The Public Practice

The Public Practice podcast is about the craft of public innovation: the skills, the strategies, and the conditions that let real change happen. We dig into it through conversations, case studies, and stories from the field, all centred on the actual work it takes to make public systems run better. Co-hosts Nick Scott and Jason Pearman have done versions of this work themselves, in Canada and abroad, and that shows up in every conversation. Nick and Jason interview as peers - it feels less like a reporter running a Q&A and more like two senior staff comparing notes with a third. We assume our guests know things worth learning, and we ask like it. Each episode follows one guest’s path. How they got into the work, what nearly stopped them, and what they’d tell someone standing where they once stood. We treat public service as a craft, change as real labour, and reform as something built slowly by people who keep showing up. Public sector reform moves slowly, and a lot of what makes it work lives only in people’s heads. When a seasoned practitioner retires or moves on, that knowledge usually walks out the door with them. This show is our way of catching it, making sense of it, and handing it forward. The Public Practice continues the work we started with the GovMaker Podcast. While we're in the process of bringing our back catalogue together, you'll find Seasons 1 and 2 under the original show, GovMaker Podcast, and all new episodes here. New episodes are published monthly during active seasons, with breaks for production and research. The Public Practice is part of Public Works - an independent research initiative exploring how to build the public sector's capacity to respond to complex challenges.