In recent years, there has been a radical reinterpretation of the role of policy making and service delivery in the public domain. Policy making is no longer seen as a purely top-down process but rather as a negotiation among many interacting policy systems. Similarly, services are no longer simply delivered by professional and managerial staff in public agencies but are coproduced by users and their communities. Th is article presents a conceptual framework for understanding the emerging role of user and community coproduction and presents several case studies that illustrate how diff erent forms of coproduction have played out in practice. Traditional conceptions of service planning and management are now outdated and need to be revised to account for coproduction as an integrating mechanism and an incentive for resource mobilization — a potential that is still greatly underestimated. However, coproduction in the context of multipurpose, multistakeholder networks raises important public governance issues that have implications for public services reform.

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Beyond Engagement and Participation: User and Community Coproduction of Public Services

Urban Complexity and Spatial Strategies develops important new relational and institutionalist approaches to policy analysis and planning, of relevance to all those with an interest in cities and urban areas.
Well-illustrated chapters weave together conceptual development, experience and implications for future practice and address the challenge of urban and metropolitan planning and development.
Useful for students, social scientists and policy makers, Urban Complexity and Spatial Strategies offers concepts and detailed cases of interest to those involved in policy development and management, as well as providing a foundation of ideas and experiences, an account of the place-focused practices of governance and an approach to the analysis of governance dynamics. For those in the planning field itself, this book re-interprets the role of planning frameworks in linking spatial patterns to social dynamics with twenty-first century relevance.

Urban Complexity and Spatial Strategies: Towards a Relational Planning for Our Times

The concept of ‘ street-level bureaucracy ’ was coined by Michael Lipsky (1980) as the
common denominator for what would become a scholarly theme. Since then his stress
on the relative autonomy of professionals has been complemented by the insight that
they are working in a micro-network of relations, in varying contexts. The conception
of ‘ governance ’ adds a particular aspect to this: the multi-dimensional character of a
policy system as a nested sequence of decisions. Combining these views casts a
different perspective on the ways street-level bureaucrats are held accountable.
In this article some axiomatic assumptions are drawn from the existing literature
on the theme of street-level bureaucracy and on the conception of governance. Acknowledging
variety, and arguing for contextualized research, this results in a rethinking
of the issue of accountability at the street level.

Street-level bureaucracy and public accountability

This paper draws on the findings of a study within the ESRC's Democracy and Participation Programme. It explores the processes of participation within deliberative forums - such as user panels, youth forums, area based committees - developed as a means of encouraging a more active, participating mode of citizenship and of improving welfare services by making them more responsive to users. Our findings open up a number of issues about constraints on the development of 'collaborative governance'. To understand these constraints, we suggest, there is need to locate participation initiatives in the context of government policy, to explore ways in which such policy is interpreted and enacted by strategic actors in local organisations and to examine the perceptions of members of deliberative forums themselves. Our findings highlight the constraints on the 'political opportunity structures' created by the enhanced policy focus on public participation, and the consequent limits to 'collaborative governance'. We discuss how governance theory and social movement theory can each contribute to the analysis, but also suggest productive points of engagement through which each of these bodies of theory might enrich the other.

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Public Participation and Collaborative Governance

The shift from government to governance in recent years has created significant new opportunities for people from disadvantaged communities to participate in the decisions that affect them. However, the weight of evidence over the years suggests that these communities have remained on the margins in partnerships and other initiatives. Governmentality theory helps to explain the ways in which state power persists even when governing is increasingly devolved; however, it also allows for the possibility of 'active subjects', who can shape and influence the new spaces into which they have been invited. This article draws on a range of evidence from the literature and from the author's own research in the UK to consider the challenges for communities of 'governing beyond the state'.

Community Participation in the Real World: Opportunities and Pitfalls in New Governance Spaces

Introduction The Policy Context Ideas of Community Contradictions of Community Prescribing Community to the Poor Power and Empowerment Power in the Policy Process Experiencing Empowerment Reclaiming Community Reclaiming Power The Challenge for Communities The Institutional Challenge Community Empowerment: Myth or Reality?

Public Policy in the Community

Introduction Susan Balloch and Marilyn Taylor Part One: Regeneration and social exclusion 'Holism' and urban regeneration Peter Ambrose Partnerships and power in community regeneration Marjorie Mayo and Marilyn Taylor Local government, anti-poverty strategies and partnership working Sarah Pearson Partnership and change in social housing Barbara Reid Improving partnership working in housing and mental health Simon Northmore Part Two: Partnerships in social care and health The potential of project status to support partnerships Valerie Williamson Promoting independence: a partnership approach to supporting older people in the community Helen Charnley Partnership between service users and statutory social services Michael Turner and Susan Balloch Partnership working in health promotion: the potential role of social capital in health development John Kenneth Davies Part Three: Power, participation and place Partnership and power: the role of black and minority ethnic voluntary organisations in challenging racism Jabeer Butt Rounding up the 'usual suspects': police approaches to multi-agency policing Peter Squires and Linda Measor Partnership - participation - power: the meaning of empowerment in post-industrial society David Byrne Spatial considerations in multi-agency and multi-disciplinary work Philip Haynes Conclusion - Can partnerships work? Susan Balloch and Marilyn Taylor.

Partnership working: policy and practice

The growing emphasis on partnership is opening up new opportunities for voluntary and community organizations, many of which have felt themselves hitherto to be “outsiders” in the policy process. But it is also generating new dilemmas as they strive to maintain their autonomy while increasingly operating as insiders. This article examines the strategic choices that such organizations make in seeking to influence policy and the challenges that they face. It rejects the simple categorizations made between “insiders” and “outsiders” in the policy process, arguing that strategic choices are more complex and dynamic than this, with insider strategies dependent on outsider strategies and vice versa, and many organizations operating from both arenas.

Protest or Partnership? The Voluntary and Community Sectors in the Policy Process

SECTION ONE: Introduction: What is the purpose of such a detailed framework? What is community participation? Why is community participation essential? Key principles which have underpinned our work What these frameworks can be used for Key lessons from the road testing of the original frameworks The structure of the framework SECTION TWO: A new framework: Health warning Applying the framework Additional advice SECTION THREE: Reflective questions for addressing key considerations: 1 What different communities exist within your locality? 2 Who or what has determined the rules in your partnership or for your initiative? 3 What is the balance of power within the partnership/initiative? 4 In what ways, and to what extent, are communities involved? 5 What level of investment is there in community participation? 6 Is there strong leadership to support community participation? 7 Do decision-making structures allow for local diversity? 8 Are you able to work in a joined-up way? 9 Are service structures compatible with community participation? 10 Is your group able to run in an effective and inclusive way? 11 How does your group or organisation ensure that its representatives on committees and boards are accountable? 12 How effective is your information and communication? 13 Do you have an effective approach to community and organisational learning? 14 Has participation made any difference? SECTION FOUR: Tools and exercises: A: Speedos B Steps and barriers C: Stakeholder cards D: Objectives exercise E: Drawings and pictures F: Spider's web maps G: Level of participation scale H: Meetings checklist I: The 'hats' form J: The decision trail K: Recording meetings.

Making community participation meaningful: A handbook for development and assessment

Contents: The background for local compact development Getting started The factors that illustrate compacts The reach of compacts The impact of the compacts The future for local compacts. jr104.doc

Marilyn Taylor

Papers

Public Policy in the Community

Partnership working: policy and practice

Protest or Partnership? The Voluntary and Community Sectors in the Policy Process

Making community participation meaningful: A handbook for development and assessment

Contract or trust?: The role of compacts in local governance