Co-production
Co-production and Community Capacity Building in Midlothian
September & November 2012
"Governance International, together with the Joint Improvement Team, ran four major workshops for 120 senior staff in Midlothian Council, using the Co-Production Star. I found this a useful tool to help us roll out co-production quickly where it was already being tried and to kick-start co-production initiatives in the rest of the Council. Co-production is now a core part of the running of the Council and is contributing to significant improvements in services and important efficiency savings."
Annette Lang
Acting Community Safety and Estates Manager
Midlothian Council
Download our Co-Production Star Training flyer.
Co-production training workshops in Scotland
Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh
January 2012
Commissioned by the Scottish Joint Improvement Team, Governance International ran three two-day training events on the Co-production training events in Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh.
Argyll & Bute, Scottish Borders, and Tayside
April 2012
A second round of training was commissed by the JIT for three one day training workshops in April.
Click here to read the report on the learning points from the training workshops.
Dundee, Glasgow, and Edinburgh
September 2012
A third round of one day training workshops took place in September.
All three tranches of training were well attended by stakeholders from the Scottish Government, Local Authorities, the Scottish NHS, and Third Sector and the Independent sector.
The training days enabled participants use the Co-Production Star's 5 step change management model to enable their organisations to make better use of citizens and communities' assets improve public services. The Co-Production Star also taught particpants how to empower staff and unlock their creativity to form and enabling relationships with citizens and communities.
Click here to read a summary of the learning outcomes from the April sessions.
If you are interested in using the Co-Production Star to transform your organisation towards realising improved outcomes and efficiency please contact yvonne.harley@govint.org
Enjoy the photos from the workshops!
New Models for Third Sector Funding in Argyll and Bute, Scotland
A co-design event facilitated by Governance International, 28 May 2011 in Scotland
Governance International facilitated this co-design event, commissioned by the Argyll & Bute Social Enterprise Network, that included a large number of third sector organisations involved in Children and Families Services in Argyll and Bute. The event served to inform third sector organisations of major reductions to third sector funding in the coming years, whilst developing strategies to explore new ways the council can work with third sector organisations to make better use of its, service users, citizens and the members of voluntary and community organisations' resources.
The event:
- involved an honest and open discourse between the Council and the Third Sector organisations.
- The meeting identified priorities for change in the current funding system and relationship between the Council and Third Sector organisations to achieve better outcomes and increased efficiency;
- how organisations can handle reduced funding most effectively and further non-financial support the Council could provide to organisations;
- outlined practical steps for the council and local organisations to take;
- and committments to continue holding consultation meetings to shape the revised system.
Governance International's report of the event outlines the outcomes from the event in greater detail. It can be accessed by clicking here (3.3 MB)
If your council is facing similar challenges for your third sector and are thinking of discussing new ways of working together please get in touch with elke.loeffler@govint.org.
The Governance International and Department of Health 2011 Co-Production Roadshows
If you missed our highly successful Co-Production Road Shows in the UK earlier this year, you can now download the report 'Transforming Communities, Creating Outcomes, Improving Efficiency' (pdf, 3.5 MB).
The report provides an accessible introduction to the real world of co-production with good practices cases from social services, health, housing, employment and neighbourhood management. The case studies showcased public and third sector agencies which are working together to transform public services by giving service users and other citizens a much greater role in:
Furthermore the report outlines how the Department of Health has now developed a highly proactive policy and approach to co-production in its programmes. Fascinating insights are also given into users’ perspectives on co-production. If you are interested in an in-house seminar for your staff and service users, please contact elke.loeffler@govint.org.
“Citizen co-production - A way out of the crisis”
Workshop organised by the Westfalen-Lippe Institute and Governance International, Münster, 21 January 2010
“Let’s use the crisis as a chance to mobilise new resources and innovate” – this was the message from Professor Hermann Hill of the Speyer Civil Service College in his keynote speech. He suggested that it is time for public agencies to use the expertise of their front-line staff better. He also gave lots of examples of how citizens can provide new ideas and resources to improve public services, such as
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The participants also discussed innovative case studies with participation champions from the local area and region ...
- How young people in Emsdetten have created the website myemsdetten.de for other young people
- How swimming enthusiasts in Salzgitter are co-managing a local swimming pool with the local authority
So how could this model be helped to work in participants’ own local authority? This was the focus of the session facilitated by Florian Birk who talked participants through the Governance International “Five Steps to Co-Production” model. For more information, contact Florian.Birk@govint.org.
Co-Production Workshop for Bristol Partnership
2 February 2010
Bristol has set itself the goal of being recognised as one of Europe’s leading cities, particularly as a champion of sustainable environment. Already there are lots of innovative green initiatives. At a learning event for the Bristol Partnership, Tony Bovaird and Elke Loeffler showcased European good practices of citizen involvement to improve outcomes and discussed how the Local Strategic Partnership could reap efficiency gains through more effective partnership working, cooperation with neighbourhoods and co-production with service users and other citizens. |  |
Tony and Elke got participants to work on a number of exercises during the session. In one, just under half of participants agreed with the statement “Public sector staff are keen to give service users and communities much more influence on the way public services are managed and delivered” – but exactly the same number disagreed with it (leaving a tiny number who couldn’t make up their minds). This got participants talking about the importance of a two-way process – both the public AND public services staff have to be up for co-production if it is to work well. In another exercise, participants identified initiatives that they saw as having high public involvement and high potential for savings – examples came in from almost every one of the thematic partnerships within the Bristol Partnership. Participants were encouraged to explore how these examples could be built on as templates for more intensive (and more successful) co-production in the future.