From Engagement to Co-production: How Users and Communities Contribute to Outcomes and Public Value

What is it about?

User and community co-production has always been important, but rarely noticed. However, there has recently been a movement towards seeing co-production as a key driver for improving publicly valued outcomes, e.g. through triggering behaviour change and preventing future problems. However, citizens are only willing to co-produce in a relatively narrow range of activities that are genuinely important to them and are keen that their co-production effort is not wasted by public agencies. Moreover, there are concerns that co-production may involve greater risks than professionalised service provision, although services may be quality assured more successfully through involving users and embedding them in the community. While offering potential significant improvements in outcomes, and cost savings, co-production is not resource-free. Co-production may be ‘value for money’, but it usually cannot produce value without money.

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Why is it important?

This article looks at the theoretical foundations of co-production from a range of perspectives, showing how its potential contribution to public services and publicly-desired outcomes has been under-appreciated by social sciences until quite recently.

Perspectives