H&F has a proud history of being the country’s leading borough for co-production, embedding its benefits across council services so that residents are fully involved at the earliest stage in decisions that affect and impact their lives.
We were the first local authority in the country to commit to co-production across a whole council.
Co-production is about doing things with residents, not to them, and whilst co-production for us often means starting with the views of Disabled residents, it is ultimately about all residents.
It means residents and decision makers are working together in an active way to plan, design and review how we work as a council – leading to better decision making and outcomes for residents. The same principles apply to our workforce - we will co-produce with our staff where decisions impact them also.
Building on the outstanding work and difference made by our 17 resident-led commissions, we have continued to operate several co-production groups including our Digital Accessibility Group and Disabled People’s Housing Strategy Implementation Group.
The work is overseen by our Co-production Matters Group, which includes residents, community organisations, councillors, and staff.
Other co-production successes include our award-winning Civic Campus development, which will be a truly inclusive community-led development that meets the needs of everyone in our borough.
Our ambition
Our ambition is to have co-production so well embedded that it becomes second nature in the development of all service areas, leading to improved policy making, service delivery and efficiency – having no decision about residents, without residents.
Short term goals
In the short term, we will:
- continue to expect all major strategies, projects and service design works to have co-production principles, openness, and transparency at their core
- strengthen our governance processes to ensure all residents, staff and partners can check and challenge how we work to improve services through co-production
- continue to employ new co-production tools, techniques, standards, and training across the organisation to build the capacity of staff in delivering
effective co-production activities - establish a staff co-production working group to enable greater shared learning
- strengthen our resident engagement platforms to enable all residents to be better informed and involved in decisions that affects them.
Long term goals
In the long term, we will:
- bring together more co-production groups, starting with a focus on independent living and inclusive public spaces
- work with voluntary sector organisations and residents to co-produce their services
- introduce a more effective approach to enable our leaseholders to have a greater say in the shape and delivery of services they receive
- actively work to engage underrepresented groups across a range of decision-making areas that affect them.