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This article is provided courtesy of the news feed at http://www.newstartmag.co.uk/news
Co-production of local public services offers the best chance of making Big Society a success, according to a new report.
Right here, right now calls for a radical shake-up in the way services are delivered, so that users become equal partners.
Only co-production ‘can break through the stultifying “doing to” culture of mainstream public services that saps power and confidence from the people they are trying to help’, it says.
The paper is the third and final report from Nesta and the New Economics Foundation (Nef) on the subject.
Co-production is most commonly seen in social care and housing but the authors believe regeneration and welfare to work are among areas that could benefit and are keen for it to be tested out.
‘It moves far beyond “citizen engagement” or service user involvement in governance. It changes people from being “voices” to being agents in the design and delivery of public services,’ the report says.
The report identifies four main barriers to co-production becoming the norm in public service delivery: it can look ‘messier’ to funders and commissioners used to rigid objectives; it’s difficult to measure the benefits – they’re often long-term and complex; scaling up co-production will be difficult because it’s competing against an established way of doing things; and it requires a mixture of skills that will take time to develop.
Nesta and Nef are looking at ways to tackle these challenges, including working with commissioners to find ways of opening up to new ideas and developing tools to help prove the value of co-production.
Among the report’s recommendations is the need to make co-production ‘everybody’s business’ – not the responsibility of a new cohort of ‘co-production champions’.
Frontline staff must shift from being ‘fixers of problems and guardians of resources’ to become ‘partners, mentors, facilitators and catalysts’.
Rewards such as cut-price cinema tickets should be offered to give people an incentive to get involved. Co-production also needs to be built into the commissioning framework, says the report.
‘Co-production is central to delivering the Big Society vision because it offers a way of integrating the public resources that are earmarked for services with the private assets of those who are intended to benefit from services,’ it says.
Philip Colligan, executive director of Nesta's Public Services Lab, described co-production as ‘a simple idea whose time has come’.
Anna Coote, head of social policy at Nef and co-author of the report, believes conventional public service delivery 'does not address the underlying reasons why many rely on public services in the first place'.
She added: ‘This method of service delivery has disempowered those people who are most in need of care.
'If we don’t re-align the relationship between the state and citizens, we will be left with both in disarray: an unsustainable system and citizens who will have to fend for themselves.' |
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