What is it about?
We employ data from an original survey of citizens in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, and the Czech Republic to examine correlates of citizen co-production of public services in three key policy areas: public safety, the environment, and health. The correlates of co-production we consider include demographic factors (age, gender, education, and employment status), community characteristics (urban, non-urban), performance perceptions (how good a job government is doing), government outreach (providing information and seeking consultation), and self-efficacy (how much of a difference citizens believe they can make). We also report on results from a series of focus groups on the topic of co-production held in each country. Our results suggest that women and elderly citizens generally engage more often in co-production and that self-efficacy—the belief that citizens can make a difference—is an especially important determinant across sectors. Interestingly, good outcome performance (in the sense of a safe neighborhood, a clean environment, and good health) seems to discourage co-production somewhat. Thus citizens’ co-production appears to depend in part on awareness of a shortfall in public performance on outcomes. Our results also provide some evidence that co-production is enhanced when governments provide information or engage citizens in consultation. The specific determinants vary, however, not only by sector but across national contexts.
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Why is it important?
This is the first comparative analysis of co-production behaviours across countries and the first study also to compare co-production behaviours across service and outcome sectors (local environment, community safety and health). It also demonstrates that the levels of co-production behaviour are significantly higher than expected by public service managers and the correlates of co-production behaviour are rather different from those which public service staff expect.
Perspectives
This is a pathbreaking article which demonstrates that user and community co-production of public services and publicly-desired outcomes is already at a high level in many EU countries, although its nature, level and potential is not well understood in most public service organisations. It also suggests that public services managers and staff (from all sectors) may misunderstand the drivers of co-production and which people are most often likely to co-produce with them, which suggests that some policy changes are needed if the full potential of citizens' contributions is to be reaped.
Professor Tony Bovaird
University of Birmingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Correlates of Co-production: Evidence From a Five-Nation Survey of Citizens, International Public Management Journal, January 2013, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/10967494.2013.796260.
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