What is Co-Production?

Co-production is about combining everyone’s strengths so that we can work together to achieve positive change.

Too often public services are designed by people who don’t have direct experience of what it’s like to need or use them. Ultimately, decisions are made for people, not with them.

Using co-production we can do things differently.

This means communities truly playing a part in how decisions are made - where things happen with people, instead of to them.

Co-production in practice

We know that people are sometimes involved in decisions about how services are delivered.

But by using a co-productive approach, we can go further so that professionals and decisions makers work with people and communities, not just to influence how decisions are made, but to have a say in what’s needed, how it’s developed and how it can be delivered.

Co-production goes beyond participation and partnership working because it requires people to act together on an equal basis. It means we can all contribute our lived experience, skills and ideas about what works, to make our communities even better.

Done well, this can shift the balance of power – so that everyone feels they have worked together on decisions that make a real difference to people’s lives, reshaping how communities view their relationships with services.