Hidden Work Co-production by People Outside Paid Employment

This report looks at the concept of co-production, the process whereby public service clients work alongside professionals, often in the local community to make their work more effective, to see how it works, how much it helps clients and public services, and how public services can best be broadened in this way. As the debate on the future of public services increasingly looks to the participation of ordinary people alongside professionals, this is the first comprehensive piece of research in the UK to look at co-production as a possible way forward. The research studied a range of projects that broadly answered the definition of co-production in London, Glasgow and the Welsh Valleys, looking at how they were supporting and enabling their clients and beneficiaries to play an active role in their recovery and that of their neighbours, and how far this helped create social cohesion, better recovery and a changed relationship between public service institutions and the communities they serve. People outside paid work from the local communities that were being studied were trained up as researchers to undertake this study. Among their findings was that co-production is effective, but that it is both more widespread, and more challenging for large-scale public service institutions, than had been understood.