How far have we come with co-production—and what’s next?

Co-production: what’s all the fuss about?

In March 2017, we announced that we were gueste-editing a Public Money & Management theme on co-production, reflecting on the ever-increasing use of the concept in the public sector around the world, particularly in countries that have experienced prolonged austerity and major cutbacks in the public sector, to which co-production potentially seemed at least a partial solution (Bovaird, Flemig, Loeffler, & Osborne, 2017).

However, we also suggested that all might not be as it seems—although co-production might be widely espoused by the top management of many public sector organizations, it may be honoured more in the breach than the observance. Moreover, there may be a ‘dark side’ to co-production, for example where it represents simply public care agencies dumping the responsibility for care services onto families, friends and neighbours. Following on from special issues on co-production in both the International Review of Administrative Sciences and Public Management Review, we invited researchers to submit contributions which addressed the potential of co-production, its results to date and reasons for its limited dissemination, even where it was apparently embedded in public sector strategies.

Co-production research—an international phenomenon

The papers published in this PMM theme demonstrate the resurgence of interest in co-production around the world. Our authors look at practice in 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). Indeed, Mariafrancesca Sicilia, Alessandro Sancino, Tina Nabatchi and Enrico Guarini report that the 53 empirical papers on co-production which they analysed in depth covered co-production in eight European countries, the USA, Brazil, Ethiopia, Guinea, Hong Kong, Japan, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Singapore, and Thailand. In terms of public services, the papers in our theme cover public policy issues in the domains of health, social care, prisons and urban regeneration. The papers analysed by Sicilia et al. went even wider, covering healthcare, education, social care, public safety, neighbourhood improvement, public works, and waste collection.

The 4 Co’s—co-commissioning, co-design, co-delivery and co-assessment

It is important to stress some points in introducing this PMM theme. First, the conceptualization of co-production has advanced markedly in recent years, with both the 4 Co’s model of forms of co-production (Bovaird & Loeffler, 2013) and the ‘4Cs’ model that situated co-production as a sub-process of public service delivery within the broader framework of ‘public service logic’ (Osborne, 2018; Alford, 2016). This theme has used the former model as an organizing framework: two papers (Bovaird and Loeffler; Hambleton) are mainly about co-commissioning, one (Whicher and Crick) is mainly about co-design, one is about co-delivery (Broccato and Mazzuca), one is about co-assessment (Yang and Northcott), one covers all of the ‘citizen voice’ modes of co-production (Lino et al.), and one covers all of the 4 Co's (Sicilia et al.). All of the papers therefore extend beyond the ‘consumer’ mode of co-production identified by Osborne and Strokosch (2013). While four of the papers (Bovaird and Loeffler; Lino et al.; Whicher and Crick; Yang and Northcott) focus mainly on the ‘participative’ co-production mode of Osborne and Strokosch (2013) and two papers (Hambleton; Broccato and Mazzuca) focus on the ‘enhanced’ mode of co-production, even the papers dealing mainly with ‘participative’ co-production highlight some instances where extended co-production have occurred within their case studies.

Context matters!

Second, the papers focus mainly on demonstrating the positive potential of co-production. All the papers articulate the positive message that co-production can improve public services and help to increase publicly-desired outcomes in the specific service or problem area being considered, reinforcing the predominant evidence from the current literature (Loeffler & Bovaird, 2016). However, the papers are virtually unanimous that context is critically important. They stress the significance of embedding co-production within an institutional context that understands its strengths, contingencies and limitations and can embed these in a holistic framework of public service management and delivery. Such a framework is being increasingly articulated through the application of the Public Service Logic framework to public service delivery and management (Osborne, 2018). Within this theme, therefore, Lino et al., from their institutionalist perspective argue that, in order to foster a context which is favourable for co-production, governments and citizens should pay particular attention to the design of regulatory mechanisms which promote intensive collaborative behaviours and strong self-efficacy (although this will only work under some institutional logics). Loeffler and Bovaird also emphasize that a particularly important part of the context is engaging the citizens with the most appropriate skills and knowledge in co-production. Specifically, the role of citizen co-producers must be differentiated between citizen voice and citizen action—citizens who are keen to use their voice are not always ‘experts by experience’, whereas the real ‘experts by experience’, in particular from disadvantaged groups, do not always have the self-confidence to use their voice and are not always keen to have their activities scrutinised and debated. Furthermore, the balance between citizen voice and action needs to change as the context changes within the commissioning cycle, from problem prevention to detection to treatment and finally to recovery.

Co-production is not a panacea—effective co-production emerges during practice

Third, in spite of the positive results reported, the papers in our theme also highlight the fact that, unsurprisingly, co-production does not represent a panacea in relation to the problems it attempts to address. The paper by Sicilia et al. concludes from its study of 53 international papers that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach does not apply to co-production as a whole, or to any of the factors facilitating it—public managers must recognize that a single approach to co-production is highly unlikely to work in all circumstances. The Broccato and Mazzuca paper in this collection presents one successful (UK) and one unsuccessful (USA) application of social impact bonds (SIB) in prisons. The Loeffler and Bovaird paper reports how the charity Mosaic Clubhouse changed its co-production approach to meet the requirements of one of its funders, with mixed results, although this led to a revised approach which was more tailored to the needs of service users with mental health issues. Yang and Northcott caution that the co-production of performance measurement in their non-for-profit organization case study presented a challenge, since beneficiaries sometimes had their own agenda in overstating positive outcomes. In their paper, Whicher and Crick judge that, in the two years since the inception of the Innovation Lab in Northern Ireland, only half of the 18 projects led by the lab have progressed to implementation (which, however, they consider a high success rate). Finally, Lino et al. classify just three of the 15 municipal health councils which they examine in Brazil as examples of ‘hands-on’ co-production (where joint working is more frequent and collaborative, following a shared agenda set by multiple stakeholders), rather than co-production which follows a ‘watchdog’ logic (monitoring the budget and associated goals) or simply a ‘ceremonial’ logic.

Fourth, the papers generally illustrate the strength of emergent rather than fully-planned strategies. The Loeffler and Bovaird paper reports how the originally mixed results from Mosaic Clubhouse co-production approach eventually developed into an approach more tailored to the needs of its members and suggests that, more generally, citizens may be much quicker to spot emerging problems than the rather rigid monitoring routines of public sector organizations. Broccato and Mazzuca highlight how a flexible approach in the service delivery design of its successful SIB allowed the service delivery organization to test new ideas, as new needs emerged (and how an inflexible approach in the unsuccessful provider derived from a rather rigidly planned approach, which was not responsive to emerging needs of the intended beneficiaries). Lino et al. conclude that legal regulation might enable co-production when it favours the emergence of informal rules (or norms and values) that reinforce the benefits of the interaction between lay and state actors.

And—the dark side of co-production?

Fifth, there can indeed be a dark side to co-production. There is an important emergent literature that has begun to examine this dark side and its potential to destroy value in and through public service delivery, as well as to create it (for example Williams, Kang, & Johnson, 2016; Jarvi, Kahkonen, & Torvinen, 2018). Lino et al. caution from some of the case studies they examined that, when norms and rules that increase citizen and government interaction are not sufficiently embedded, interactions can become distorted or co-opted by groups trying to legitimize their discourses, effectively destroying public value—for example, in the case of Brazilian municipal health councils, when a state actor is able to perpetuate him/herself in the role of council president, this reduces co-productive interactions between citizen and government representatives. Broccato and Mazzuca also highlight the danger that the use of SIBs as a co-production instrument could incentivize a ‘piecemeal strategy’ that focuses on narrow interventions to address complex societal problems and ignores the causes of those problems. Finally in this context, Whicher and Crick, highlighting that ‘managing stakeholder expectations has primacy’, suggest that this can lead to two significant unintended consequences of co-design:

• If stakeholder expectations are raised, this can lead later to disillusion when recommendations are not followed through and can sometimes result in withdrawal by disappointed stakeholders. This reinforces the conclusion by Flemig and Osborne (2019) that the concept of co-production in the context of care personalisation is often misused as a buzzword while continuing with business as usual, leading to a loss of trust.

• If solutions emerging from co-design are not prototyped prior to implementation, checking out the risks foreseen by some stakeholders, this can decrease the likelihood of stakeholder support for subsequent implementation.

So—what next for co-production?

Sixth, a number of the papers make recommendations which should be of value to practitioners. Sicilia et al. suggest the organizational implications of their analysis is that public managers should develop appropriate organizational arrangements, for example set up co-production offices and officers, seek boundary spanning activities with partners and community volunteers, set up knowledge sharing opportunities and use tools, such as service blueprinting. They also suggest some lessons around procedural factors—public managers should appeal to multiple motivations when recruiting people as co-producers and design recruitment messages which emphasize social outcomes, gaps in service performance and ease of involvement. They should also provide citizens with information about and resources for co-production through regular interactive relationship-building, particularly with those in greatest need of the service. Active forms of co-productive engagement are likely to be most effective, along with addressing poor attitudes and inappropriate behaviour. Moreover, recurring engagements, along with ICT and social media platforms, help to regularize and institutionalize coproduction.

From an institutionalist perspective, Lino et al. also suggest that, In the ‘hands-on logic’, co-production is most likely to be successful where interactions between citizens and government have a number of key characteristics—specifically, shared agenda-setting, openness to multiple stakeholders, positive expectations of active citizens’ participation, higher political self-efficacy on the part of citizens and the emergence of a collective identity. Whicher and Crick recommend, from their analysis of the Northern Ireland Public Sector Innovation Lab, that it is important to shift the emphasis to implementation, which is likely to entail a further up-skilling for staff to ensure that they are equipped with the knowledge to prototype services and policies, since prototyping, testing and iteration make successful implementation more likely, especially when the project sponsor participates.

Seventh, and finally, a number of papers highlight the need for further research into particularly important aspects of co-production which still remain unclear or contentious. Lino et al. raise the important question of how different mechanisms of formal regulation affect power dynamics within co-production activities and therefore the co-production outcomes. Specifically, they urge more research into how organizational redesign can facilitate transition between institutional logics—in particular, how the watchdog or ceremonial logics can be influenced towards a more co-productive approach. Loeffler and Bovaird highlight the need for more research into how political decision makers can achieve a balance between, on the one hand, the effectiveness of co-production, which naturally privileges those ‘who know and care’, and, on the other hand, the good governance principles of widespread citizen engagement and the equalities agenda. This is a key element in their Public Value Model which focuses on the trade-off between outcomes and public governance principles, and it is also embedded within the Public Service Logic framework that looks at the interplay between the forms, locus and processes of co-production and value creation in public service delivery (Osborne, 2018). Specifically focusing on the public governance principle of accountability, Yang and Northcott urge further research into how co-assessment strategies in non-profit organizations can increase ‘downward accountability’ to service users, while recognising that beneficiaries of collective co-production may not always be identifiable and some beneficiaries may be reluctant to engage, due to their status, vulnerability or location.

Taken together, we believe that these papers make a significant contribution to our understanding of the potential of user and community co-production of public services and outcomes, and practical ways in which that potential can be more fully exploited. At the same time, our theme 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 (Pollitt, 2013)!

Theme contents

1: Tony Bovaird, Sophie Flemig, Elke Loeffler and Stephen P. Osborne (Guest Editors), Editorial: How far have we come with co-production—and what’s next?

2: Mariafrancesca Sicilia, Alessandro Sancino, Tina Nabatchi and Enrico Guarini, Facilitating co-production in public services: management implications from a systematic literature review

3: Elke Loeffler and Tony Bovaird, Co-commissioning of public services and outcomes in the UK: bringing co-production into the strategic commissioning cycle

4: Cherrie Yang and Deryl Northcott, Together we measure: improving public service outcomes via the co-production of performance measurement

5: Eleonora Broccardo and Maria Mazzuca, The missing link? Finance, public services, and co-production: the case of social impact bonds (SIBs)

6: Robin Hambleton, The New Civic Leadership: place and the co-creation of public innovation

7: Anna Whicher and Tom Crick, Co-design, evaluation and the Northern Ireland Innovation Lab

8: André Feliciano Lino, André Carlos Busanelli de Aquino, Ricardo Rocha de Azevedo and Lívia Martinez Brumatti, From rules to collaborative practice: when regulatory mechanisms drive collective co-production

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).