Ten for 10: Co-production: Are we nearly there yet?
/As we mark 10 years of SCDC as an independent organisation, Olivia Hanley looks back over 10 years of supporting co-production as a way of shifting the balance of power.
Just over ten years ago I joined SCDC as part of the team delivering Meeting the Shared Challenge, a national programme for community-led health supporting public bodies and communities to work together to make change.
A key message from this work was that communities needed to have a more equal share of the power in driving change around their priorities. At the same time, the term ‘co-production’ was emerging to describe a shift in how public services could be designed and delivered.
Co-production is about combining everyone’s strengths so that we can we can work together, on an equal basis, to achieve positive change. This means communities truly becoming a part of how decisions are made - where things happen with people, instead of to them.
From our work with communities, we could identify with these values. We were keen to draw on the wealth of examples of where community-led approaches have had real impact around community issues and to bring this to the growing dialogue about how co-production could change the relationship between communities and public services.
Championing Co-production
So when we formed the Scottish Co-production Network in 2010 (along with NHS Tayside and nef) we brought together not only those who were championing co-production in principle, but the many practitioners, networks, community organisations who could bring their experience to the table.
And it didn’t take long for the network to grow. We saw a huge swell in membership as our policy environment began to further embrace the approach.
In particular, the Christie Commission called for public services to be reformed and “built around people and communities, their needs, aspirations, capacities and skills, and work to build up their autonomy and resilience...”
Since then, the network has continued to grow, learn and support its members in understanding, improving and challenging their co-production practice, developing its vision for co-production in Scotland:
“Our vision for co-production in Scotland is that all people are valued and supported to meaningfully participate in shaping and delivering services, building and strengthening their communities, and creating change.”
So are we there yet?
This was one of the Big Questions we posed as part of Co-production Week Scotland this year. It’s fair to say have a long way to go before we realise this vision in all of our communities and services.
To help make that happen, the principles which underpin a co-production approach must be held strongly. To truly co-produce, people must genuinely work with others and in doing so seek to build relationships that are based on trust - and that actively address power imbalance.
What we have seen since the Network began, is a deepening as well as a breadth to our understanding of co-production looks like.
Network members’ examples show that where there is a commitment to ‘doing things differently’ in order to work more co-productively, we see significant change in relationships between services and communities. In order to sustain and grow this, services must have the freedom to innovate.
Co-production must embody the ambition of empowerment by actively resourcing, supporting and enhancing the capacity of individuals and communities as part of the approach.
Only then will we achieve our vision for meaningful participation in shaping and delivering change.
