Summary of the impact

Bovaird's cross-national research has demonstrated that the co-production of public services is a feasible and effective alternative to traditional, professionally-dominated approaches to service delivery. His close engagement with government at all levels in the UK, as well as the EU, has enabled Bovaird to place co-production firmly on the policy agenda and assist organisations to implement new practices. His research shows policy makers that co-production has the potential to address the problem of managing increasing demand for public services in a context of austerity. It has inspired dialogue amongst policy-makers and practitioners internationally, shaped their awareness of co-production's contribution to public service quality and efficiency, influenced government policy, and changed practice in a variety of local public service agencies.

Underpinning research

Professor Tony Bovaird (Professor of Public Management and Policy, University of Birmingham since 2006) has collaborated with government organisations, Governance International (an international non-profit organisation), and academics across Europe in a stream of research that explores the potential of co-production in local public services. His work defines co-production as `the provision of services through regular, long-term relationships between professionalized service providers and service users ... where all parties make substantial resource contributions' [R1].

Bovaird's research challenges the ideas and practices of both provider-centred public administration and market-oriented new public management by showing that public services rely on the often un-costed and un-acknowledged inputs of users and communities. Co-production explicitly values such contributions, and Bovaird's work presents the intellectual foundation for this claim [R1, 2], data to support the argument [R1, 3, 4], and management approaches that can be used by public authorities actually implementing co-production policies [R2, 6]. Overall, it shows that co-production is already much more prevalent and significant than public officials realise [R4], and that it can make a significant contribution to the quality and effectiveness of services and, as a result, improve outcomes for citizens [R2, 6].

An important element of the empirical research was a cross-national comparative analysis of user and community co-production. As part of this work, Bovaird has worked closely with Governance International (a European non-profit organisation promoting democratic and effective public services) and with US collaborators. The comparison entailed a survey of around 1000 citizens in the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, and the UK that explored citizens' experience of co-production, complemented by focus groups to explore the meanings given to co-production by different stakeholder groups inside and outside the public sector [R3, R4].

The study concluded that successful and sustainable co-production was dependent on institutions that are able to combine public sector and citizen inputs in ways that make the most of each other's resources and strengths. Bovaird's work thus provides significant insights into the type of contributions made by individuals and groups who use local public services, the factors that drive this willingness to co-produce, and the cost-effective ways in which public agencies can mobilise the inputs of service user and community assets.

His research also compares approaches to co-production that involve individual service users with those that engage groups or communities. Bovaird concludes that co-production designers need to understand the different factors that motivate individuals to become involved [R3]. He also shows that the balance between individual and collective co-production varies across types of public service and thus that designers need to appreciate the constraints on co-production as well as its potential [R3, R4]. This insight suggests the need for different strategies by public agencies both in terms of engaging people in co-production and also in choosing those public services where co-production is likely to be more effective than others [R5].

More recently, the `Modelling Birmingham' study has involved Bovaird in long-term research collaboration with Birmingham City Council to develop an analytical technique that can demonstrate how inputs from public, private and nonprofit organisations combine with those co- produced with service users and communities to generate positive outcomes. The study involves `backwards-mapping' from desired outcomes in order to establish the relative effectiveness of different service delivery pathways. The research reveals that those pathways with a high level of user and community inputs are more cost-effective than traditional public service approaches [R6].

References to the research

Research Outputs:

Grants:

• Bovaird, T (PI) Modelling Outcomes in Birmingham, Sponsor: Birmingham City Council, November 2011 - December 2013, £31,749
• Bovaird, T (PI) Activating the 'Big Society': Developing Evidence on the Underlying Conditions for Individual and Community Co-production, Sponsor: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Connected Communities programme (with University of Southampton and Governance International), January 2011 to March 2012, £31,838

Details of the impact

Influencing the national and international policy agenda
Bovaird's original research, together with his close association with Governance International, has helped shape the public service policy agenda. The Presidency of the EU commissioned the five- country study of public service co-production [R4], the results of which were presented to over a thousand public officials at the EU Fifth Quality Conference for Public Administration (5QC)(Paris, September 2008). The policy conclusions of this study `informed the development of the Cabinet Office report Co-Production of Public Services (2009) significantly' [source 1 below] (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/207033/public_services_co-production.pdf). Bovaird was also commissioned by the UK Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) to develop the policy implications of his research findings [R6]. This contributed to the evidence base for the Government's 2008 White Paper which set out the ways in which it intended to empower communities and citizens [source 2].

Growing policy-maker and professional interest in co-production led Governance International and the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU - a leading independent think tank on local public services) to commission and publish a book on how co-production could improve health and social care outcomes. Bovaird co-edited and contributed to the book, alongside chapters in which civil servants, local authority councillors and officers, and third-sector managers documented their experiences with co-production. The Chief Executive of LGIU commented that `[t]his very timely book ...gives us a glimpse into the future ... [in] this vital area of public policy' [source 3]. The book was recommended by CLG as a key resource for those local authorities introducing co- production as part of their neighbourhood budgeting approach [source 4].

In 2012, Bovaird was invited to give oral evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Communities and Local Government on the potential of co-production for public service transformation [source 5], further contributing to the development of the public service policy agenda.

Influencing the policy and practice of local public service providers and commissioners
Bovaird's research on co-production has led to his involvement in a number of policy initiatives. In 2010, the Local Authorities Research Council Initiative (LARCI), a partnership of Research Councils UK (RCUK) and local and central government, appointed Bovaird (a LARCI Council member) as the champion and sponsor of a series of papers on co-production [source 6]. This series was used as evidence by the Scottish Government's Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services when it recommended that `public service organisations should increasingly develop and adopt positive approaches which build services around people and communities, their needs, aspirations, capacities and skills' [source 7].

Subsequently, in 2011, the Scottish Executive commissioned Bovaird and Governance International to design a programme to that would develop the skills of health and social care professionals in local authorities, community health partnerships, and social care providers across Scotland. Since 2012, this development programme has been delivered twelve times, reaching around 300 policy-makers, senior managers and front-line professionals, assisting them in realising the public service improvement vision of the Scottish Government. The training has now been extended to a wider range of public services, initially through a national workshop for Police Scotland in June 2013. Midlothian Council, who trained 120 senior staff through this programme, report that Bovaird and his team `help[ed] us roll-out co-production quickly... [It] is now a core part... of the Council and is contributing to significant improvements in services and important efficiency savings' [source 8]. Emerging from this work, Bovaird, Governance International and the Joint Improvement Team (JIT) (comprising the Scottish Executive Health Department, NHS Scotland, and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities) produced two guides for practitioners [source 9]. The JIT Director comments: `We have found Professor Bovaird's research invaluable in... delivering the Scottish Government's vision of co-production as a reality of public service reform' [source 10].

The `Modelling Birmingham' research forms an important part of Birmingham City Council's project of transforming its service delivery through co-production to meet the challenge of increasing community needs in an environment of declining resources. The Council comments that the project `has already had a number of valuable impacts on public services ... (including) identifying preventative interventions (and) ... highlighting the potential for significant savings' [source 11]. The City Council also believe it will `have wider effects on UK local government' in the future. The project won the 2012 IBM Smarter Cities Award and a prize of $500,000 to further develop the work [source 11].

Within UK government, the idea of co-production has been connected with current policy interest in neighbourhood budgeting in order to give communities greater capacity to influence those services funded by public resources. In 2012, Bovaird was appointed to the CLG's Neighbourhood Community Budgeting Analytical Advisory Board. In January 2013, Governance International and Bovaird were commissioned by CLG, Birmingham City Council and the Balsall Heath Neighbourhood Forum to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the Neighbourhood Community Budgeting pilot in Balsall Heath. The evaluation resulted in the partners placing much greater emphasis on bringing the community into service commissioning, design and delivery, particularly in community safety and local environmental improvement services, and thus enhancing co-production [source 7].

In light of this contribution, Bovaird was invited to present on the `economy/diseconomy of scale' effects of co-production at a CLG workshop and subsequently at a policy roundtable with Danny Alexander MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in April 2013. CLG comment that they `highly value' Bovaird's `personal engagement with the department ... where his expertise has helped develop, challenge and shape policy thinking ... a notable example being his leading contribution on economies/diseconomies of scale' [source 12].

Sources to corroborate the impact

[1] Factual statement provided by Portfolio Lead, Cabinet Office.

[2] Citations in Communities and Local Government (2008) Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power (White Paper, Evidence Annex. London: Communities and Local Government). http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120919132719/http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/886123.pdf (citations on pp. 39, 57 and 69 and full reference on p. 79).

[3]: Forward to Loeffler, E., Taylor-Gooby, D., Bovaird, T., Hine-Hughes, F. and Wilkes, L. (eds) (2012), Making Health and Social Care Personal and Local - Moving from Mass Production to Co- production (Birmingham: Governance International/ Local Government Information Unit). www.govint.org/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/2012_Pamphlet/GovInt_London_Pamphlet_2012__MAKING_HEALTH_AND_SOCIAL_CARE_PERSONAL_AND_LOCAL_.pdf

[4]: Citations in Communities and Local Government (2012) Neighbourhood Community Budget Overarching Evaluation: Engaging the Community and Partners (London: Neighbourhood Community Budgeting Research Team, Communities and Local Government). [available from HEI on request]

[5]: Oral and written evidence in House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee (2012) Mutual and Cooperative Approaches to Delivering Local Services (HC 112, London: TSO). www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmcomloc/112/120521.htm

[6]: LARCI (2010) Co-Production: A Series of Commissioned Reports (London: Local Authorities Research Council Initiative/ Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government). www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/innovation/larci/LarciCoproductionSummary.pdf

[7]: Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services (2011) Report (Edinburgh: Public Service Commission), para 4.17. www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/352649/0118638.pdf

[8]: Factual statement provided by Senior Manager, Midlothian Council.

[9]: Governance International and the Joint Improvement Team (2012) Co-production in Health and Social Care: What It Is and How to Do It; ~ (2013) Co-Production of Health and Wellbeing in Scotland) Birmingham: Governance International). www.govint.org/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/2012_Pamphlet/CO-PRODUCTION_IN_HEALTH_AND_SOCIAL_CARE_What_it_is_and_how_to_do_it_Scottish_Pamphlet_2012.pdf

[10]: Factual statement provided by Director, Joint Improvement Team.

[11]: Factual statement provided by Head of Strategic Development, Birmingham City Council

[12]: Citations in Communities and Local Government (2013) Neighbourhood Community Budget Pilot Programme: Research, Learning, Evaluation and Lessons (London: Communities and Local Government).
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/224259/Neighbourhood_Community_Budget_Pilot_Programme.pdf (citations on pp. 50 and 51, full reference on p.91).

[13]: Factual statement provided by Principal Research Officer, Department for Communities.