Co-pro example: Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector
Zsara McEwan reflects on the creation of a co-design remuneration and rewards policy which was part of a wider project aimed at changing the way family support services are procured and designed.
The Glasgow Promise Partnership is a collaboration of third sector organisations, supported by GCVS, in partnership with Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership.
We received Promise Partnership Funding to: ‘explore alternatives to traditional procurement and establish tests of change which will create a blueprint for how children's services across the country can be planned, procured and delivered. We want to work in partnership, not in competition and co-design services with the children, young people, and families they are designed to support’
A big part of the project was co-designing with young people, parents and guardians who have lived experience of using family support services. These co-designers were recruited from a group of 387 people who took part in a consultation undertaken in the project’s initial stages.
It was really important to us that we had a diverse group whose contribution was recognized and rewarded fairly and we wanted to get it right for the families we were working with.
This meant removing barriers to participation, addressing power imbalances and valuing a diversity of knowledge and experience while providing compensation and appreciation.
This was challenging and we know from our co-design and co-production communities that it’s a shared challenge.
The absence of any central governmental guidance on the issue of remuneration meant there were a number of conflicting view points and things we had to consider when creating our policy and practice.
We went through a few stages to co-create our Rewards and Recognition Policy (PDF) as can be seen below.
How Much?
We took a few sources of good practice into consideration for the question of how much to pay participants.
The Glasgow Living Wage as of April 2023 is £10.90 per hour
Citizens’ Assemblies have established a day rate of £75 as good practice, or £10 per hour
Co-Pro Collective sets a rate of £100 per day or £25/hour.
We settled on a round payment of £40 for those attending a three-hour session daytime, and £30 for those attending a two-hour evening session. The max amount for someone attending the daytime block would be £130 over 6 weeks and for the evening £100 over 6 weeks.
One Co-Designer said - “Paid reward was very appreciated.”
Support for childcare
Another key finding of the project’s initial consultation was that childcare was another significant barrier to participation.
We took the following actions to help support people with childcare responsibilities:
made evening sessions accessible to children 12+
held an on-site creche where possible
offered a childcare payment of £10 per hour, per child
One Co-Designer said “It was good to be involved in a project without having to worry about childcare.”
Letter of Participation
During the events early in the project, participants said they would like a letter or certificate that detailed their participation. This could be used for school, college and volunteering.
We created a personalised Letter of Participation for every participant who wanted one.
In the final sessions, we asked participants to reflect on their experience, including personal achievements and practical skills they have learned. With their permission, we took a note of this and created personalised letters of participation that included their own input along with facilitator observations. We sent a draft of the letters to participants to check they felt it reflected their experience before sending the final letter with an option for a printed copy.
One Co-Designer said “The follow up letter of participation is great for those who need it.”
See Appendix 2 in the full report (PDF) for an example of the letter.
From the feedback from participants, we can see that we have made progress in removing barriers to participation, addressing power imbalances and valuing a diversity of knowledge and experience while providing compensation and appreciation.
We can conclude this from the feedback from the participants, the diversity of experience and circumstance of our cohort and the positive response to our final proposal.
One Co-Designer said - “Timings, space, facilitation and sharing of ideas was supported to be a smooth process (hospitality, travel reimbursement and childcare)”
The success of this was down to collaboration and working closely with our partners and the participants.
The remuneration policy we created for the GPP is not intended to be a fully replicable policy. The actions we took to provide reward and recognition to the participants of the GPP were contextual, personalised and specific to the individuals we were working with.
Repeating the process with a different cohort, on a different project would create a different rewards and recognition policy.
However, the method of co-creating the policy is one that can and should be replicated to make sure that ongoing co-design work rewards and recognises the vital contribution of people with lived experience.
Zsara McEwan (she/they) is one of the Project Leads for the Glasgow Promise Partnership at Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector.
Practicing co-production and co-design weaves together Zsara’s broad design education, grassroots campaigning experience and a decade’s involvement in Glasgow’s third sector. Their current projects focus on holistic family support, youth justice interventions and cross-sector collaboration.
