Co-production needs to go mainstream says Nesta

‘Right Here, Right Now: Taking co-production into the mainstream’ says that co-production is developing strongly on the periphery of public services, especially in social care and supported housing. However, it should become the default model for a range of other services including healthcare, criminal justice, education and welfare to work.
 
The underlying principle of co-production is that people’s needs are better met when they are involved in equal and reciprocal relationships with professionals and others, working together to get things done.   

The report sets out recommendations to make co-production the norm to transforming public services so that they are effective, affordable and sustainable in the long term. These include:
 

• Changing the way services are managed and delivered by retraining professionals to be facilitators working in partnership with users
• Changing the way services are commissioned so that they focus on outcomes rather than mandating how services are delivered
• Opening up new opportunities for co-production through a ‘Co-production Guarantee’ which would free up services to use co-production and embed it in their own operations.

 
Philip Colligan, Executive Director of NESTA’s Public Services Lab says: ‘Co-production is about organising services with people rather than doing services to them.  It is a simple idea whose time has come. NESTA’s work with nef and front line practitioners, has given us valuable insights into how co-production can tackle the root causes of people’s problems and make a genuine difference over the long term’.
 
Public services face huge challenges ahead – a perfect storm – the need to reduce a £155 billion deficit, growing demands from an ageing population, the consequences of lifestyle choices such as obesity, changing expectations and persistent challenges like drug and alcohol abuse. NESTA and nef’s work in this area has shown that co-production has the potential to transform public services so that they are better positioned to meet these challenges.
 
Co-production requires a fundamental change in the way services are currently offered because it is based on relationships rather than departmental structures. It offers an effective way of combining the public resources allocated to services with the assets of those who are intended to benefit from them promising better outcomes and a reduction of unnecessary waste.
 
Anna Coote, Head of Social Policy at nef says: ‘The conventional model of public services delivery does not address the underlying reasons why many rely on public services in the first place. 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.’