Dare to be different with public services

Monday, June 21, 2010

Cuts in public service spending have been inevitable for some time. Julia Slay of the New Economics Foundation suggests a shift to a more organic, sustainable system is now essential

In all the debate about the future of our public services one thing has been missing: the possibility of radical system transformation. Pivotal moments such as these should be ripe for reflection and innovation, but infuriatingly for too many public services this opportunity will result in a retreat to core business, struggling to deliver the same old services with diminishing budgets and limited impact.

There is, however, a silver lining. While cuts have been inevitable for some time, many public sector professionals were wondering whether they could dare to be different, put forward those bold ideas they always thought could deliver significantly better outcomes for people and begin to shape a new direction for public services.

The concept and practice of co-production offers such an alternative. It describes a wider transformation of our public services by bringing new resources – people's time, skills and experience – into the system.

Mention co-production and the chances are most people won't know what you are talking about. But although the vocabulary is somewhat obscure, in practice it is happening all around us. Co-production means delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and neighbours. Where activities are co-produced, services and neighbourhoods become effective agents of change. Almost any service can be co- produced – while the actual process and activities can vary, the way of working always looks and feels the same, based on principles which underpin everyday practice, as well as in strategic level governance.

Local Area Coordination (LAC), a model developed in Australia, demonstrates the fundamental shift from someone having a "voice" in the service to being an active agent in its creation. The model employs a local area coordinator linked to between 50 and 60 individuals with disabilities. Instead of starting with the question "What do you need?" – which lends itself to specialist delivery interventions – the coordinator asks "What kind of life do you want to live?" The answers to this question often involve: friendships, a job, living independently and, frequently, a life free from the components which have traditionally made up disability services.

The coordinator works with each individual to identify local networks and resources, such as a church group, library or local timebank that they can connect with, integrating the individual into local networks rather than allocating them into specialist groups and institutions. Funding and support is devolved to individuals and attention is paid to existing support structures, such as family or friends. The result has been a shift from residential care or drop-in centres and towards a more organic public department which has lower costs, and more sustainable outcomes.

In education, Learning to Lead is a national programme of self-elected school councils where students run a range of action groups, from the food growing team to school improvements and science class advisory groups. Young people identify their own areas for action, set agendas, run projects, set targets, and are active at the point of delivery. Their action allows them to become, as one student said, "the crew and not the passengers" of their education, and in providing students with the space and responsibility they develop valuable skills and a vested interest in their school and education.

But all too often this common sense, equitable approach is marginalised in favour of specialist service interventions, a professional model of support shaped by the notion of needs rather than capacities, and leading to what Ed Miliband has described as "a letterbox approach" to delivering public services.

The frontline public (and Third) sector staff who are already experimenting with a co-productive approach all speak of the transformational effect it has had on the service, and the better outcomes for those who use – or co-produce – services.

The theoretical model leans on several principles, outlined below. However, when these principles are combined they represent a significant difference between co-produced services and our more traditional deficit model.
• Building on people's existing capabilities: altering the delivery model of public services from a deficit approach to one that provides opportunities to recognise people's capabilities and support them to put these to use
• Mutuality and reciprocity: offering people a range of incentives which enable them to work in reciprocal relationships with professionals and with each other, where they have mutual responsibilities and expectations
• Peer support networks: engaging peer and personal networks alongside professionals as the best way of supporting change
• Blurring distinctions: blurring the distinction between professionals and recipients, and between producers and consumers of services, by reconfiguring the way services are developed and delivered
• Facilitating rather than delivering: enabling public service agencies to become catalysts and facilitators of change rather than central providers of services themselves
• Recognising people as assets: transforming the perception of people from passive recipients of services into one where they are equal partners in designing and delivering services.

These principles are not abstract values, but are rooted in the approach of co-production that we have seen across hundreds of organisations within the UK and globally.

It is at times like this when we need people to dare to be radical and innovative, and engage with the new opportunities that co-production represents. Whatever the political result of the election, we are facing a future where the purse strings of the public sector are significantly tightened. As an election flyer through the door the other day reminded me: "You can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result."