Co-production – Doing things with residents not to residents
The council's commitment to co-producing policies and services with residents came from the recommendations set out in the Disabled People's Commission (DPC) report published in June 2018.
The Disabled People's Commission came up with a working definition of coproduction.
Local Disabled residents are working together with decision makers to actively identify, design, and evaluate policy decisions and service delivery that affect our lives and remove the barriers we face."
Co-production is just a way to bring everyone together with the same aim of removing the barriers that stop our residents from living as equal residents in our community. To create a culture across the borough where ideas and activities about how co-production can flourish.
It's about getting people to feel confident - working together and included in changing the things that matter together.
This is a ladder of participation and shows the different types of engagement.
Co-production is not a tick box approach to involving people, taking a couple of people from each 'relevant equalities strand' or a "hard to reach" community and bringing them all together in a room to talk about a policy or service and then feeling pleased that that part of the process has been completed. It is not enough.
A Disabled resident told the DPC that:
Co-production needs to be done across the board and, as scary as it sounds, it needs to be done in a big way."
The DPC was always clear that the commitment to coproduction needed to start with Disabled residents because all evidence shows that, taking into account the range of barriers, Disabled people are furthest away from decision making. However, the DPC was also clear that the commitment to coproduction should ultimately be about ALL residents if we are serious about our commitment to 'doing things with residents not to them' so we have now developed a new, broader definition of coproduction which includes ALL residents.
Our new working definition is:
Co-production means local people and decision-makers working together to plan, design and review policies and services that affect our residents' lives.
Co-production: Is about a long-term relationship based on partnership and trust!
What is co-production? (British Sign Language video)
Get in touch
Please get in touch with us to find out more about our work and how you can get involved.
Email coproduction@lbhf.gov.uk