Thoughts on Employing people for engagement / expert by experience purposes

[Claire Cluer]

Hi all Let me set the scene..

I have written a draft Rewards and Recognitions paper for my local authority. The purpose of this is to try and streamline our procedures in regards to how we recognise and / or reward people for their time, skills and expertise given via co-production, engagement or partnership working.

Whilst such rewards could include monetary payments, my research has shown that many organisations including the NHS actually employ a bank of 'experts by experience'.

For some reason this doesn't sit well with me. My feelings are that when people are employed to do a job it changes the dynamics, in the sense that they are then susceptible to being 'institutionalised within the corporate world', hence diluting the raw essence and value of being a member of the public or user of a service. Not to mention motivations being drastically effected.

It is looking like this my be an incorrect analysis as I can't find much to support my initial thoughts.

What do you all think? Do you know of any evidence to support either view point?