From engagement to co-production: The contribution of users and communities to outcomes and public value

User and community co-production has always been important - but it has often been relatively unobserved and underappreciated. More recently, however, co-production has begun to be recognised as a key driver for improving publicly valued outcomes, both through the mechanism of commissioned services which are co-produced with citizens and through triggering behaviour change of service users and communities, which will have the advantageous effect of preventing future problems. There is evidence, however, that citizens are only willing to co-produce in a relatively narrow range of activities that are genuinely important to them. Moreover, they are keen to ensure that their co-production effort is not wasted by public agencies and that it is used to good effect. From the organisational side, there are often concerns that co-production may involve greater risks than professionalised service provision – in spite of the fact that, in practice, many services may be quality-assured more effectively through involving users and embedding those services in the community. Finally, the article considers the issue that, while offering potential significant improvements in outcomes, and cost savings, co-production is not resource-free. Consequently, the article concludes, co-production may be ‘value for money’ but it usually cannot produce value without money.

Cite as: Bovaird, Tony and Loeffler, Elke (2012), “From engagement to co-production: The contribution of users and communities to outcomes and public value”, Voluntas, Vol. 23 (4): 1119–1138, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-012-9309-6.

Download: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11266-012-9309-6