Sophia Parker (Part1) (066)
Sophia Parker, founder of Kent's Social Innovation Lab, discusses parralells between successful online networks and public serivces.
Transcript:
Q. So we are looking at these web sights or projects or particularly mumsnet or netmums or couch surfing, horses mouth where people are providing very useful services to each other for free nobody is being paid. Do you feel that that is a product of the technology or is it a cultural shift that we are seeing?
A. Well, I think it is probably a little bit of both -- the technology and the cultural shift that we are seeing. On the one hand, the technology means that people can connect. I think people often have wanted to connect and share advice or ideas with each other. That has probably always been true but the technology is suddenly enabling it in ways that have not been possible before but I do think there is something cultural going on as well and I think, particularly when you are thinking about public services or services like netmums or whatever, what we are beginning to see is people putting their faith in a different kind of professionalism. So people trust the mothers they meet on mums net because they have been mums, not because they are health visitors or social workers or whatever. So the I think there is something about who do we trust and what do we count as professional knowledge and actually people want knowledge and insight from other people who have actually done the job and who are going through similar experiences and so on.
Q. How does that information how is that information reliable how do people use that information what stops it from being total nonsense or people being mislead or misleading each other sort of thing?
A. Yes I think that is obviously something everybody is quite worried about at the moment, particularly in relation to trying to introduce these technologies into public services. You know, can you trust the first thing that comes up when you search on google for a bit of information about health you have? Can you trust that more than a doctor? I mean, I guess there is a lot of research about this around the fact that if you have lots and lots of people collaborating and sharing information. Actually the kind of the good rises to the top and there is a kind of self-policing going on. So you think about like the wisdom of crowds, the ideas in that book, there is that sense that the more people you have involved the more people you have tending to the information that is being shared, that is a way of insuring quality. But I do think it is a risk and I do think that actually very interesting conversations about what does all of this information mean about how we educate our kids, it is much more important to think about how people assess and sift information and understand that sometimes information they are looking at maybe comes from a biased source and so actually kind of how you build some of that into how we educate our kids is a really important I think.
Q. How is that effecting the way we read or consume information a lot of these web sights also put a lot of faith in us as readers because they don't vet the comments or you know officially there is no process you can just pose something so mums net or couch sufficienting but you know anyone is allowed to say anything and it is trusting people to be good and also trusting people who read that information to do something useful with it and not to be miss led with it what do you think about that system set up to trust people?
A. Well I think, if you take the example of patient opinion, I think what is is very interesting about that site is, if you look at what people have posted and what they give, it is actually people do seem to have an understanding of what is asked of them and do take some responsibility and I suppose that is one of the defining features of the sort of gift economy that lots of these websites seem to trade on, that people don't set out to mislead people or provide bad information. Actually they do want to give generously the stuff true to them. So I think patient opinion, I do not know the figures, but they have had very few posts that are either malicious or inappropriate or whatever and I think the minute you introduce a kind of mediating force, you slightly change the dynamics -- it becomes less of an kind of gift economy, less of people just sharing stuff with each other and does become more formalised and I think that does create a slightly different culture online.
Q. Something like if these web sights we are talking about look at people as a resources or look at people how do they conceive of the people that use them what do they think how do they position the people that are using them?
A. I think it varies massively between the sites but if you take -- lets take -- actually net mums is a good example. Net mums, set up by a mum in her back bedroom now has, what, 275,000 unique users and I think that really has come from people finding it useful wanting to share information feeling a sense of connection. All of those things that seem to be important and then, if you compare that to the government department deciding to set up their own version of it, you automatically start to see people in slightly more instrumental ways where it becomes a way of delivering outcomes, supportive parents or whatever and I think, actually, in terms of what government should do, there is a very interesting question about whether their role is to support these much more kind of emergent sites or that have been founded by people for other people rather than trying to set up rival ones. You know, I do not know what the value is really of doing that.
Q. But just in terms of the comparison of the way that the NHS or public services think about the people that use them there is a sort of drain to resources whereas a lot of these sights consider their users to be the biggest resources probably?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you talk about that difference?
A. (6.30) Yes. I think, if you look at how public services work currently, it is very much a kind of -- well they are built on a model of each of us being passive consumers, people with needs and those needs that have to be met and I think increasingly, as we sort of see shifting patterns of demand and ever decreasing budgets and rising expectations, actually public services are going to need to change the way in which they see people. They are going to need to find a way of tapping into people's own resources. Then they are going to need to find ways of connecting people to support one another in the way that sites like net mums do. There are also examples of that happening in a none web based way. So the expert patient programme is a another interesting example of that. So actually beginning to understand that public services need to start not with problems and needs but with people and what they can bring I think is one of the defining shifts in how we view public services at the moment.
Q. Why would people want to get involved in the public services, why would they bother to say anything or do anything?
A. (7.39) I think the reason people want to get involved is because they feel they have something to give back. I mean, if you talk to people who have had an experience in hospital they often feel it is very important to share that. That is part of a process of -- I do not know what it is, whether it is part of the process of feeling better or just feeling like you are giving something back and I do not think we should underestimate that people do want to do that, yes, and I guess the way public service is right now, it sort of assumes that people don't want to do that and do not have anything to give and actually are kind of there taking a chunk of service and then going back to their lives. So, actually, the reality is how healthy we are has a massive impact on how we live our lives. How we feel about being a parent really changes how we feel when we wake up every morning or whatever. So actually the way services interact with peoples lives is actually much more complex than than I think we imagine.
Q. So what needs to change then at the moment the government struggles to get us to even give our opinion on certain things why does it struggle to get our inn put and how does it need to change to do what you are saying?
A. I think the reason that government struggles to get our input is that, far too many times what happens is government asks us for input, people give it and nothing changes and, you know, you often hear this thing about consultation fatigue and the fact that people just feel they have been asked again and again what they want and they say what they want and then nothing changes. So I think what needs to happen is actually we need to kind of close the gap between what government is asking about and what people are saying. There is a kind of disconnect there that we need to deal with and actually, if you look at a lot of the kind of really genuinely user services, whether they be public services or commercial organisations, one of the really defining characteristics of them is they have got much, much smarter at knowing how to use that kind of information from people, that feedback from people, to inform kind of policy and strategy and all those decisions about budget locations and so on. So it is kind of making that connection much stronger and I think that is something that all public services are going to need to grapple with and it is going to be pretty hard.
Q. The connection between the user inn put and?
A. Yes I mean I think the way public services -- well, let me try that again. Something about evidence I want to say:
(10.28) I think at the moment public services fail to see information and insight from the people using those services as evidence, as useful evidence, that they might use to drive change in the service that they are providing and I think what we need to see is shift so we start to recognise the fact that, actually, people's experiences -- the people experiencing the service probably have a lot to offer in terms of how things could be better and so there is a really interesting study done in the States about where do innovations come from and the finding was that 85 per cent of innovations come from users or front line staff and actually we don't know how to tap into that. Public services generally are still struggling to know how to tap into that and really make use of it.
Q. So what are the sort of drivers for that participation I suppose? One of them is to see your effect what are the reasons why people are doing it seems like if couch surfing proves people will share their space with a complete strange and mums net supporting another person you have not met in real life and horses mouth you will definitely not meet them ever what are how can what are the sort of motivation motivations motivations there that public services could use more.
A. (Laughter laughter laughter laughter)
Q. Don't worry about repeating yourself.
A. What are the motivations that people could use more?
Q. In each of them I think there is something. It is about people seeing the effects -- I think very simple feedback.
A. I am just seeing if there is anything I would want to add to that.
Q. Maybe just even say there is a resources or another motivation type of financial that needs to be?
A. No, I think that is true. Okay. So what are the motivations that we could tap into? Well the first thing is that people who are giving something, I think there is a real pleasure in getting something back and actually that very immediate feedback you get from being part of a community online is really, really powerful and you don't get that in the kind of large scale consultations that government tries to run often. And I think as well there is something in the fact that that kind of gift economy has always been there. It is just that it remains invisible and, partly, what kind of social media is beginning to do is bring that gift economy out into the open to make it sort of tangible and I think it is partly about recognising that and seeing that and when we are thinking about public services and what needs to happen next and, you know, how we are going to, you know, deal with the changing demands. It is about seeing that kind of informal economy, that economy that you can not really put a price on and you can not really put targets on but nevertheless is incredibly valuable when you are talking about trying to achieve outcomes in terms of health education and wellbeing.
Q. To talk about some of the problems or the challenges working I suppose irregularly in local government, if this thing is so easy and we have this massive pool of resources why is it not helping happening faster what are people scared of interruption interruption: what are the challenges of this in your work?
A. (15.47) I think there are lots of reasons it is not moving faster in public services and probably the first and most contentious I suppose is around information and data -- something we have heard lots about in the last few months -- but I think the question of who owns all this information, who owns all this data, is really, tough and I think there is only one answer. It is that everyone has to own it but actually, how you put that into practice and you are going to ensure people that their data is not going to be used in ways they don't wish it to be used and so on I think is really, really difficult. And I think we have really yet to resolve those issues and it is going to take a long time to work them through but I think there is another reason why it is maybe taking a while for public services to catch on to these new forms of interaction and connection and that is, I think, because there is a nervousness that I think, if you ask people what they want, they will ask for too much. Now experience bears out and suggests that that is not the case and, if you ask there is a Bernardos survey which asks kids what they want from their schools and it was not the kind of chocolate covered classrooms at all -- it was all very much things like a locker to put things away in and, you know, a roof that did not leak, unfortunately, and things like that but that fear of, if we kind of unleash this, what are we going to get back and is it going to be more than we can possibly deal with and I think that is a very big fear as well and then I think there is also another issue in public services which is that most services are very much designed on a professional service model where it is the professoinal's job to assess need to allocate resources and then to deliver that service and actually that model of professionalism sits very uncomfortably with some of the new forms of connection that people are forming on line and, until we begin to question and challenge that model of professionalism, I think it is going to be very hard for public services to make the most of this new economy.
Q. Is it knotted also the case that people there is a fear of people the way that most systems are set occupy now is very formal HARBGs people are afraid of loosing their control or automatic my fewer people with control and they are very much enjoying their control and by allowing people who are officially under them or PARBTS in the N H S the users and the TPROBT line staff to develop ideas their position is being threatened?
A. I don't think you should underestimate the power of bureaucracy to maintain themselves and I think, you know, you will find this everywhere you look, whichever council you go to, whichever government department, you will find professionals who are incredibly committed to an ethic which is about starting with people and kind of responding to their needs in a way that is kind of human and all of that, but I do think there are issues around the fact that, generally speaking, public services do put a lot of pressure on professionals to hold that controlling position, whether that is about making them accountable for what happens to a child when they are in care or whatever, actually as a professional you will feel under a considerable amount of responsibility to make sure that things are okay and, while that is the case, that is what you are going to do. But I think it is not necessarily about evil Chief Executives sitting in their offices and thinking 'How can we kind of make sure we keep the people down?' Maybe that is is the case in some cases, but I think there is something about the culture and mindset that exists within bureaucraciess which I think is very, very challenging for this whole agenda and the truth is most public services are still run as bureaucracies.
Q. To move that on how do you sort of sell the advantages to those PWROBGSs, how can you start to persuade those people that there is something that needs to be how do you start saying to people who very proud of their professional HREUFPLT that they can accept or might have a better service if they were to use this?
A. Well, I think one of the things that is very interesting about all of this is, when you speak to front line professionals, the people delivering services in peoples homes or in the children's centre or whatever, this whole agenda around kind of working with people as co-designers or working with people using the services, it really appeals to them. They get it. They understand it and they want to, broadly speaking, create a model of professionalism which taps into that and I think it is probably about how you actually enable other people not necessarily working on the front line to actually have experiences where they see the world as it looks from that kind of moment of interaction between people's lives and the services that are being delivered and I think, at the moment, it is very hard to paint pictures of what the world looks like at that point and some of the work I have been doing in Kent, we have been experimenting with the use of ethnographic research to try and get much more vivid pictures of how people are living their lives on an day-to-day basis and actually using those insights to play it back to the senior managers to help them understand that there is a tremendous amount that a family supposedly living in risk can do. Just an example -- one of the assumptions that a lot of policy around families in poverty is based on is that they don't know how to manage money and, actually, what we learned with our research work is, of course, they are expert budget managers. They have so little money to work with that they become very very good and know how to manage and juggle the small amount that they have. So finding ways of taking that insight the realities of people's lives and playing it back in ways that bring it to life for senior managers is really really critical and essential if they are going to start the kinds of conversations that will lead to the kind of shift in mindset that we need to go through in most public services.
Q. What do you think the really good leaders are doing what are the critics of the leader of an organisation that is a (inaudible)?
A. (22.46) I think there is a few things that characterises the leaders who are really showing the way on this stuff. Firstly, I think they are engaging in a dialogue about the meaning of professionalism in the 21th century and starting to imagine, with their professionals working for them, a new model based on collaboration and co-design, rather than kind of delivery and power, I suppose. So I think all of those conversations around professionalism is very important and I think the other thing that leaders are doing in all of this is being very open to the possibilities of technology to kind of support and provide the tools for this new way of working. Leaders kind of taking risks investing in forms of technology which maybe don't seem relevant or appropriate for today but doing it on the basis that that seems to be where things are going next. So for example, in Kent, investing in a television channel where people can upload their own content being fairly controversial as a decision, but actually, in the future, I think it will kind of stand the test of time, I suppose. So use of technology is also very important I think.
Q. Where do you think we are at sort of with group decision making working together and accepting everyone's view points and having these big discussions is you know very important but what about when it SOPLS comes to getting something done how are we doing with that. One of the things we have followed is EBS fleet AOUPBTD football team 30,000 fans all trying to decide who to vote on how their little democracy should work and it is very interested to see what happens at the moment they are doing very well how do you think we are doing in terms of that if people are offered the opportunity to work together they also exact to make an decision together?
A. (24.57) I think that question of how people make decisions together is a really interesting one because actually in any creative process it is much much easier to develop ideas and, you know, kind of brainstorm lots of different possibilities than it is to say 'Now we have got these hundred ideas, which 5 are we going to do?' and I think that is in any creative process that is all always the tougher part of it. But I mean I suppose the work that is happening around participatory budgeting is a really interesting area to explore -- obviously it kind of started in South America and is now being introduced. You know, we have the Minister of state talking about introducing that form of budgeting to a number of councils and indeed quite a few councils have been having a go at trying to implement it for the past few years. I mean I suppose the challenge in how to introduce participatory budgeting is that actually people need to be educated a little bit in how it works and that is one kind of challenge around it and I think the second challenge is as a council the kind of council itself needs to buy into the process itself of doing things properly, not just doing it as a kind of tokenistic exercise but being very, very clear that actually we have chosen that X per cent of our budget will be determined in a participatory way and then to really invest in that process in which those decisions are made. So it needs to be really bought into properly rather than being tokenistic but I mean one other reflection on that I suppose is that, if you look at the development of participatory budgeting in South America it has happened over an period of years not months and, it has been a very gradual process whereby progressively larger chunks of the budget have been allowed to be determined in that way. It didn't happen over night. And I suppose one of the things that I hope in this country is that we do also kind of introduce it but at a pace that is manageable and keeps it meaningful, rather than being reduced into the next version of the big conversation or consultations that we have seen.
Q. What do you think you stand to gain from exercises like that?
A. (27.23) I think there is a lot to be gained from exercises like that. I think for one we know that peoples perception that they can participate in decision making is a key driver. It has an direct coorelation with people's levels of trust and satisfaction. Now we know that both trust and satisfaction are taking a bit of a dive in the public sector at the moment, so actually there does seem to be a coorelation between the sense that people can influence decisions and trust and satisfaction doesn't necessarily mean that they do but it is that sense that they can and I think that is really, really important. It makes it very important.
Q. We saw participatory budgeting in Morecambe. It was debate. It was very -- I think a few interesting points: one it was actually quite fun it was an fun day it was in an night club in the centre of town and the area was quite small?
A. Where was this.
Q. Morecambe, so quite a mad town anyway the hall was you know packed with people three minute PREPBGSs each and it is very quick and five hours not that quick but centre of their community fun to watch and everyone saw what went on who was doing what how much money they were asking for and everyone also has to vote on everything that is settle so I mean it seems to be doing a lot of different things at the same time and they made good decisions that we agreed on and even the people had a that had not got the fun money thought?
A. It was a fair decision and yes yes.
Q. They could not say 'bloody council'?
A. Absolutely, absolutely and I think the way you surround those kinds of processes with the media and the stories, actually it is fascinating in terms of how it changes the terms of the debate between local residents and the council. I know another example of a council that used participatory budgeting and one of the things they said most striking about the exercise is the fact that they said the conversation went from a kind of shrill kind of 'Let's beat up the council, they don't know what they are doing,' into a kind of much more of a kind of adult dialogue in a way where people understood that, of course, there are always going to be trade-offs to be made. We can not -- we don't have infinite pots of money in public services and people do have to trade things off and involving people in that process is incredibly powerful in terms of helping all of us to see the difficult decisions that need to be made everyday.
Q. I think it is very easy when you are outside of something to hurl abuse at it you don't feel that you are like the difference between what people say on the TERSs at EBS fleet screaming abuse at there own players sometimes and when you look on the forms you get a very different level of debate where the decisions are made. I have looked on the team selection thing and I don't feel I know enough about it to vote and so I don't?
A. Right.
Q. So I think there is something in there about UPBS you are given responsibility you don't hurl abuse?
A. That's right, yes. You don't hurl abuse but you also accept that if you chose not to engage that is your choice and that there will be other people more expert than you that you feel are making that decision and you will be happy with that. You have been given that opportunity and and you have decided not to. There are obviously darker implications to that but actually, in something like the Ebbsfleet example, I think it is that is absolutely true that if you look at it and think I do not know about this enough to vote, you may decide to step back but still feel happy that the vote is being made by people you are happy to have making those decisions.
Q. And I think that point about it being repeated is very important as well?
A. Yes.
Q. A lot of people have said if I had known I had been like this I would have got all my friends to come or done my speech differently and better prepared for next time so there is something strengthening?
A. (32.06) I think that is absolutely right and I think it is something about strengthening every time -- word of mouth getting out there, people beginning to understand what the process is, but I suppose there is also something about it not being a one off. It actually becomes a way in which the council or government department does its business. Too often at the moment kind of engagement is seen as a priority but it is seen as an additional tick on the to-do list rather than just the way in which business is done and I think that idea of kind of creating participatory processes which are repeated and do keep on happening is so essential, otherwise it will continue just to be seen as that kind of extra thing you need to do when you have done everything else and delivered all your targets and so on.
Q. I think owner ship is another important factor in all of this stuff in participatory budgetling T-GS right this money has been given to us we are going AOE see how it is distributed from this room but we are going to make the right decision what are the sort of what needs to happen for people to feel that owner ship and how far into government can that go if connection?
A. I think that the kind of shared decision making processes are certainly -- you can see the huge potential they have at a local level where people are making decisions about the areas in which they live, the services that are delivered near their homes and I think the benefits are very, very obvious there and I suppose my sense is, lets get it right there and lets learn about the kind of important factors that need to be in place first. I mean, I suppose one of the recommendations that I always wish had been put into practice was about schools actually allowing one per cent their budgets to be allocated by parents because I think you know actually, in these services where you really care, you have a personal investment in how the money is spent. I think it can be so powerful as a way of empowering people to make those decisions to give their feedback to debate the relative merits of investing in more lockers versus a new playing field or whatever it is. Whatever the decision is I suppose, yes, the idea of getting it right locally first is I think very important.
I am not sure I like that answer. I do not think I do not know if I think that. Just what would happen if you asked people to invest in an entire education budget. Yes I am not sure if I like that answer. I do not know. I have not thought about it enough.
Q. It is difficult to say that you should do that straight away though but it sounds very sensible.
A. (35.15) Is it Sweden? There is definitely a country where they allow one per cent of the total tax budget to be voted on how, it is invested, so there are ways of doing it nationally, so I do not think I want to say keep it local for now, so ...
Q. Could you maybe say something about the opportunity to experiment with that type of scale I mean it looks like I think it is very interesting that with the EBS fleet example only five per cent do vote but 30,000 have signed up to the web site saying own the club TPEUBG the team so they are attracted by that but when given the decision they think about it there is something there that sort of works although it may not be you might not see it is a proper democracy because?
A. I do not think that you can measure democracy purely in the numbers of people voting actually, particularly this in these very new social media stuff. There is some very interesting research that Demos did a few years back on participation in local decision making processes and what it found is it had a only one per cent of people are participating and in a way to make the policy objective, to have 100 per cent participation is both unfeasible and probably slightly ridiculous and actually the real challenge then is how you strengthen the connections between that one per cent that is participating and the rest of the population. Now I suppose you would want to have slightly more than one per cent participating. I do not know but actually how you make sure that the connections between those people who are involved in those decision making formus are connecting to the wider community. I think that is a key area which we probably need to explore a bit more.
Q. Yes that what I want to say is it doesn't matter as long as those people have been given the opportunity if only ET people that know are boring to KREUB or vote or whatever that doesn't cause an problem?
A. I think that is true up to a point. I suppose the one piece of nervousness I have about that idea that actually if you know about, if you are given the opportunity and you chose not to, then, well, that is your choice. There is a slight issue in that, in that people's ability to participate may vary by all sorts of factors that perhaps we need to take account of. So for example the way councils communicate with their residents, well actually some of those forms of communication are much more appropriate for some people than for others. So I think you have to be very confident in public sector that you really have given everyone that opportunity to participate and that they have chosen not to because I think in most cases it would be very hard for it as a council to really feel confident that you have given every single person in your local area an equal chance to participate and it is one of the big challenges in terms of reducing inequality.
Q. Do you think you can have collaboration without group decision making in something if we are you know TKWOBGTing KO* design and all this stuff does it have to be PAEURD in groups?
A. (38.55) I think we have to be really careful about the distinctions between group decision making mass collaboration co-design -- these are all these new and exciting words that share this commitment to participation and I think we have to be really careful about what we are talking about and there is a danger that it all becomes this big mushy participation agenda that is a little bit fluffy and not necessarily that clear in terms of what it is and what it is trying to achieve. I think if you look at the kind of most recent innovations literature, if you are seeking to innovate, then actually you don't necessarily want mass participation. A lot of the work on users driven innovations suggests that there is only a small handful of users that are innovating. It is the kind of extreme users of a product or service and actually how you find those people and then work with them is very important but actually that is a tiny percentage of the overall users of a particular service or a product. So I think you have to be really clear about what it is you are trying to achieve. Group deliberation, group decision making is, I think, probably a very important part of renewing the connection between local government democracy and people, kind of renewing the public realm I suppose but, equally, if you are thinking about innovation and we need innovaton in public services quite a lot at the moment, you may be working people in a slightly different way. You may be working with fewer numbers of people but those people who might be classed as the extreme users, the lead innovaters whatever you want to call them.
Q. So we need different systems for different things but fundamental we have the sort of tools for both available now do you think?
A. Err.
Q. Both innovating and for renewing the relationship between people and government?
A. (40.55) I think probably, if you were to look around the country you could probably find pockets doing a lot of this stuff and one of of the biggest challenges for public services is kind of knowing how to take those pockets of, you know, amazing practice, brilliant examples, and actually kind of understanding what it takes to take that to scale. Too often brilliant future practice, next practice, gets trapped in these little pockets and we kind of get a bit stuck about how to say if it works here, what do we do about trying to make it work across the whole council or whole country. So I am sure that there are probably examples of this in operation at some very small scale around different bits of the country. We know that there are around participatory budgets and so on but I suppose the question will always be in public services, how do you make that work at the kind of scale public services are working at -- bigger than commercial organisation. You know, customer based hugely diverse. You know.
Q. Do you think it is a slightly different conception of citizens that we are looking at. The way that businesses are trying to sort of RE position their SPHAOURPLS and make the most of every interaction so they can improve and create a inn put do you think that the government needs to do so a similar thing?
A. I think there is a really important distinction to be made between public services that are transactional in their nature -- things like renewing your driving licence or registering a birth or marriage or death, those public services that are transactional -- and those public services that are much more about relationships, so things like education and social care and I think in the transactional public services there is actually an awful lot you can do to kind of get smart about how you use data how you share data how you target information and so on and we are just at the beginning of that at the moment I think. On the more kind of relationship based public services, I think there is probable a slightly different set of questions that are not simply about making the most of customer data. There is something deeper we need to think about there. Which is not just about kind of speeding up the machine or reducing the number of times you have to call up to register your car or whatever.
Actually can I say something else about that as well?
I think one of the other things that is interesting in the kind of public service reform narritive is that, if you look over the last ten year or so, we have been called so many different things -- we are kind of consumers we are choice, we are citizens with kind of democratic rights, we are residents, we live in the area and actually, now, we are sometimes co-designers and, actually, there are so many different things we are called and I suppose one of the issues is what are we -- what does government think of the people it is serving and what role does it play and I feel like there are lots of different stories in government at the moment about what rights we have, what responsibilities we have, what part we might play in designing services as well as being recipients of them and maybe one of the challenges is to decide what we want to be.
Q. Where do you think that will go do you see it will increase PARPLS participation is that where it is going to go will he we all play a more active role?
A. (44.45) I think that participation is probably you know one of the defining goals of this current administration and it doesn't really matter whether you look at the recent local government white paper, the requirement on councils to involve their residents and engage their communities -- whether you look from there to any of the kind of documents coming out of central government at the moment, the importance of participation, involvement, engagement is definitely there as a key theme. I suppose in terms of where it goes the question is whether it is understood simply as participating through making choice, choosing between your school or different schools, or whether we understand it as much deeper, about co-design and collaboration. I hope it goes to the co-design and collaboration end rather than getting stuck on the choice and consumption end.
Q. Change what government is there for if it is going for more supporting in terms of that if it is to do with supporting the things?
A. There is a lot of sun out there is there not yes.
Q. All right?
A. We Police Constable picked the worst time to do this did we not.
Q. It would not normally be like this in real life?
A. In real life not up here on 17 floor no real life round here TH*EUPBGS.
Q. Like being in L A. So what are you working towards then would you say in your work now what are you trying to achieve?
A. (46.53) I think what I am trying to achieve at the moment is to create create -- no start again. What am I trying to achieve? 'Create a new form of government', yes, right.
(47.08) I think what we need to be working towards is a situation in which, first of all, that kind of economy that was previously hidden, all the things we do for each other and do for ourselves is kind of recognised and seen by government and valued by government. I also think that what we are trying to work towards is a way in which professionals and people can collaborate together to create outcomes because actually we know, if you are talking about something like good health, we know that that can not be delivered or measured by shorter waiting lists or, you know, better quality visits to hospitals alone. Actually what we do, in terms of what we eat, in terms of how much we sleep, all of those things really matter. So it is about kind of recognising the fact that, actually, to achieve the kind of outcomes we are talking about of course we have to collaborate, of course what we do as individuals matters just as much as what professionals are doing. So I propose, if you are talking about where we are trying to get to with all of this, it really is about starting with people seeing their lives as they really are not making all those assumptions and doing that through involving people much more meaningfully in a way that enables them to collaborate with those professionals who traditionally have been seen as the deliverers of services.
Q. You wrote in something that the old days were out like government out sources things to businesses and now we are seeing out sourcing to people what do does that mean explain that?
A. I think there is an kind of interruption TPAO*EUR engine.
A. I am trying to remember where I wrote that involve publication.
Q. It might have been?
A. Participation nation is it that?
Q. Probably. Recently?
A. Yes. What did I want to say about that? I mean, yes, I think there is a danger we have to be a bit careful in talking about this sometimes because one way it could start to be seen by government is this is just another way of out-sourcing things that government used to do and dumping all the risk on each of us as individuals and that would obviously not be quite what we are aiming at here or really what all of these debates of participation and co-design have really been about. I think that is why you know it is very easy to say what we are aiming for is people's voices, people shaping all of this and I do not think it is about a kind of simple transferal of the role of government and the kind of, you know, responsibility for health outcomes to shift that from government to people. I do still think there is a place for professionals in this but it is about creating a different kind of relationship between state, professionals and citizens. It is not about kind of taking professionals out of the picture all together and leaving it to us to, you know, find our way and there is absolutely still a role.
Q. There is something about sort of privatisation. There is there not if you are out sourcing to companies the government is seeking to work with companies and now we can do some of those things ourselves is that what you are sort of getting at was it to do with that type of get together to organise something like mums net again that would cost THOUDZ of pounds if we did not out sort it to care?
A. (51.14) I think the last thing we want this to lead to is a kind of requirement to volunteer. It doesn't really make sense and I suppose what we don't want to happen is for there to be this kind of adoption of netmums from government and then this kind of announcement that, actually, we all must participate in these forums and help one another in this way. I think there is enough will and desire to share information and support one another already out there. We have seen that because these things are happening. It doesn't matter what government does. These things are happening anyway and actually I mean that is incredibly powerful and I do not think the response from government should then be to require participation volunteering and all of that. It is just more about government seeing this stuff. It has not really been seen before or recognised. The value has not been recognised enough.
Q. Tape change yes.
