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Moving beyond the market: a new agenda for public services, with co-production at its heart

Successive governments have pursued a public services agenda based on market competition, consumer choice and outsourcing to private providers. The promise has been better responsive to people’s ‘consumer preferences’ and a decentralisation of knowledge and power away from central planners – all at lower cost.

But there is little evidence that these benefits are materialising. Power has been concentrated in the hands of a few supremely wealthy private providers. Pay and conditions  have declined with knock-on effects for service quality. And a recent survey of 140 local authorities across the country showed that the majority are bringing services back in-house or considering doing so, mainly because of rising costs and declining quality.

A new discussion paper from NEF argues that if we want to move beyond top-down, centralised services, we need to move beyond the market. We argue for a new direction of travel: shifting power away from private providers to the citizens and frontline staff.

Co-production is at the heart of this new agenda. We are clear that this is not about devaluing or replacing professional expertise or shifting responsibility away from the state and public servants. Rather, it is about protecting and building on existing professional skills and enriching this with the resources and perspectives offered by citizens.

Alongside co-production, we advocate a number of other measures that put power in the hands of those who use and work on the frontline of services. Following impressive results in Porto Alegre, Brazil, more UK public agencies are giving citizens direct control over public spending decisions through participatory budgeting. Councils such as Newcastle have demonstrated the benefits of less hierarchical working cultures that afford frontline staff more autonomy and trust. And Co-operative Trust Schools show how the public sector can work in collaborative partnership with other not-for-profit organisations.

However, the Coalition government’s Big Society shows that increased local control is no good when people lack the resources and capacity necessary to participate and benefit. We need devolution alongside re-distribution and an end to austerity policies, which, as well as damaging public services, are undermining the chances of a sustainable economic recovery.

If we get the conditions right, then very different models of public services, run within the public realm, are possible: they would be grounded in democratic control and public participation, with more power for frontline staff, and collaborating with other not-for-profit community and civil society groups.

But questions remain. Are there some sectors or services where shifting power to citizens and frontline staff is less – or more – appropriate?  What can be done to avoid this power-shifting agenda being co-opted to justify free-market reforms? How, in practice, can we move beyond the market towards a more co-productive and participatory public service agenda, given the current political climate?

You can read NEF’s new paper, ‘Moving beyond the market: a new agenda for public services’ now. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Join the debate on Twitter, using the hashtag #futurewelfare.

James Angel, Social Policy Researcher, NEF. 

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