The Cardiff Co-production Roadshow

[Francesca Cignola]

The Cardiff Co-production Roadshow was also a great day, buzzing with the sense of a growing movement.

Philip Colligan, Executive Director of NESTA's Public Service Lab, talked about why co-production is part of the answer to the challenges that public services are facing and identified the challenges that need to be addressed to overcome the incumbency bias across public services and bring co-production closer to the mainstream - different approaches to commissioning, a culture shift among service professionals and a solid body of evidence.

Megan Mathias,  director at Kafka Brigade, called for the development of a Welsh model of co-production. She also reflected on the changes that need to be introduced in the systems for oversight and regulation of public services and reminded us that we all have a role to play in working to change the system to make space for co-production.

The workshops showcased great examples of co-production in Wales: the Denbigshire Nightrider service, which operates a volunteer run low cost transport service for elderly people using underutilised council vehicles; the Creation Development Trust and its powerful story of rebuilding the Blaengarw community through the means of timebanking and Spice's model for applying the values of co-production building timebanks around schools and housing associations.

Discussions on the day brought out a real desire to share practice and learning and build on this growing co-production movement. One of the delegates decided he will spend a week volunteering for the Creation Development Trust to learn about their model and replicate it in his organisation.

Click on the hyperlinks ont this blog to see presentations from the day and visit NESTA's websitefor a summary of the day and videos.