Over 60 delegates from all over the UK, including members of the West Midlands Co-Production Network, spent an informative day at Birmingham University discussing the current evidence for co-production in public services and exchanging ideas on how a better business case can be constructed in the future.

The programme consisted of high-level presentations with inputs from different sectors and perspectives in the morning and open co-production workshops in the afternoon.  

Elke Loeffler highlighted that Governance International has compiled more than 50 case studies which show that co-production is already at a significant level and is making a real difference to people’s lives.

The speakers showcased the evidence for co-production from different sectors:

• Public services - Tony Bovaird, INLOGOV and Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham
• Social care - Catherine Needham, Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham
• Health - David Taylor-Gooby, Lay Member of the Durham Dales, Easington, and Sedgefield Commissioning Group
• Community safety - Richard James, Northamptonshire Police
• Neighbourhood improvement - Ben Lee, Shared Intelligence and National Association of Network Management
• Neighbourhood community budgets - Maria O’Beirne, Department for Communities and Local Government
• Public service transformation - Shahab Paya, Public Service Transformation Network

Lorna Brodrick from Think Big Picture captured the findings of the morning session in a creative poster.

In a very lively afternoon session based on a BarCamp format, participants voted for five workshop proposals:

• David Taylor-Gooby: The NHS Call to Action - An opportunity for co-production? 
  
  
• Sean McDougall: Effective co-production reduces risks of over-spend and/or innovating without evidence 
  
  
• Ben Lee: Draw/write some logic models and enable people to redo this tomorrow
  
  
• Lorna Reid, Dudley MBC: How to do co-production without involving the ‘usual suspects’? Lessons learnt so far from Dudley MBC through their ‘Making it Real in Dudley’ programme
  
  
• Laura Brodrick, Think Big Picture: Making co-production creative ?
  
  

The photographer Idriss Assoumanou from Click to Shoot provided an excellent photographic record for all conference participants to remind them of this inspiring day.

Governance International helps you to run highly successful conferences with an international flavour and speakers who will make a real impact on your delegates.

We have an outstanding track record as conference partners through:

• providing attractive speakers for your event,

• facilitating panel and plenary discussions in imaginative ways,

• delivering revealing and relevant case studies and cutting-edge research,

• organising pre-and after-conference events such as study visits,

• producing creative conference publications.

The Governance International Team are frequent keynote speakers at national and international conferences. Our multi-lingual skills and in-depth knowledge of different administrative systems mean that we know what we are talking about – and we say it in vivid and memorable ways!

Contact us to discuss how we can contribute to your event – email yvonne.harley@govint.org.