The spread of coproduction: How the concept reached the northernmost city in the UK

Abstract

Over the last years, engagement with politics in Scotland has increased significantly through involvement in the campaigns or party membership following the post-referendum period and the Leaders Debate in 2015. Recent general elections in the UK have shown that Scotland “voted for change” as they have become the third largest party in the House of Commons. Nevertheless, the cuts in public spending still remain as the major challenges for the Scottish Government. In the aftermath of the Christie Commission, there has been an increasing interest in the concept of coproduction in Scotland to overcome some of those challenges in public services. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it explores how coproduction has become embedded in the Scottish context. Secondly, it uses Aberdeen as a case study and investigates how Aberdeen City Council has adopted this concept in its approach. The paper argues that coproduction needs a more critical perspective in managerial approaches to public services so that it can be a matter of democracy rather than administration.

Keywords

Aberdeen coproduction local economy public services

Introduction

Public services has been an important part of local and national economies. As the economic downturn increases, people become more dependent on a range of locally and nationally provided public services. In Scotland, the Scottish Government is committed to making sure that people and communities are engaged in the decisions made on public services, and they work together in providing better public services (Scottish Government, 2014). However, the onset of the global financial crises in 2007 and the subsequent economic recession has led to the UK Government introducing significant cuts in public spending and this has had a direct impact on the delivery of public services in Scotland. In 2011, the Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services in Scotland revealed that “unless Scotland embraces a radical, new, collaborative culture throughout [their] public services, both budgets and provision will buckle under the strain”.¹ In her Scottish Parliament Address on 26 November 2014, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, also picked up the importance of collaboration and emphasised the role of community engagement in local economy:

We need to find new ways of harnessing that democratic energy – not just in the great constitutional questions of our time, but also in the day to day decisions made by and for our communities…But fostering a sense of participation is about more than consulting – it’s also about handing decision-making powers back to communities. I want to ensure that more of the money we spend is directed by communities themselves – by the individuals and organisations who know best how to harness the energy of local people. (News Scotland, 2014)

Fortunately, while there is an incentive from the Scottish Government towards citizen engagement in the delivery of public services, Scottish people have also shown interest in engaging with politics. The 84.6% turnout² at Scotland’s independence referendum in 2014 has been an indicator in terms of people’s engagement in the future of Scotland. The turnout has remained high at more than 71% in Scotland in the recent UK 2015 general election. However, a combination of rising demand for public services and cost pressures continue to compound the impact of Scotland’s tightening budget. With the Christie Report, the Scottish Government set out how increased demand for public services and ongoing cuts in public spending create challenges. The report estimated that the Scottish public sector budget will suffer £39 billion shortfall between 2010/2011 and 2025/2026³ and there is a need to shift how services are planned and delivered in a radical way. In 2014, Audit Scotland also highlighted that the available public spending budget fell in real terms by nine percentage points between 2009/2010 and 2014/2015.⁴ The Smith Commission was called to strengthen the institutionalised capacity of the Scottish Parliament and it set out key points for taxation; benefits, welfare and pensions; and the Constitution for Scotland (The Smith Commission, 2014). As a response to this report, the UK Government published a ‘Command Paper’ and acknowledged the need for a fiscal framework which would allow Scotland a unified and comprehensive package of powers.

In the meantime, there has been an increasing interest in the concept of coproduction in Scotland to overcome some of those challenges in public services. Coproduction has been referred as “a complete different way of thinking” and started to be the new lingua franca in Scottish public services. While the concept attempts to put service users and organisations equal footing, it also involves those bodies with public service providers jointly exploring the best solution and the best means of delivering services. The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it explores how coproduction has become embedded in the Scottish context. Secondly, it uses Aberdeen as a case study and investigates how Aberdeen City Council has adopted this concept in its documents. In the next section, I outline how coproduction has become embedded in the Scottish context. In the middle section, I analyse the city of Aberdeen as a case study and examine how Aberdeen City Council adopted this concept as a policy approach. In the final section, I sum up the argument. The paper draws on a small project, supported under the British Academy/Leverhulme grant programme. It involved a review of literature on coproduction of public services in the context of Scotland. A survey was also conducted in 2013 to investigate Aberdeen citizens’ willingness to participate in the delivery of public services.

Community engagement and coproduction in Scotland

Even though citizen participation in policy making is not new in literature (Barber, 2003; Craig et al., 2011; Dryzek, 2010; Escobar et al., 2014; Fung and Wright, 2003; Newman, 2001; Pateman, 1970), governments and public agencies have always been keen on institutionalising new kinds of approaches for deliberative policy-making within new participatory governance arrangements. Within this framework, it has been acknowledged that political participation cannot be achieved in terms of action within the formal arenas of political parties and representative democracy. Political and citizenship discourses in western societies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries emphasize active participation in diverse arenas within which decisions are made about public policies, and a range of practices have evolved to secure such engagement. Dialogue or deliberation between citizens, their elected representatives and the officials charged with delivering public policy is assumed to provide evidence of a healthy democracy and to deliver a more cohesive society (Barnes et al., 2004: 93).

Within the literature, collaborative partnerships and new public engagement arrangements have been adopted widely to deal with complexities, increase accountability, restore legitimacy and counter democratic deficits in policy-making (Connelly, 2011; De Souza Briggs, 2008; Fischer, 2000; Lawless and Pearson, 2012; Sirianni, 2009). In Scotland, it has been argued that there is a particular ‘style’ in which the Scottish Government makes policy following consultation with interest groups, local government organisations and unions (Cairney, 2011; Cairney and McGarvey, 2013; Cairney et al., 2015; Keating, 2010). It involves a relative ability and willingness to devolve the delivery of policy to other organisations (Cairney, 2009). While terms such as ‘joined-up’ government and ‘coherent’ policy have been promoted to encourage bottom-up policy development, the ‘Scottish approach’ has been referred by the Scottish Government to produce a series of national strategies and priorities (Cairney et al., 2015; Scottish Government and ESRC, 2013). ‘Community Planning Partnership’ has been adopted by local authorities to work with a range of bodies in the public, voluntary and private sector to be able to meet the various national strategies and priorities underpinned by the ‘National Performance Framework’.

This new mutual relationship between public institutions and services echoed with earlier research when Ostrom (1975) stated that most public services were not delivered by a single public organisation but rather by several actors within the public and private sector. She coined the term ‘coproduction’ to describe the potential relationship between “producers” and “clients” who would like to transform the delivery and quality of certain services more effectively. Ostrom (1996: 1073) defined coproduction as ‘the process through which inputs used to produce a good or service is contributed by individuals who are not “in” the same organization.’ While the shift towards the needs and services under New Labour adopted the language of coproduction within policy documents, it has also emphasised voluntary efforts by individuals within the realm of charities, non-governmental organisations or “third sector” as many public services now depend on the contribution of time and effort by the same people who consume these services (Harris, 2010). Moreover, the concept became so popular amongst a broad range of academics within the public management literature (Alford, 2002; Pestoff, 2009; Pestoff and Bransen, 2006; Vamstad, 2007). Case studies have covered a wide range of service sectors such as housing, education, health, sanitation and water supply.

In Scotland, an informal network ‘Scottish Coproduction Network’ was formed in 2010. Scottish Community Development Centre and National Health Services (NHS) Tayside have co-facilitated and chaired this network to be able to build on existing coproduction activity in Scotland; create a space for practice and information exchange; support dialogue; and be a forum for learning, debate and development of ideas⁵ and there has been an increasing interest in coproduction recently. According to NHS Tayside Health Equity Strategy:

On a simple level co-production is about involving people in the delivery of public services. This helps people change the relationship with services from dependency to genuinely taking control. It helps improve public ownership and helps services improve by increasing their relevance. (NHS Tayside, 2010: 13)

The Network has promoted six case studies to show how working in partnership with third sector organisations can help to reach people in communities and involve them in designing and delivering services in line with their needs. They include: ‘Canny wi’ Cash’ which tells the story of elderly people in Edinburgh when they were given the power to fund projects to better their needs through participatory budgeting; ‘Lochside Neighbourhood Group’ where the community of the South Ayrshire town of Lochside is working in partnership with the council to deliver a common for the town; ‘Co-designing Support From Hospital to Home’ which highlights the work of Institute for Innovation in Social Sciences in Tayside to improve people’s experiences and their outcomes following a stay in hospital; ‘Reshaping Care Through Coproduction’ which demonstrates how older people’s skills and experiences in North Lanarkshire were valued and used in commissioning and delivering services; ‘Agents of Change’ which looked at improving local services for young people with disabilities to be able to meet their needs and involve them in local activities; and ‘Project 99’ which brought a range of public and third sector partners to co-design with young people a digital application to promote mental health in young people (see http://www.coproductionscotland.org.uk/resources/resource-case-studies/ for more details).

In a recent interview organised by the Scottish Coproduction Network in January 2015,⁶ Sir Peter Housden, Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government emphasised the importance of coproduction to reforming public services in Scotland, empowering communities and reducing inequalities. According to him, coproduction is “a complete different way of thinking”. He argues that the Scottish Government’s programme is looking to embed the notion of coproduction in the whole way it thinks about the delivery of public services via ongoing dialogue and engagement with those people who will be receiving those services. He acknowledges the potential for empathy, innovation and engagement coming from people which has become “the core part of the Scottish approach to public services”.

Alongside the Scottish Coproduction Network, another partnership, the ‘Joint Improvement Team’ (JIT), emerged in 2010 which has brought together the Scottish Government, NHS Scotland, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA), and the Third, Independent and Housing Sectors. JIT has provided a range of practical improvement support and challenge including knowledge exchange, development innovation and improvement capacity as well as support to local health and social care partnership across Scotland.⁷ One of the action areas within the JIT has been identified as ‘Coproduction and Community Capacity Building’. The team now works with a range of partners to support the understanding and practice of coproduction. Together with the Scottish Coproduction Network, they have hosted four national conferences on coproduction covering various policies, principles and practices, and they are keen on developing international links with practitioners elsewhere in the UK, Europe and beyond. JIT is probably one of the best examples that adopts joined-up government approach and coherent policy programme under the ‘Scottish approach’.

Soon after its introduction in Scotland, coproduction has also become embedded in a wide range of Scottish Government policies and legislation. Some of the most significant ones include; Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy (2010); Age, Home and Community: Scottish Government’s Housing Strategy for Older People (2011); The Integration of Health and Social Care Bill (2012); The Community Empowerment Bill (2012); Self Directed Support Scotland Bill (2013); The Children and Young People Scotland Act (2014); and The Public Bodies (Joint Working) Scotland Act 2014 (see McGeachie and Power, 2015; Power, 2013 for more details). It is believed that while coproduction enables community groups to take part in the delivery of public services and makes “the most of the knowledge and talent that lies in communities”, it also ensures that people can participate more effectively in decisions that affect their lives (Scottish Government, 2014). As Sir Peter Housden says in his interview; “the government’s programme in Scotland is looking to embed the notion of coproduction in the whole way it thinks about the delivery of public services. What you want is an ongoing dialogue and engagement with those people who will be receiving those services”.⁸

Case study: The city of Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland’s third populous city and located in the north east of the UK. The abundance and quality of granite found in the north east of Scotland and the arrival of the oil industry in the 1970s led to the urban expansion and changes in the economic and industrial circumstances towards the end of the 20th century (Dey, 2013; Lloyd and Newlands, 1989; MacKay and MacKay, 1975). Even though the North Sea became vulnerable to the fluctuation of world oil prices in the 1990s, oil production continued growing. The management of development with respect to environmental tensions led to an ongoing public–private partnership in the city (Tiesdell and Allmendinger, 2004). In 2012, the UK was the largest oil producer and second largest gas producer in the European Union, or the 23rd largest in the world for oil and gas combined (22nd for oil, 21st for gas) (Liddell, 2014). Today, beside all the natural beauties and fast changing urban landscape, Aberdeen is best known with its strong oil and gas economy which has transformed the city into one of the world’s leading centres of energy expertise. While the strong oil and gas sector and the multi-billion-pound investments in the North Sea are undoubtedly huge factors in Aberdeen’s current success, they can often obscure the fact that there is more to the city and the citizens than engineers and oil rigs (Cameron, 2013). The adverse effects of the oil activity in Aberdeen were raised by Lloyd and Newlands more than 25 years ago when they stated that:

While average incomes in Aberdeen have increased substantially, this increase has been confined largely to those people actually working in the oil industry. For people excluded from employment in this industry, including most women, earnings have remained at levels below the national average. Moreover, although some incomes have risen, this has been partly offset by the higher cost of living. To a certain extent, the wealth which oil has brought has been spread amongst homeowners through the rise in house prices, but even these windfall gains have largely accrued to those who were already owner occupiers when oil developments began. There has been no serious attempt by central government to ensure a more equal distribution, just as there has been no action to reduce the adverse effects of oil activity upon Aberdeen’s traditional industrial base. (Lloyd and Newlands, 1989: 97)

Today, Aberdeen economy post-oil have affected the property prices and the average house prices are 120 per cent higher than 10 years ago – the biggest regional percentage rise in the UK – with the average of £220,000 (Steele, 2014). In 2012, data on high net worth individuals revealed where UK multimillionaires lived and Aberdeen had the highest rate of multimillionaires per 100,000 people, leaving London in the second place (Burn-Murdoch, 2012). Despite being awash with oil money and unemployment rates seem very low, wage inequality in Aberdeen is staggering. The City has one of the most unequal wage structures in the UK according to the Work Foundation Report in 2013 (Table 1). Analysis reveals that based on the whole income distribution across the UK cities, Aberdeen ranked the second place after London (Lee et al., 2013). In fact, Lee et al. (2013) have shown different variations of the percentiles of wages in their analysis. According to them, while using the ratio between the 90^th and 10^th percentile put Aberdeen into a third place, the 90^th and 50^th percentile of the wage distribution (upper-tail inequality) places Aberdeen as the most unequal wage structured city in the UK.

Table 1.

Most unequal cities: Gini coefficient, 90/10 and 90/50 ratios of basic pay, 2010 (Source: Lee et al., 2013: 16, 18).

Gini coefficiency^a			90/10 ratio			90/50 ratio
Rank	City	Index	Rank	City	Ratio	Rank	City	Ratio
Most unequal
1	London	0.34	1	London	4.27	1	Aberdeen	2.23
2	Aberdeen	0.32	2	Reading & Bracknell	4.1	2	Milton Keynes & Aylesbury	2.2
3	Portsmouth	0.32	3	Aberdeen	4.02	3	London	2.19

The standard measure of inequality is the Gini coefficient, which gives an overall measure of inequality based on the whole income distribution.

The unequal wage structure has been recognised by Aberdeen City Council through their reports on tackling poverty and inequality. The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) has revealed that in 2012, 22 (2.3%) of the 976 data zones in the 15% most deprived data zones in Scotland were found in Aberdeen City, compared to 28 (2.9%) in 2009, 27 (2.8%) in 2006 and 18 (1.8%) in 2004 (Aberdeen City Council, 2010; SIMD, 2012). However, public spending cuts by the UK Government continue to place pressures on Scottish businesses and employers. It is expected that Westminster imposes reductions of over 11% in real terms to the Scottish budget and cuts of 36% to the Scottish capital budget until the end of 2015 (Scottish Government, 2011). This creates a real problem for the future of Scottish public finances and public services as they are already in danger of the fluctuations in the future value of North Sea revenues (as the volatility and finite nature of oil and gas production raises public finance challenges) and demographic change (Lee et al., 2013).

Coproduction in Aberdeen

The future funding challenge has required Aberdeen City Council to come up with a more radical approach to ensure funds are allocated to deliver agreed prioritised service outcomes. A priority-based budget was introduced in 2010 to determine future service and cost commitments. To do this, Aberdeen City Council introduced its five year business plan and priority based-budget planning in 2011 for the redesign and delivery of Aberdeen City Council services. This is a big challenge for the City and it requires significant increase in joint working with public, voluntary and business sector partners within the region based on the initial conversations around joining up service delivery to the community (Aberdeen City Council, 2011). The public spending cuts and Aberdeen’s new approach here can be defined as a part of wider argument where local authorities are expected to involve non-governmental actors from both the central and local levels. This approach echoes with the central-local relations thesis (see Entwistle, 2010; Laffin, 2009) which highlights developing new strategies to manage and coordinate policy with actors who are now outside the usual governmental chains of command. Aberdeen City Council has proposed a joint working approach that has not only been characterised as a part of local factors but also conditioned by national policy settings.

Initially, the concept of coproduction was referred in the ‘Chief Social Work Officer Annual Report 2013–2014’ when the term was adopted under the staff development programme of Aberdeen City Council’s disability services (Aberdeen City Council, 2013a). The report highlighted the importance of a shift “from a service-brokerage model to a more personalised coproduction model” in assessment and care planning (Aberdeen City Council, 2013a: 28). The learning disability transformation programme then became a part of the Council’s budget plans. After the ‘Social Care, Wellbeing and Safety Committee Bulletin’ recognised “coproduction as an asset based approach” in developing new ways of working in genuine partnership with older people to plan and deliver services (Aberdeen City Council, 2013b: 13), the first ‘Joint Commissioning Strategy for Older People’ was set up for the period of 2013–2023 to adopt coproduction and partnership as a part of their strategy (Aberdeen City Council, 2013c). While the interest in coproduction continued within the City Council, the language of coproduction fits comfortably with community organisations as indicated by the network governance framework. It has been argued that such horizontal networks have grown in importance with diminished central government involvement and more involvement from actors that act in trans-border networks such as financial agencies, private businesses, non-governmental organisations and consultants (Bell et al., 2010; Laffin et al., 2014; Rhodes, 1996). In fact, in 2013, Aberdeen City Council asked PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to prepare an internal audit risk assessment and plan. According to the PwC report, the Council required more “effective” engagement in leading the emergence of shared objectives and plans and the co-production of solutions (PwC, 2013: 12).

While Aberdeen City Council’s services have been in partnership with NHS Grampian by implementing the Joint Strategic Commissioning Framework (2013–2023), local authorities in Scotland have also stated to implement policies directed from the Social Care (Self Directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013. ‘Aberdeen City Strategy for Autism’ has emphasised co-production as “multi-agency working in partnership with individuals and their families to afford appropriate choices leading to improved outcomes in terms of leading fulfilling lives, as active citizens within their own communities” (Aberdeen City Council, 2014a: 19). The same Act has led to the preparation of the Social Care and Wellbeing Service Business Plan for 2014–2017 which has encouraged “co-production and community capacity building to expand the options available to people and enable new solutions to emerge” (Aberdeen City Council, 2014b: 1).

The Scottish Government has also issued NHS Scotland 2020 Local Delivery Plans 2014–2015 to provide guidance on the preparation of local delivery plans for 2014/2015. According to the ‘Audit and Risk Committee Information’ bulletin by Aberdeen City Council, those delivery plans are now required to include “an improvement and coproduction plan” (Aberdeen City Council, 2014c: 37). What remains common across all these policies on coproduction is that the term has been used as a signifier that helps the focus on managerial approaches to public services thus it is being rendered as a matter of administration rather than democracy. Also as it has been evidenced above, there is a particular focus on wellbeing and health. The service delivery reforms under the concept of coproduction have not been applied across the whole publicly delivered services in Aberdeen. This argument has also been picked up in another research where Laffin et al. (2014) argue that the service delivery chains of economic development and affordable housing in the UK should be considered not only a part of a shift from government to governance but within policy makers’ political objectives and strategies. Therefore, they argue that service delivery reforms in a ‘postdemocratic’ age are characterised not “in terms of generic trends towards governance but of the policy dynamics specific to particular services” (p. 762).

While the policy context of coproduction is still emerging in the Council documents, there is an increasing demand from Aberdeen citizens’ willingness to participate in the delivery of public services. Research was conducted in 2014 to investigate a series of questions around local environment and community safety in Aberdeen. A survey was run by a partnership between Aberdeen City Council, Aberdeen Council of Voluntary Organisations, Fire Scotland, Police Scotland, NHS Grampian, and the universities as a part of ‘Aberdeen City Voice’.⁹ The survey showed that there was a positive reaction towards citizens’ contribution to change their local environment and community safety (Table 2). More than 67% of the participants who completed the survey indicated that they could make a difference in changing their local environment. In terms of community safety, even though the total percentage of the difference was slightly lower with a ratio of 61.8%, the majority of the participants still believed they could make a change in their areas through participating in the delivery of public services.

Table 2.

Participants’ perceptions on citizens’ ability to change their local environment and safety in Aberdeen.

	How much of a positive difference do you think you can make to the quality of their local environment and community safety? (where 1 = no difference and 5 = a very significant difference)
	1	2	3	4	5	Don’t know
Local Environment	23 (3.3%)	43 (6.2%)	136 (19.7%)	217 (31.5%)	248 (36%)	22 (3.2%)
Community Safety	17 (2.5%)	54 (8%)	162 (23.9%)	220 (32.4%)	199 (29.4%)	26 (3.8%)

The survey also showed to what extent the participants would get involved in a local group to improve local environment and community safety (see Table 3). Amongst the 629 panellists, 37% of them stated that they would be interested in getting involved in a local group dedicated to improving their local environment through cleans-ups, joint working with public agencies, etc. The largest share of the respondents indicated that they would be prepared to spend a few hours a month volunteering (137 respondents; 60.1%). For community safety, amongst the 640 residents, only 29.4% (185 respondents) would be interested in getting involved. Similarly, the majority of the respondents (with a ratio of 53.9%; 98 respondents) would be prepared to give up a few hours a month voluntarily to improve the safety of their neighbourhood. While the respondents’ overall perception on their local environment was very satisfactory, the survey has indicated that the overall engagement of the actions remains rather limited (Ersoy, 2014). The respondents specified that Aberdeen City Council should be engaging more with the Aberdeen citizens in terms of exchanging information or involving citizens in issues on local environment. For community safety, it was pointed out that there should be more consultation in terms of how to seek advice from police or reporting an incident or anti-social behaviour to the police. Nevertheless, the overall picture has shown that Aberdeen citizens are geared towards engaging in the delivery of public services if they are given more chances.

Table 3.

Participants’ willingness to change their local environment and safety in Aberdeen.

	How much of your time would you be willing to spend volunteering to make a positive change to the quality of their local environment and community safety?
	A few hours a week	A few hours a month	A few hours a year	No time at all	Don’t know
Local Environment	35 (15.4%)	137 60.1%)	46 (20.2%)	1 (0.4%)	9 (3.9%)
Community Safety	22 (12.1%)	98 (53.9%)	45 (24.7%)	1 (0.5%)	16 (8.6%)

Conclusion

In this paper, I have used Aberdeen as my case study and examined how Aberdeen City Council has adopted this concept in its documents. Aberdeen is a very interesting example as it is the most unequal wage structured city in the UK. Also as the economic downturn increases, people become more dependent on a range of locally and nationally provided public services. That creates big challenges in terms of delivering public services. Coproduction can be a catalyser in terms of increasing the impact and effectiveness of public services as the delivery and design of those services can be better informed by communities’ preferences and needs (Ostrom, 1996). However, institutional practices generally embed decision making within institutions and this makes it hard to bring communities back in the decision making process. Also as it has been discussed in the paper, Aberdeen’s approach towards coproduction has focused on managerial practices and hence has been a matter of administration. There is a need to develop confidence and trust in working in equal partnership across public services. There have been various techniques for coproducing research with communities which would contribute to the discussions on democracy. They include citizen juries, time banks, expert panels, world café, hotseating, forum theatre and planning cells. While such techniques have enabled practical orientation, bottom-up participation and deliberative solution generation, they have also offered framework for exploring deliberative democracy (Fung and Wright, 2003). There is no doubt that particular communities, individuals and families will need more support. Luckily, Scotland is interested in the concept of coproduction as the core part of the Scottish approach to public services. In fact, the survey result in Aberdeen revealed that people are already willing to contribute their time in making a positive change to the quality of their local environment and community safety.

In the age of uncertainty and austerity, we are witnessing new forms of understanding and acting that are being invented within public services. Performance indicators are no longer valid in the context of public cuts. While uncertainty creates institutional barriers and trust issues in public service agencies, there seems to be a general consensus that we should pay more attention to governance practices that are engaged in reformulating power structures (Beebeejaun et al., 2013). Within this framework, coproduction remains as an experiment for local authorities as it provides inclusive and practical guidance by facilitating learning for both communities and practitioners under conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty. In this way, local knowledge is recognised to refer to the mixture of practical knowledge and the frames of reference that people give meaning (Geertz, 1983).

The last point coming out of this research is related to the role of translators. As indicated above, the Christie Commission was probably the main push behind Aberdeen City Council in terms of incorporating the language of coproduction into the City Council’s policy documents. This reminds me of Richard Freeman’s work ‘What is translation?’. Freeman refers to translation as a boundary object, the means of which have been used to communicate about a problem even in the absence of any fully shaped conception of it (Freeman, 2009). In the context of Aberdeen, a series of policy documents emphasising coproduction published after the report shows how policy translation stimulates a sense of legitimacy and dominates the language of certain services that are provided by Aberdeen City Council as a part of the ‘Scottish approach’. Within the multiple definitions of coproduction, the concept has been translated through a range of processes at multiple scales. Supported by policy makers and senior practitioners, it has been placed at the core of public services in Scotland. Coproduction is now being cast as a new methodology in which communities can be engaged in policy development, service delivery and research. It not only encourages participants to engage with politics indirectly, but also puts human empathy, spirit and value back into research. However, the question of who is advocating this is still a question mark. Commercial consultants, professional associations, client groups, chief executives, think tanks are all a part of this. Future research will show whether coproduction has delivered its ambitions and empower communities in the long term. For the moment, it remains as an experimentation.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project is funded by BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants - SRG 2012-13 Round.

Notes

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