Title image: Embedding co-production in organisations and systems

The policy context

Home
Introduction to Section 1 What is co-production? Why co-production? Participation and co-production What does co-production look like?
Introduction to Section 2 How to start co-production Methods and techniques Spotlight on lived experience panels Spotlight on facilitation techniques Supporting people in co-production
Introduction to section 3 Advocating for co-production The policy context Frameworks and tools
Introduction to Section 4 Reflecting, evaluating and learning Tips and helpful resources for evaluation

In order to embed co-production in the way organisations work it is important to take a planned and strategic approach.

The policy context for co-production is also extremely important as it is this that drives the change in the way our public services work and operate.  

It is important to recognise that there is not currently a single co-production policy in Scotland (or the UK) but there is a range of legislation and policy developments which clearly support and advocate for co-production in the way we plan, resource, deliver and evaluate our public services.  

Christie Commission

For many people the starting point for this way of thinking about public service delivery was the Christie Commission report in 2011 which highlighted the challenges facing public services and made a strong case for reform including a key focus on: 

  • Developing services that are built around people and communities 

  • Services and service users working together to achieve outcomes 

  • Prioritising prevention, reducing inequalities and promoting equality 

  • Improving performance and reducing cost 

All of these principles link strongly to the core principles and key elements of co-production as we have outlined earlier in sections.

Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act

The next key piece of legislation was the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 which focused on strengthening the ways in which communities could have greater control over assets and land but also provided another more opportunity for increased co-production in community planning and local participation structures. The key features of the Act were a more equal relationship between communities and public bodies and a co-productive approach to local participation. 

Greater involvement in policy-making 

Since 2015 there has been a continued development of public policy-making, which reflects a shift to greater involvement of service users, people with lived experience and communities in shaping, influencing and delivering services as well as being more directly involved in shaping the policies themselves. 

This has included:  

There are many other examples of co-production in policy-making or where policy itself supports or promote co-production but these examples provide an idea of how co-production is developing across a broad range of policy areas.