🌱 From cracks to crocuses: What Easter can teach us about changing public services
Easter is a season of renewal. A story of endings and beginnings. Of holding grief and hope at the same time.
For those of us working in public services, that feels familiar.
We’re facing shrinking budgets, rising pressures, and systems fraying at the seams. But through those cracks, we’re seeing something else emerge:
🌼 new ways of working, grounded in trust, care and collective imagination.
Here’s what Easter might teach us about how change really happens in local public services — through stories not of scale and speed, but of soil and spirit.
1. 🥚 Cracks don’t mean collapse — they mean emergence
The Easter story starts not with celebration, but rupture. A tomb rolled open. A system undone.
And in public services, we’re surrounded by similar fault lines. But not every crack is a failure. Sometimes, it’s where possibility starts to push through.
🛠️ In Wigan, their transformation began when they stopped patching up old systems and started trusting people. The Wigan Deal rebalanced power between the council and communities, enabling everything from care innovation to community-run assets.
🌿 In Adur & Worthing, rather than design services for people, we’ve begun designing them with people. From residents shaping the future of their neighbourhoods, to artists and communities reimagining public space, we’re learning that community insight isn’t an add-on — it’s the beginning.
2. 🌑 Change needs the courage to pause in the dark
Easter holds space for uncertainty — the in-between moment where nothing seems to be happening, but everything is quietly shifting.
Transformation in public services often skips this pause. But real change needs time to reflect, compost and reconnect.
🌀 In Camden, the Centre for Relational Practice gives public service teams the space to reflect on the human dynamics of their work. It’s not about fixing people — it’s about building trust, seeing whole stories, and restoring connection.
Camden Relational Practice🫶 In Adur & Worthing, we’ve learned that during service redesigns — from planning to people — what matters most is not just what changes, but how. We’ve made time for teams to breathe, grieve, adapt and co-create. We call it “making change feel human.”
3. 🐣 Resurrection is not restoration
Easter doesn’t end with “getting back to normal.” It brings something unfamiliar and new into being. And that’s what our communities are asking for too — not just better versions of broken systems, but a whole new way of doing things.
🌱 In Northumberland, residents helped reimagine the town centre in Blyth — shaping everything from social infrastructure to green jobs as part of a people-powered renewal strategy.
The Heart of Blyth🧪 In Adur & Worthing, we’ve stopped waiting for perfect solutions and started prototyping real ones. Our Kitchen Table fund, test & learn helps people create their own responses — like warm hubs and creative meet-ups — funded by both the council and their neighbours.
These aren’t old systems restored. They’re new futures emerging.
4. ✨ Hope is a group project
In the Easter story, change spreads not through edicts, but people. Through shared meals, trusted conversations, and collective acts of care.
It’s the same in public services. The boldest ideas often begin in overlooked places — a staff room, a street corner, a community kitchen.
🧭 In Bolton, a Peer Navigator programme empowers people with lived experience of homelessness or addiction to walk alongside others navigating the system. It builds trust where formal services often can’t.
Bolton at Home — Peer Navigators🤝 In Adur & Worthing, our Community Leaders programme brings together artists, organisers, council teams and residents every month. We share what’s changing, what’s challenging, and where we can build something better together. It’s a space for honesty and action, not hierarchy.
🌍 And through our Thriving Together programme, we’re bringing this spirit to our future governance — inviting residents to help shape Adur & Worthing’s plan for devolution by autumn 2025, not as consultees, but co-designers.
5. 🌸 Change needs compost, not just code
Spring doesn’t arrive all at once. It creeps in. Bud by bud. Compost before crocus.
Public service change isn’t about the next silver bullet. It’s about slowing down enough to let things grow properly — rooted in care, not control.
🧠 In Doncaster, their Compassionate Approach to early help focused less on formal assessments, and more on listening, curiosity, and family-led planning. Change bloomed through relationships, not checklists.
It’s not fast. But it’s alive.
🌞 Final thought: Let change feel like spring
Easter reminds us that transformation isn’t tidy. It’s relational. It’s slow. It requires us to let go, sit with the unknown, and believe that something better can bloom — even from loss.
Across local public services, that’s exactly what we’re learning to do:
- To plant the seeds of something new.
- To co-create the conditions for renewal.
So wherever you are — council, health team, housing service, or community partner — let’s not rush. Let’s change like it’s spring.
With care. With trust. With crocuses coming through the cracks.
