Co-production by Tony Bovaird
Palgrave Handbook of Co-production of Public Services and Outcomes, 2021
This Handbook provides a comprehensive and authoritative account of the movement towards co-produ... more This Handbook provides a comprehensive and authoritative account of the movement towards co-production of public services and outcomes, a topic which has recently become one of the most intensely debated in public management and administration, both in practice and in the academic literature. It explores in depth the processes of co-commissioning, co-design, co-delivery and co-assessment as major approaches to co-production through citizen voice and citizen action and as key mechanisms in the co-creation of public value. The key debates in the field are fully explored in chapters from over 50 eminent authors in the field, who examine the roots of co-production in the social sciences, the growth of co-production in policy and practice, its implementation and management in the public domain, and its governance, including its negative aspects (the ‘dark side’ of co-production). A final section discusses different aspects of the future research agenda for co-production.
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International Public Management Journal , 2019
There has recently been an upsurge of interest in the role of co-production in public services. T... more There has recently been an upsurge of interest in the role of co-production in public services. This paper focuses on how the capabilities of public service users and other citizens can improve the outcomes of public services such as policing and the criminal justice system, where the role of citizens is altering significantly. The paper develops a model of pathways to public service outcomes, showing the connections between citizen co-production and the core activities in policing and criminal justice, in line with the classic public policy model of problem prevention, detection, treatment, support for recovery and rehabilitation, and contribution to higher quality of life outcomes. The paper then explores the empirical evidence from the literature for the impacts of each of the identified pathways to outcomes in this co-production model. The literature review finds some evidence for almost all relationships modelled but also reveals serious limitations in the research base.
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Public Money and Management, 2019
Commissioning as a planning, resource mobilization and prioritization activity needs to harness u... more Commissioning as a planning, resource mobilization and prioritization activity needs to harness user and community co-production of public services and outcomes. Based on a Public Value Model, we map how commissioners can go beyond traditional consultation and participation processes to achieve co-commissioning with citizens. Moreover, we discuss how public sector organisations can use their strategic commissioning process to support and embed citizen voice and action in their prevention, treatment and rehabilitation strategies.
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Public Money and Management , 2019
This editorial article demonstrates the resurgence of interest in user and community co-productio... more This editorial article demonstrates the resurgence of interest in user and community co-production of public services and publicly-desired outcomes around the world. It summarises the content of seven in-depth papers on co-production from Britain (Elke Loeffler and Tony Bovaird; Robin Hambleton, Eleonora Broccardo and Maria Mazzuca), Northern Ireland (Anna Whicher and Tom Crick), Brazil (André Feliciano Lino, André Carlos Busanelli de Aquino, Ricardo Rocha de Azevedo and Lívia Martinez Brumatti), USA (Eleonora Broccardo and Maria Mazzuca) and New Zealand (Cherrie Yang and Deryl Northcott) and a paper which looks at empirical evidence from 18 different countries (Mariafrancesca Sicilia, Alessandro Sancino, Tina Nabatchi and Enrico Guarini). Co-production is alive. It highlights that co-production is alive and well - but at the same time, it fires a warning shot—co-production, like all public service interventions, does not work for all problems, nor for everyone, nor everywhere, nor every time. Context matters!
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Co-production and co-creation: Engaging citizens in public service delivery. London: Routledge. (Edited by aco Brandsen, Bram Verschuere and Trui Steen),, 2018
This chapter develops a conceptual model to distinguish the impacts of co-production and then sum... more This chapter develops a conceptual model to distinguish the impacts of co-production and then summarises the current state of evidence on how co-production policies, projects and initiatives have performed in terms of the improvements to outcomes, service quality, efficiency, social capital and governance principles which they have achieved. While the evidence is still sparse, there are indications that the potential of co-production is sufficient to justify wider experimentation in public policy and practice, as well as deeper research into the mechanisms causing these impacts.
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‘Co-production’? Does a day go past in the public sector without us hearing about it? But what ex... more ‘Co-production’? Does a day go past in the public sector without us hearing about it? But what exactly does it mean? Public Money & Management is committed to taking forward this debate with a theme issue in 2018 dedicated to co- production both empirically and theoretically. We are seeking contributions that address these questions and that provide rigorously demonstrated results (positive and negative) from initiatives and strategic approaches to engage more systematically with co-production in order to improve service outcomes. We welcome quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as theoretical integration. We look forward to your response!
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Much of the current discussion of user and community co-production makes strong claims for its po... more Much of the current discussion of user and community co-production makes strong claims for its potential to improve outcomes. How much is actually known about the level, drivers, and potential effects of co-production? In this article, some of the key claims made for co-production are examined and an assessment is made of how they stack up against the empirical evidence. In particular, some areas are identified in which practice must be cautious about the potential contribution of co-production, and where further research is needed.
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This article explores how a dynamic performance management (DPM) approach can give policy makers ... more This article explores how a dynamic performance management (DPM) approach can give policy makers a more integrated, time-related understanding of how to address wicked problems successfully. The article highlights how an outcome-based approach to solving wicked policy
problems has to balance three very contrasting objectives of stakeholders in the policy making process – improving service quality, improving quality of life outcomes and improving conformity to the principles of public governance. Simultaneous achievement of these three objectives may
not be feasible, as they may form an interactive dynamic system. However the balancing act between them may be achieved by the use of DPM. Policy insights from this novel approach are illustrated through a case study of a highly successful co-production intervention to help young
people with multiple disadvantages in Surrey, UK. The implications of DPM are that policy development needs to accept the important roles of emergent strategy and learning mechanisms, rather than attempting ‘blueprint’ strategic planning and control mechanisms. Some expectations
about the results may indeed be justifiable in particular policy systems, as clustering of quality of life outcomes and outcomes in the achievement of governance principles is likely, because behaviours are strongly inter-related. However, this clustering can never be taken for granted
but must be tested in each specific policy context. Undertaking simulations with the model and recalibrating it through time, as experience builds up, may allow learning in relation to overcoming barriers to achieving outcomes in the system.
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Voluntas, 23 (4): 1119–1138 , 2012
User and community co-production has always been important, but rarely noticed. However, there ha... more 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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Public Administration Review, Jan 1, 2007
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This report sets out the findings of a major research study into the role of co-production betwee... more This report sets out the findings of a major research study into the role of co-production between citizens and professionals in the delivery of public services in five EU states. It draws on data from a representative citizen survey in five European countries, including Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany and
the United Kingdom in May 2008 and from expert focus groups undertaken in those countries in early 2008. It is intended to contribute to the debate on how public agencies can deliver public services which best meet the needs of service users, citizens and taxpayers and the challenges for improving the future quality of public services.
2 Increasingly, we are seeing greater involvement of citizens in service delivery.Some of these developments have been driven by advances in ICT, particularly the internet, but there are also instances where citizens have begun to share with professionals some of the key service delivery tasks. It has also become clearer to service professionals over recent years that effective public services require the active contributions of both parties. Consequently, more and more service providers in the private and public sectors are seeking to co-operate with service users in order to tailor services better to their needs and to cut costs.
3 As a result, the relationship between service users and service professionals has changed profoundly, making service users less dependent, while, at the same time, giving them more responsibility. This has raised new interest in issues of co-production, a concept that is closely related to the inherent character of services. In particular, the literature on co-production highlights that production and consumption of many services are inseparable, which implies that quality in
services often occurs during service delivery, usually in the interaction between the customer and provider, rather than just at the end of the process. Therefore, the concept of co-production is a useful way of viewing the new role of citizens as
active participants in service delivery. Various objectives are being pursued by means of co-production, including improving public service quality by bringing in the expertise of the service
user, and often that of their families and communities as well,
into providing more differentiated services and increased choice, and making public services more responsive to users.
The definition of co-production used in this study is the “involvement of citizens in the delivery of public services to achieve outcomes, which depend at least partly on their own behaviour”.
4 Clearly, there is a wide range of citizen co-production roles in service delivery – from ‘hero’ to ‘zero’. Therefore, a citizen survey was undertaken to explore the level of this co-production between citizens and the public sector. However, to set this in context, the survey also explored the extent to which citizens sometimes become engaged in improving outcomes without any involvement with public sector agencies. In particular, the survey focussed on the following issues:
o How big is the role which citizens play in delivering public services?
o How does the involvement of citizens change their attitudes and expectations towards public services?
o Is the role of citizens in public service delivery likely to be more important in the future than at present? What are the obstacles and drivers of co-production in the public domain?
5. The survey was conducted by telephone from April 16 to May 5, 2008, among a representative random sample of 4,951 adults (18 years of age or older), with about 1,000 interviews in including Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The countries were chosen in order to get a wide range of different administrative cultures. The results presented in this report are sweighted according to each country’s representation in the European Union. In all the cases where we compare results across sectors or countries, the differences highlighted are statistically significant. Furthermore, the study focused on three different sectors which reflect distinctly different types of government functions:
o Community safety, as an example of coercive action on the part of the state
o Local environment, as an example of the regulatory function of the state
o Public health, as an example of the welfare improvement function of the state.
6. One key result of the survey is that, contrary to the assumptions made by focus group participants, there are significant levels of co-production by citizens in the five countries studied in all three sectors. Citizens are particularly active in taking steps to look after the local environment (index score 61), to a somewhat lesser degree in health improvement initiatives (index score 52) and considerably less active in prevention of crime (index score 45).
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Collection of papers on concept of co-production and case studies of co-commissioning, co-design,... more Collection of papers on concept of co-production and case studies of co-commissioning, co-design, co-delivery and co-assessment in Scotland
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This chapter explores two different theoretical strands in current thinking on co‐production, whi... more This chapter explores two different theoretical strands in current thinking on co‐production, which can deliver very different roles and outcomes. The first approach – user co‐production – focuses on how co‐production can deliver individualized benefits from the design and operation of public services, while the second approach – community co‐production – concentrates on more collective benefits which co‐production can bring. We show that this second approach is currently under‐developed and then go on to explore how the potential benefits of ‘collectivized’ co‐production might be more effectively captured by public service organizations. We suggest that the technological solutions required for ‘collective co‐production’ are distinctly different from those involved in ‘individualized co‐production’ and that collective co‐production based on Web 2.0 applications may in the future offer major improvements to public service outcomes.
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International Public Management Journal, 16 (1): 85 – 112 , 2013
We employ data from an original survey of citizens in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, and the C... more We employ data from an original survey of citizens in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, and the Czech Republic to examine correlates of citizen co-production of public services in three key policy areas: public safety, the environment, and health. The correlates of co-production we consider include demographic factors (age, gender, education, and employment status), community characteristics (urban,
non-urban), performance perceptions (how good a job government is doing), government outreach (providing information and seeking consultation), and self-efficacy
(how much of a difference citizens believe they can make). We also report on results from a series of focus groups on the topic of co-production held in each country.
Our results suggest that women and elderly citizens generally engage more often in co-production and that self-efficacy—the belief that citizens can make a difference—is an especially important determinant across sectors. Interestingly, good outcome performance (in the sense of a safe neighborhood, a clean environment, and good health) seems to discourage co-production somewhat. Thus citizens’ co-production appears to
depend in part on awareness of a shortfall in public performance on outcomes. Our results also provide some evidence that co-production is enhanced when governments
provide information or engage citizens in consultation. The specific determinants vary, however, not only by sector but across national contexts.
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Collection of papers on concept of co-production and international set of case studies on co-comm... more Collection of papers on concept of co-production and international set of case studies on co-commissioning, co-design, co-delivery and co-assessment
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Outlines conceptual framework for co-production and a five step change model for implementing co-... more Outlines conceptual framework for co-production and a five step change model for implementing co-production in public services
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Journal of Social Policy, 44 (1): 1-23 , 2015
User and community co-production of public services first became topical in the late 1970s, both ... more User and community co-production of public services first became topical in the late 1970s, both in private and public sectors. Recent interest has been triggered by recognition that the outcomes for which public agencies strive rely on multiple stakeholders, particularly service users and the communities in which they live. Extra salience has been given to the potential of co-production due to fiscal pressures facing governments since 2008. However, there has been little quantitative empirical research on citizen co-production behaviours. The authors therefore undertook a large-sample survey in five European countries to fill this gap. This article examines an especially significant finding from this research – the major gulf between current levels of collective co-production and individual co-production. It explores the drivers of these large differences and examines what the social policy implications would be if, given the potential benefits, the government wishes to encourage greater collective co-production.
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This Briefing Note investigates the evidence on how citizens already contribute – and might in fu... more This Briefing Note investigates the evidence on how citizens already contribute – and might in future contribute even more – to co-commissioning, co-designing, co-delivering and co-assessing those services and the outcomes which the public sector seeks to achieve.
We use the term ‘co-production’ as a convenient shorthand for this range of related concepts, in line with the growing international literature.
In preparing this research brief we have carried out a thorough search of the literature and contacted a range of academic and practitioner colleagues, nationally and internationally, who
are represented in this literature in order to identify further research not yet published. In searching the literature, we broke the research issues up into a number of research questions:
What is ‘co-production’?
In which contexts do co-production approaches appear to have worked?
How to achieve more commitment of local authorities to co-production?
How to achieve direct involvement of communities in co-production?
How to make ‘co-production’ approaches work?
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This Research Briefing reports research in the area of co-production which is developmental. It s... more This Research Briefing reports research in the area of co-production which is developmental. It sets out to explore the differing theoretical strands which contribute to current thinking on user and community co-production. It shows
that some of these strands predict very different roles – and outcomes – from coproduction. In particular, theories of coproduction predict that it can deliver either individualised benefits from the design and operation of public services or more collective benefits which result from the external effects
created by each co-producing user for other actual and potential users. However, the empirical evidence from our recent survey of citizens in five EU countries suggests that the
practice of co-production is dominated by individualised co-production.
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The most basic long-standing method of citizen engagement in public sector decision making is the... more The most basic long-standing method of citizen engagement in public sector decision making is the opportunity to vote at elections although at local level this sometimes only occurs once every four years. However, this mechanism is not enough either for citizens to communicate their wishes to the local authority or to hold the local authority to account. In the last two decades, many other mechanisms have emerged to allow citizens to engage with public sector organisations (Leach et al., 2005).
This policy paper explores the innovative methods used by some local authorities for engaging and communicating with their local electorate and stakeholders. It focuses in particular on efforts to move beyond engagement and participation to more intensive processes – including those labelled ‘co-production’ - where the public have a direct influence over policy and service delivery. It provides a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the importance of this shift in the relationship between the public and the public sector.
The paper draws upon three types of evidence; research conducted by the various Communities and Local Government (CLG) funded evaluations of policies associated with the 1998 and 2001 Local Government White Papers; primary research by the meta-evaluation team and a wide range of literature on public engagement and co-production. It complements the recent meta-evaluation reports on the ‘State of Governance of Places’ (Sullivan, 2008) and the ‘State of Local Democracy’ (Cowell et al, 2008).
This policy paper therefore:
• Explores the need for innovation by local authorities and local partners in engaging and communicating with local citizens.
• Provides a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the role of co-production in public services
• Identifies some negative and unintended impacts of increased involvement of users and other citizens.
• Highlights the scope for more innovative methods based upon current experience.
• Considers the learning opportunities from co-production (drawing upon national and international practice).
• Highlights some illustrative examples of good practice which can be disseminated across local government and local strategic partnerships.
• Draws out the lessons for policy makers.
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Co-production by Tony Bovaird
problems has to balance three very contrasting objectives of stakeholders in the policy making process – improving service quality, improving quality of life outcomes and improving conformity to the principles of public governance. Simultaneous achievement of these three objectives may
not be feasible, as they may form an interactive dynamic system. However the balancing act between them may be achieved by the use of DPM. Policy insights from this novel approach are illustrated through a case study of a highly successful co-production intervention to help young
people with multiple disadvantages in Surrey, UK. The implications of DPM are that policy development needs to accept the important roles of emergent strategy and learning mechanisms, rather than attempting ‘blueprint’ strategic planning and control mechanisms. Some expectations
about the results may indeed be justifiable in particular policy systems, as clustering of quality of life outcomes and outcomes in the achievement of governance principles is likely, because behaviours are strongly inter-related. However, this clustering can never be taken for granted
but must be tested in each specific policy context. Undertaking simulations with the model and recalibrating it through time, as experience builds up, may allow learning in relation to overcoming barriers to achieving outcomes in the system.
the United Kingdom in May 2008 and from expert focus groups undertaken in those countries in early 2008. It is intended to contribute to the debate on how public agencies can deliver public services which best meet the needs of service users, citizens and taxpayers and the challenges for improving the future quality of public services.
2 Increasingly, we are seeing greater involvement of citizens in service delivery.Some of these developments have been driven by advances in ICT, particularly the internet, but there are also instances where citizens have begun to share with professionals some of the key service delivery tasks. It has also become clearer to service professionals over recent years that effective public services require the active contributions of both parties. Consequently, more and more service providers in the private and public sectors are seeking to co-operate with service users in order to tailor services better to their needs and to cut costs.
3 As a result, the relationship between service users and service professionals has changed profoundly, making service users less dependent, while, at the same time, giving them more responsibility. This has raised new interest in issues of co-production, a concept that is closely related to the inherent character of services. In particular, the literature on co-production highlights that production and consumption of many services are inseparable, which implies that quality in
services often occurs during service delivery, usually in the interaction between the customer and provider, rather than just at the end of the process. Therefore, the concept of co-production is a useful way of viewing the new role of citizens as
active participants in service delivery. Various objectives are being pursued by means of co-production, including improving public service quality by bringing in the expertise of the service
user, and often that of their families and communities as well,
into providing more differentiated services and increased choice, and making public services more responsive to users.
The definition of co-production used in this study is the “involvement of citizens in the delivery of public services to achieve outcomes, which depend at least partly on their own behaviour”.
4 Clearly, there is a wide range of citizen co-production roles in service delivery – from ‘hero’ to ‘zero’. Therefore, a citizen survey was undertaken to explore the level of this co-production between citizens and the public sector. However, to set this in context, the survey also explored the extent to which citizens sometimes become engaged in improving outcomes without any involvement with public sector agencies. In particular, the survey focussed on the following issues:
o How big is the role which citizens play in delivering public services?
o How does the involvement of citizens change their attitudes and expectations towards public services?
o Is the role of citizens in public service delivery likely to be more important in the future than at present? What are the obstacles and drivers of co-production in the public domain?
5. The survey was conducted by telephone from April 16 to May 5, 2008, among a representative random sample of 4,951 adults (18 years of age or older), with about 1,000 interviews in including Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The countries were chosen in order to get a wide range of different administrative cultures. The results presented in this report are sweighted according to each country’s representation in the European Union. In all the cases where we compare results across sectors or countries, the differences highlighted are statistically significant. Furthermore, the study focused on three different sectors which reflect distinctly different types of government functions:
o Community safety, as an example of coercive action on the part of the state
o Local environment, as an example of the regulatory function of the state
o Public health, as an example of the welfare improvement function of the state.
6. One key result of the survey is that, contrary to the assumptions made by focus group participants, there are significant levels of co-production by citizens in the five countries studied in all three sectors. Citizens are particularly active in taking steps to look after the local environment (index score 61), to a somewhat lesser degree in health improvement initiatives (index score 52) and considerably less active in prevention of crime (index score 45).
non-urban), performance perceptions (how good a job government is doing), government outreach (providing information and seeking consultation), and self-efficacy
(how much of a difference citizens believe they can make). We also report on results from a series of focus groups on the topic of co-production held in each country.
Our results suggest that women and elderly citizens generally engage more often in co-production and that self-efficacy—the belief that citizens can make a difference—is an especially important determinant across sectors. Interestingly, good outcome performance (in the sense of a safe neighborhood, a clean environment, and good health) seems to discourage co-production somewhat. Thus citizens’ co-production appears to
depend in part on awareness of a shortfall in public performance on outcomes. Our results also provide some evidence that co-production is enhanced when governments
provide information or engage citizens in consultation. The specific determinants vary, however, not only by sector but across national contexts.
We use the term ‘co-production’ as a convenient shorthand for this range of related concepts, in line with the growing international literature.
In preparing this research brief we have carried out a thorough search of the literature and contacted a range of academic and practitioner colleagues, nationally and internationally, who
are represented in this literature in order to identify further research not yet published. In searching the literature, we broke the research issues up into a number of research questions:
What is ‘co-production’?
In which contexts do co-production approaches appear to have worked?
How to achieve more commitment of local authorities to co-production?
How to achieve direct involvement of communities in co-production?
How to make ‘co-production’ approaches work?
that some of these strands predict very different roles – and outcomes – from coproduction. In particular, theories of coproduction predict that it can deliver either individualised benefits from the design and operation of public services or more collective benefits which result from the external effects
created by each co-producing user for other actual and potential users. However, the empirical evidence from our recent survey of citizens in five EU countries suggests that the
practice of co-production is dominated by individualised co-production.
This policy paper explores the innovative methods used by some local authorities for engaging and communicating with their local electorate and stakeholders. It focuses in particular on efforts to move beyond engagement and participation to more intensive processes – including those labelled ‘co-production’ - where the public have a direct influence over policy and service delivery. It provides a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the importance of this shift in the relationship between the public and the public sector.
The paper draws upon three types of evidence; research conducted by the various Communities and Local Government (CLG) funded evaluations of policies associated with the 1998 and 2001 Local Government White Papers; primary research by the meta-evaluation team and a wide range of literature on public engagement and co-production. It complements the recent meta-evaluation reports on the ‘State of Governance of Places’ (Sullivan, 2008) and the ‘State of Local Democracy’ (Cowell et al, 2008).
This policy paper therefore:
• Explores the need for innovation by local authorities and local partners in engaging and communicating with local citizens.
• Provides a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the role of co-production in public services
• Identifies some negative and unintended impacts of increased involvement of users and other citizens.
• Highlights the scope for more innovative methods based upon current experience.
• Considers the learning opportunities from co-production (drawing upon national and international practice).
• Highlights some illustrative examples of good practice which can be disseminated across local government and local strategic partnerships.
• Draws out the lessons for policy makers.
problems has to balance three very contrasting objectives of stakeholders in the policy making process – improving service quality, improving quality of life outcomes and improving conformity to the principles of public governance. Simultaneous achievement of these three objectives may
not be feasible, as they may form an interactive dynamic system. However the balancing act between them may be achieved by the use of DPM. Policy insights from this novel approach are illustrated through a case study of a highly successful co-production intervention to help young
people with multiple disadvantages in Surrey, UK. The implications of DPM are that policy development needs to accept the important roles of emergent strategy and learning mechanisms, rather than attempting ‘blueprint’ strategic planning and control mechanisms. Some expectations
about the results may indeed be justifiable in particular policy systems, as clustering of quality of life outcomes and outcomes in the achievement of governance principles is likely, because behaviours are strongly inter-related. However, this clustering can never be taken for granted
but must be tested in each specific policy context. Undertaking simulations with the model and recalibrating it through time, as experience builds up, may allow learning in relation to overcoming barriers to achieving outcomes in the system.
the United Kingdom in May 2008 and from expert focus groups undertaken in those countries in early 2008. It is intended to contribute to the debate on how public agencies can deliver public services which best meet the needs of service users, citizens and taxpayers and the challenges for improving the future quality of public services.
2 Increasingly, we are seeing greater involvement of citizens in service delivery.Some of these developments have been driven by advances in ICT, particularly the internet, but there are also instances where citizens have begun to share with professionals some of the key service delivery tasks. It has also become clearer to service professionals over recent years that effective public services require the active contributions of both parties. Consequently, more and more service providers in the private and public sectors are seeking to co-operate with service users in order to tailor services better to their needs and to cut costs.
3 As a result, the relationship between service users and service professionals has changed profoundly, making service users less dependent, while, at the same time, giving them more responsibility. This has raised new interest in issues of co-production, a concept that is closely related to the inherent character of services. In particular, the literature on co-production highlights that production and consumption of many services are inseparable, which implies that quality in
services often occurs during service delivery, usually in the interaction between the customer and provider, rather than just at the end of the process. Therefore, the concept of co-production is a useful way of viewing the new role of citizens as
active participants in service delivery. Various objectives are being pursued by means of co-production, including improving public service quality by bringing in the expertise of the service
user, and often that of their families and communities as well,
into providing more differentiated services and increased choice, and making public services more responsive to users.
The definition of co-production used in this study is the “involvement of citizens in the delivery of public services to achieve outcomes, which depend at least partly on their own behaviour”.
4 Clearly, there is a wide range of citizen co-production roles in service delivery – from ‘hero’ to ‘zero’. Therefore, a citizen survey was undertaken to explore the level of this co-production between citizens and the public sector. However, to set this in context, the survey also explored the extent to which citizens sometimes become engaged in improving outcomes without any involvement with public sector agencies. In particular, the survey focussed on the following issues:
o How big is the role which citizens play in delivering public services?
o How does the involvement of citizens change their attitudes and expectations towards public services?
o Is the role of citizens in public service delivery likely to be more important in the future than at present? What are the obstacles and drivers of co-production in the public domain?
5. The survey was conducted by telephone from April 16 to May 5, 2008, among a representative random sample of 4,951 adults (18 years of age or older), with about 1,000 interviews in including Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The countries were chosen in order to get a wide range of different administrative cultures. The results presented in this report are sweighted according to each country’s representation in the European Union. In all the cases where we compare results across sectors or countries, the differences highlighted are statistically significant. Furthermore, the study focused on three different sectors which reflect distinctly different types of government functions:
o Community safety, as an example of coercive action on the part of the state
o Local environment, as an example of the regulatory function of the state
o Public health, as an example of the welfare improvement function of the state.
6. One key result of the survey is that, contrary to the assumptions made by focus group participants, there are significant levels of co-production by citizens in the five countries studied in all three sectors. Citizens are particularly active in taking steps to look after the local environment (index score 61), to a somewhat lesser degree in health improvement initiatives (index score 52) and considerably less active in prevention of crime (index score 45).
non-urban), performance perceptions (how good a job government is doing), government outreach (providing information and seeking consultation), and self-efficacy
(how much of a difference citizens believe they can make). We also report on results from a series of focus groups on the topic of co-production held in each country.
Our results suggest that women and elderly citizens generally engage more often in co-production and that self-efficacy—the belief that citizens can make a difference—is an especially important determinant across sectors. Interestingly, good outcome performance (in the sense of a safe neighborhood, a clean environment, and good health) seems to discourage co-production somewhat. Thus citizens’ co-production appears to
depend in part on awareness of a shortfall in public performance on outcomes. Our results also provide some evidence that co-production is enhanced when governments
provide information or engage citizens in consultation. The specific determinants vary, however, not only by sector but across national contexts.
We use the term ‘co-production’ as a convenient shorthand for this range of related concepts, in line with the growing international literature.
In preparing this research brief we have carried out a thorough search of the literature and contacted a range of academic and practitioner colleagues, nationally and internationally, who
are represented in this literature in order to identify further research not yet published. In searching the literature, we broke the research issues up into a number of research questions:
What is ‘co-production’?
In which contexts do co-production approaches appear to have worked?
How to achieve more commitment of local authorities to co-production?
How to achieve direct involvement of communities in co-production?
How to make ‘co-production’ approaches work?
that some of these strands predict very different roles – and outcomes – from coproduction. In particular, theories of coproduction predict that it can deliver either individualised benefits from the design and operation of public services or more collective benefits which result from the external effects
created by each co-producing user for other actual and potential users. However, the empirical evidence from our recent survey of citizens in five EU countries suggests that the
practice of co-production is dominated by individualised co-production.
This policy paper explores the innovative methods used by some local authorities for engaging and communicating with their local electorate and stakeholders. It focuses in particular on efforts to move beyond engagement and participation to more intensive processes – including those labelled ‘co-production’ - where the public have a direct influence over policy and service delivery. It provides a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the importance of this shift in the relationship between the public and the public sector.
The paper draws upon three types of evidence; research conducted by the various Communities and Local Government (CLG) funded evaluations of policies associated with the 1998 and 2001 Local Government White Papers; primary research by the meta-evaluation team and a wide range of literature on public engagement and co-production. It complements the recent meta-evaluation reports on the ‘State of Governance of Places’ (Sullivan, 2008) and the ‘State of Local Democracy’ (Cowell et al, 2008).
This policy paper therefore:
• Explores the need for innovation by local authorities and local partners in engaging and communicating with local citizens.
• Provides a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the role of co-production in public services
• Identifies some negative and unintended impacts of increased involvement of users and other citizens.
• Highlights the scope for more innovative methods based upon current experience.
• Considers the learning opportunities from co-production (drawing upon national and international practice).
• Highlights some illustrative examples of good practice which can be disseminated across local government and local strategic partnerships.
• Draws out the lessons for policy makers.
This interest in both quality management and outcome-based decision-making has been given particular impetus through the ‘results’-based movement in evaluation and performance management since the 1980s, which has increased in scope over time, slowly changing its emphasis from a services focus - cost reduction, measuring outputs, assuring quality - to measuring quality of life outcomes experienced by citizens (Audit Commission, 1991; Heinrich, 2002). This change has been widely welcomed by policy makers, practitioners and academics.
Meanwhile, there has been a recasting of the age-old concern with principles of government as ‘principles of governance’, and a growing interest in evaluating whether or not such principles are actually being implemented in practice. Since it is a basic axiom of Western philosophy that ‘the ends do not justify the means’, measuring conformity to these principles of governance would seem to be an essential complement to measuring achievement of quality of life outcomes.
This paper therefore outlines the evolution of interest in service quality, followed by the increasing attention to outcome-based public policy making up to recent times and the growing realisation of the importance of the attribution problem. It then charts the growth of the parallel concern with measuring achievement of the principles of governance. The paper then demonstrates the interlinkages between these three arenas of performance improvement, which are driven by different stakeholders, i.e.:
• Service quality (driven by service users),
• Quality of life outcomes (driven by disadvantaged groups),
• Public governance (driven by ‘watchdog’ type organizations).
governance in a town in the UK, demonstrating how the concept of local
governance can be operationalized, presenting key findings on the quality of local
governance in the case study and suggesting that more limited, service-oriented,
performance assessment systems may be misleading
local government level throughout Europe. This cutting
edge book provides both a conceptual overview of this trend and an empirical analysis of the new "local governance networks” which are emerging in Europe.
This book examines the changing relationships between public, private and voluntary actors at local level through case studies in eleven countries and reports from two multi-country comparative studies. It also provides a research agenda for comparative local governance.
1. town and community councils (especially the views of the public on these councils)
2. the role (within principal authorities) of ward councillors, Area Committees and neighbourhood management approaches.
We have carried out a thorough search of the literature and contacted a range of colleagues, both within the University of Birmingham and in other UK and international universities, research institutes and think tanks, who are represented in this literature.
In the literature, two approaches to involving communities in governance can be distinguished: governance through policy or issue communities (or ‘communities of interest’) and governance through communities of place, including governance by neighbourhood communities. This Briefing Paper focuses mainly on the latter form of community governance, although aspects of community governance through communities of interest are also mentioned in certain places. It tackles the following research questions:
• What roles and functions should or could a tier of community democratic governance fulfil?
• How do the potential roles and functions of community democratic governance contrast with the roles and functions currently performed by town and community councils and what do we understand about the factors that shape and influence those roles and functions?
• What can we learn about effective approaches to community democratic governance, such as area committees and neighbourhood management approaches, both within the UK and elsewhere in the world, which might be of interest to Wales?
National policy, encompassing both central government and the overall local government system, with its national leadership, could take a number of stances in relation to community governance, ranging from principled non-interference to a nationally-imposed system. The briefing notes sets out these options, some criteria to be taken into account in choosing between them, from the standpoint of community governance rationales and principles, and gives an outline assessment of the performance of the options against these criteria.
This chapter explores the intellectual history of the PPP movement, both before and after it became a widely used acronym. It demonstrates that the intellectual provenance of PPPs is very varied, with major contributions from across the social sciences. This has contributed to the richness of our understanding of PPPs, but it has also made it difficult for critical comment to develop a constructive perspective from which to evaluate PPPs and suggest options for their change. In consequence, while there has been considerable criticism of specific manifestations of PPPs (like PFI), there is still considerable interest in and optimism about the potential of PPPs in general.
discussion of definitional debates about partnership. It considers the main forms of partnership working, partnership governance and accountability, and outcomes and evaluation. In conclusion it summarises the key implications for TSRC’s research on partnership.
The paper clarifies the long-standing nature of partnerships involving third sector organisations (TSOs), for example in health, housing and social care. It highlights the impact of new public management (NPM), associated hollowing out of the state and the fragmentation of hierarchical public services. This provides a context for the more recent drive for joined up public services, public-private partnerships and local strategic partnerships under New Labour, and emerging forms of collaboration under the Coalition Government’s deficit reduction programme and open public services agenda. It
suggests that the key emerging directions are the growth of the commissioning agenda, an increasing emphasis on TSO/private sector partnerships in the context of supply chain management, and greater application of outcome-based approaches linked to payment by results. In this still changing landscape there seems to be a lesser emphasis on partnership governance, including democratic anchorage and citizen engagement and a greater emphasis on scale, efficiency and the commissioning readiness of TSOs.
A variety of insights are provided from the literature on network governance and interorganisational relationships (IORs) including mergers. The dichotomy between competition and
collaboration is found to be unhelpful in understanding complex IORs. The co-existence of market, network and hierarchical forms of co-ordination is apparent in partnerships based on contract, or those that are externally mandated. Partnership rhetoric often masks the reality of hierarchically imposed relationships between principals and agents and within supply chains. Mergers can be seen as part of a continuum of options to manage environmental uncertainty, resource dependencies and structural complexity, with group structures and partially integrated merged organisations forming a distinct solution to fully merged organisations. Inequalities of power, limited trust and collaborative capacity,
and lack of legitimacy can give a dark side to partnerships. Interest in partnership governance and measures such as the Merlin standard to champion positive behaviours and relationships in unequal partnerships, such as supply chains, reflects these concerns. Despite a decade of attempts to
evaluate partnership outcomes, the evidence of effectiveness is thin. There is growing recognition that the achievement of externally imposed goals can be a limited way of assessing partnership benefits.
However, alternative approaches to evaluation based on joint interest goals that emerge from partnership working may place too great a weight on the interests of partners rather than the wider public interest. While many TSOs still prefer values-based consensual partnerships of equals, the reality they face is an increasingly sceptical results-orientated commissioning climate in which delivering narrowly defined outcomes at lowest cost continues to outweigh broader relationship based impacts which TSOs claim to offer.
Department for Communities and Local Government commissioned this study of the barriers and incentives to becoming a councillor in England. In particular, this
research aims to improve understanding of three key issues.
• The unique barriers and incentives experienced by those belonging to groups that
are under-represented in the council chamber at a national level, including:
women, ethnic minorities, younger people, and those in full-time employment.
• Employer attitudes to releasing employees for council duties, and in particular,
how this varies by sector (public, private, and community and voluntary).
• The motivations and experiences of those councillors who stand down during or
immediately after completion of their fi rst term in offi ce.
This summary paper builds on previous work published in 20051 and analyses the impact of central government policies upon local democracy over a ten year period between 1997 and 2007. Local democracy is analysed in terms of changes in:
• local accountability and
• public confidence
Our analysis of evidence from a wide range of sources including individual evaluations of policies and our own national survey of local government and in-depth case study data leads us to a series of conclusions on the state of local democracy.
public service delivery. Earlier findings from an evidence review were reported in Working Paper 60.
Partnership working in and with the third sector in the context of public service delivery reflects a
longer history of the opening up and fragmentation of public services and the increasing complexity
that has been associated with the shift to more ‘networked’ governance. The emphasis on partnership
was given an extra boost by the policies of New Labour, and looks set to continue to be relevant under
the Coalition. The research was based on five case studies of organisations involved in public service
delivery in different policy fields including housing, welfare, and employment services, preceded by a
period of scoping research with national interviewees. Overall the research aimed to explore three
main themes – the forms of partnership working that exist, partnerships, strategic alliances and
mergers within the sector, and innovation and learning from partnership working. The case studies
were very diverse, and this paper synthesises the main findings across the cases in four logical
sections: meanings of partnership; structures, drivers and barriers; processes and organisational
change, and impacts of partnership. Finally, we draw the findings across the cases together in a
reflective section on learning before moving on to the main academic and policy messages in a brief
conclusion and discussion section.
This chapter explores: the development of strategic commissioning in a range of public services; its limitations; and, some of the drivers which have led this particular wave of innovation to spread much more quickly through the UK public sector than have most other innovations (particularly those which are imposed by central government). It shows how a range of models (often developed in Whitehall) are being interpreted and redefined at the local level so that there is wide variation in the approaches to strategic commissioning actually being used in practice. The chapter ends by drawing some of the lessons emerging to date from experience with the UK strategic commissioning approach and exploring the implications for the era of fiscal restraint under the new coalition government in the UK in which service decommissioning is becoming the dominant trend. We start however, by setting out an overview of the policy context. In doing so we describe the move to commissioning of public services in the UK as occurring in two waves – the first in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the second more recently, essentially since 2004.
The move to commissioning of public services in the UK has occurred in two waves – the first in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the second more recently, essentially since 2004. The evidence base for the characteristics and impacts of this move is limited in a number of ways. There has so far been relatively little consideration of commissioning in the academic literature. While there is already an extensive body of practitioner or ‘grey’ literature, this predominantly relates to particular government departments or local initiatives (including joint commissioning), focused on one area or service. Few accounts look across the public services in terms of the types of approaches and models advocated and the evidence of their impacts. This report is therefore path-breaking in reviewing the position across a wide range of government departments and programmes.
In this report, we provide:
a brief outline of the approach and methods we used in the review;
a short summary of the different meanings attached to the concept of ‘commissioning’;
an outline of the main commissioning models that we have identified as being in current use;
a discussion of a number of key issues relating to commissioning models (as agreed with NAO), including:
performance management and commissioning
the evidence for success of the commissioning approach
the outcome-orientation of commissioning
the implications of commissioning models for the third sector
an outline of some current and potential developments in commissioning models, as suggested by key government departments and other national stakeholders involved in commissioning;
a summary of the current state of play on commissioning and some potential implications for the NAO to consider in its future work.
This chapter explores the extent to which these government initiatives were really committed to outcomes, the implications which outcomes-based approaches have had for service commissioning, procurement and delivery and whether there is any evidence that an outcomes-based focus actually works, in terms of improving outcomes.
of successful strategic commissioning and to assess the overall state of current knowledge. It involved a review of the published literature and interviews with those involved in strategic commissioning in England. The combined evidence from these two sources suggests that structural solutions alone
cannot deliver effective relationships and will not be effective when relationships are neglected. There is a prior requirement for staff, partner, and political buy-in. Work is required to ensure the right balance and distribution of commissioning skills and competencies. It is important to note here that many of the skills needed for strategic commissioning may be found in partner agencies (including providers), so organizational boundaries must be seen as porous as the new commissioning/provider roles emerge and are refined. Finance and incentive alignment are also crucial to ongoing strategic commissioning since organizations that contribute to the achievement of multiple outcomes will expect funding streams to recognize and reward these achievements. Overall, while evidence and evaluation are important, in a rapidly changing environment there are no clear-cut guidelines for success and there is an equal need for experimentation and flexibility.
of decision making. This paper presents a revised conceptual framework for strategic management in the public domain,
consistent with the restrictions on ‘system predictability’ inherent in complex adaptive systems – a strategic shaping and ‘metaplanning’ role, rather than strategic planning.
The article illustrates how this reconceptualized role can be applied in a case study of Best Value (BV) in local government in the UK from 1997 onwards. It shows how the behaviours and strategies of agents owed at least as much to emergent complex interactions within the policy system as to the
cognitive processes occurring in any one agency. This underlines the weaknesses of over-elaborate analysis of single agency interventions into public policy, strategy or governance within policy systems whose interactions are only partially understood.
When complexity theory is applied to social systems, we are typically dealing with self-organising systems, which do not have an obvious ‘leader’ or ‘network manager’. In particular, complexity theory applies to that class of systems, known as ‘complex adaptive systems’, where the interconnectedness of the agents produces a dynamic interaction of agents which simultaneously react to and create their environment. These are “systems which are ‘more than most’ dynamic, self-organising, environment-shaping (through dynamic interactions of agents) and sensitive to initial conditions” (Teisman and Klijn, 2008).
The environment of such systems is therefore not a ‘given’ but rather a co-created ‘fitness landscape’, in which the agents most likely to flourish are those who can most readily adapt to changing circumstances and influence the behaviour of others (Kaufman, 1995). This concept fits with the analysis of Weick (1995) and Luhmann (1995) on autopoiesis, although it is only one potential cause of autopoiesis.
This chapter considers the implications of this phenomenon for public policy, and in particular for attempts to model public policy outcomes through ‘logic chain’ or ‘cause and effect’ analysis. It concludes by considering the extent to which public policy is likely to be dealing with complex adaptive systems in the real world.
An important rationale for PDG originally was that it would help the planning system to cope during a period of rapid change, as the new planning system came into force and settled down. This rationale was well-founded and the PDG monies have indeed played a valuable role in helping LPAs to survive this disruptive period – and, indeed, they have improved their performance. A further rationale for PDG originally was to compensate for underfunding of the planning system through local authority funding (even given the increases in planning fee income). In the longer term, this rationale might be expected to disappear, once local authorities have come to appreciate more clearly the value of the planning system and have witnessed the improved performance that higher levels of funding can support. However, these changes do not yet appear to have occurred and it would therefore appear premature to withdraw PDG from LPAs according to the original timetable. An alternative approach would be to give even further emphasis to fee income, s106 agreements and planning gain supplement. This would have the advantage, in areas of high development pressure, of releasing funding in the local authority from expenditure on planning to other services, which would ensure that development was matched by improvements to local services. The article goes on to explore further options.
information. Ignoring the organizational and interpersonal dynamics of information use and the organizational and personal beliefs about information will continue to lead to same old solutions of developing better information-use
and analytical skills and of improving data quality.
more intensive and productive use of databases, and better communications. These mechanisms impact on both the internal organization of public agencies and their configuration of networks and partnerships. E-enablement therefore makes obsolete many existing organizational structures and processes and offers the prospect of transformation in both service delivery and public governance arrangements.
However, the organizational changes which can be effected through the e-revolution are only just beginning to become evident. While it seems likely that existing organizational configurations in the public sector will not be sustainable, the most appropriate ways forward will only be uncovered through much experimentation within e-government and e-governance programmes. In the nature of experimentation, many of these initiatives will turn out to be unproductive or cost-ineffective, but that is perhaps the necessary price to pay for the level of public sector transformation which now appears to be in prospect.
The chapter explores the interpretation and measurement of "performance" in welfare economics, Austrian economics, the new institutional economics and radical economics and their relationship to perspectives from organisational studies, political science, management accounting, systems theory and marketing.
Consequently, political economy provides no agreed framework for how performance measurement should be carried out. Each different perspective has its own model of performance measurement, containing potentially useful lessons for policy makers and practitioners. Each therefore has a claim to influence the everyday practices of organisational life. However, the insights from each perspective can only appropriately be applied to the questions which that perspective seeks to address. Stringing together a performance measurement system from an odd assortment of conceptual tools which address fundamentally different questions is likely to lead both to confusion and to policy failure.
member countries. It then explores some key issues in performance measurement of e-government and e-governance, and the options for performance indicators for
e-government and e-governance. It goes on to consider the scope for evaluation of egovernment programs and initiatives, and possible frameworks by which such evaluation might be undertaken. Finally, it sets out some interim conclusions and recommendations.
Points for practitioners
Competitive quality awards can have benefits in terms of innovation, organizational learning, and reputational promotion. However, for the applicants these benefits come at a price — the innovations and the learning only occur if the organization undertakes the application in a way which builds these benefits into the process. Moreover, the promotional benefits depend on which awards they win, particularly on how well publicized they are. For organizers, too, a cost—benefit calculus is necessary — while competitive awards may be cheaper to organize than accreditation schemes, they may not lead to such careful preparation, with consequently lower impacts.
The research team has already produced a series of reports, summaries of which are available from the Department’s website and the Cardiff Business School website. The purpose of this report is to provide an assessment of the coherence of the overall strategy that was pursued by the Department.
The research drew upon evidence from a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Secondary data used included published and unpublished reports produced for or by the Department; statutory performance indicators; Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) scores and inspection reports; public satisfaction data; and studies funded by research councils and charitable foundations. Primary data were gathered through national surveys of local authority officers and elected members; interviews with senior councillors, local authority officers and representatives of other local service providers; and focus groups with members of the public.
Local public services and leadership are slowly being considered in the round, through mechanisms such as the Better Care Fund and community budgets. It is clear that local government is changing fast and has a leadership role to play, both locally and nationally. However it cannot do so alone or in a vacuum but needs to engage and be supported by key
stakeholders. Our research has explored what that future might look like.
A third scenario—the ‘quangocratic state’—is unstable. It is also
expressly against the stated democratic values of all three main political parties in England. Of course, they have all three conspired to promote it at various times in the past four decades but it is unlikely ever to become espoused policy.
This seems to suggest that the fourth option, the status quo—‘going round in circles’—is the most likely scenario. And, indeed, experience tells us that the appearance of ‘no change’ is often the most likely result in public sector reform, however much change is seen to be necessary. But experience also tells us that behind the façade of ‘no change’, remarkable things can occur—in processes, attitudes, behaviours and outcomes. The underlying forces which are driving the local selfgovernment
scenario outlined above are real, important and likely to
play a major role in how local government evolves over the next decade. The challenge is to find responses now which can help to make this scenario more likely.
of the Department for Communities and Local Government between 2003 and 2007.
The research evaluated the overall impacts of more than twenty local government policies
which were associated with the 1998 and 2001 Local Government white papers.
The research team has already produced a series of reports, summaries of which are
available from the Department’s website and the Cardiff Business School website. The
purpose of this report is to provide an assessment of the coherence of the overall strategy
that was pursued by the Department.
inherently multidisciplinary subject in a world dominated by aggressive disciplinary purists.
Consequently, this final chapter of the book does not seek to give a definitive answer to the question ‘‘What’s new?’’ but it does look at some key emerging areas within public administration, as evidenced by previous chapters in the book.
Moreover, it goes on to explore what’s next. In doing this, it seeks to provide an interdisciplinary synthesis, marking out some boundaries and destinations for the new generation of public administration and suggesting some possible road
maps to take us on the next stage of the journey.
This chapter identifies different perspectives as well as common lines of thinking in the realm of public administration. It suggests that while public administration is enriched by a variety of social science disciplines, these disciplines have also maintained an artificial distance from each other, with serious impacts on their ability to explain the behaviors in which they are interested. Where disciplines such as economics and systems analysis have been dominant, hegemonic and narrowly managerialist approaches such as the New Public Management have emerged, often with significant adverse side effects to governance issues in the countries that have pursued this approach. Where narrow political science and legal approaches have held sway, outdated managerial systems have remained in
place, often with significant adverse affects to the management of public services.
Consequently, current interdisciplinary initiatives are highlighted in the chapter, and future research avenues are suggested as potentially useful for the evolution of public administration. If they are successful, they may provide more
meaningful challenges to the public sector than the rather empty and abstract debates around the New Public Management, and may suggest more fruitful ways of designing public governance processes, implementing public policy, and managing public services. In sum, this chapter starts from Vigoda’s espousal in his introduction to this book of an interdisciplinary critical perspective on the state of contemporary public administration, based on a multilevel, multimethod, and multisystem analysis of current developments, and it goes on to propose a critical understanding of governance and government that highlights options for a new generation of public administration in the twenty-first century.
parts of public organisations, depending on their specific cultures and the issues being handled.
Risk management needs to focus more on those risks to the actual outcomes experienced by service users, communities and citizens generally; and less on the institutional risks to the organisations themselves and the people within them. A key element of future strategies must be to embed resilience within service users, communities, service providers and service systems. We propose an approach to managing risk and resilience which is based on an integrated risk enablement strategy.