User Generated State
Description
Charles Leadbeater:
"It is often assumed that the public have to rely on professionals to deliver public services because in the economic jargon there is an information asymmetry: the doctor or teacher knows more than the patient or pupil. Yet the families of these children have fine grained knowledge about what they really need: when they need two carers to support them and when only one will do; what risks to take on a trip out to the zoo and so on. The In Control initiative draws out this latent, tacit knowledge of users that is largely kept dormant and suppressed by the traditional delivery approach to services in which professionals are largely in control, assumed to have all the knowledge and so consumers are largely passive because they are assumed to lack the capability of taking charge of their own care, health, learning or tax." (http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/archive/public-services-20.aspx)
Discussion
Charles Leadbeater:
"The user generated state will only be possible, as In Control shows, if participative public services are well designed to make sure professional opposition is allayed or defused; risks are properly assessed by participants and professionals; spending it accounted for; people are given support, advice and tools to make informed choices; those with least confidence and resources are given additional support to make the best use of the choices available. Above all these approaches need to motivate people to want to help themselves and one another. Public services must not just serve people but motivate them to want to do more for themselves. Traditional methods to squeeze more productivity and higher quality out of public service value chains - targets, inspection, outsourcing, downsizing, workforce flexibility - are painfully slow at delivering real improvements in efficiency and outcomes. They are running out of steam. That is why promoting participation should be at the heart of a new agenda for public services. Not participation in formal meeting or governance but participation in service design and delivery. Participation offers a way for people to devise more effective, personalised solutions, at lower unit cost than top down professional services. What would it take to apply the principles of In Control to much of the rest of the public sector to create user generated public services? How far could it extend? What kind of benefits would it bring? What are the potential risks and downsides of public services 2.0? We believe these five principles should be at the heart of this shift." (http://www.charlesleadbeater.net/archive/public-services-20.aspx)
Example
In the UK: the In Control Initiative