motivation in public sector innovation
Why does motivation matter in public sector innovation?
Innovation depends on people noticing problems, proposing changes and persisting through setbacks. Public servants face strict rules and visible risk, so they need a strong reason to try something new. Purpose-driven motivation, supported by trust and learning, helps turn ideas into improved services.
What is public service motivation?
Public service motivation is a predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily in public institutions, defined by Perry and Wise in 1990. In plain terms, it is the wish to help others and serve the public interest. Researchers often measure it through four dimensions, including compassion and self-sacrifice.
What is self-determination theory?
Self-determination theory, developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, says people are most motivated when three needs are met: autonomy, competence and relatedness. It distinguishes intrinsic motivation, which comes from interest and meaning, from extrinsic motivation, which comes from rewards or pressure.
Do financial incentives motivate public sector employees to innovate?
Fair pay matters, and unfair pay demotivates. But Deci’s 1971 experiments found money could reduce interest in an already interesting task. Controlling bonuses for creativity can backfire. Most organisations do better by paying fairly, then supporting purpose, autonomy and learning.
What is the Civil Service People Survey?
It is the UK civil service’s annual staff survey. In 2025, 343,961 staff from 102 organisations responded, a 59% response rate. The engagement index was 65%, one point higher than the 64% recorded in 2024.
Why is innovation harder in government than in business?
Public bodies answer to taxpayers and ministers, follow strict procedures and have no single profit figure to show success. A failed experiment can attract public criticism, so staff may avoid risk. Leaders can reduce this barrier by encouraging small pilots and treating honest failures as learning.
What did GOV.UK change?
GOV.UK launched on 17 October 2012, replacing Directgov and Business Link with one site for government services. The Government Digital Service, set up in 2011, promoted user-centred design principles. It shows how a clear mission and iterative working can modernise public services.
What skills does the OECD say public servants need to innovate?
In its beta model, the OECD’s Observatory of Public Sector Innovation listed six core skills: iteration, data literacy, user centricity, curiosity, storytelling and insurgency. It also said governments should invest in civil servants as the catalysts of innovation.
How can leaders increase motivation for innovation?
Leaders can explain the purpose of the work, give teams choice in how they achieve goals, provide training and time to experiment, involve frontline staff and service users, treat honest failures as learning, and recognise specific achievements. Fair pay is the foundation.
Does low motivation hurt public services?
Surveys cannot prove cause, but they track warning signs. In the NHS Staff Survey 2025, over 760,000 staff responded, and questions on motivation are tracked year by year. Leaders use such figures to spot falling morale early and act on it.
