Public services inside out

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This report is about real stories of reform, led by people who work in and use public services. This is public services inside out - innovation that overturns the conventional passive relationship between the 'users' of services and those who serve them. As we enter a period in which cuts and savings will be made from on high, these examples point to the possibility of a different approach: better, cheaper services created from the ground up by those who know public services the best.

This report also details some of the challenges faced by co-production practitioners, these include difficulties in securing support from existing funding and commissioning, traditional approaches to audit and accountability in public services, and developing the professional skills required to bring these approaches to the mainstream.

This is the second of three reports on co-production from a partnership between nef (the new economics foundation) and NESTA.

Published
April 2010

Author
David Boyle, Julia Slay and Lucie Stephens