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Introducing 'The Collaborative Citizen' - Listen Up, It's Time To Be Heard!
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Do you often get the feeling that you are not being listened to? Well you’re not alone as findings from our latest report ‘The Collaborative Citizen’ reveal that less than a quarter (14 per cent) of people say they have a voice in how public services are run.
The report launched in partnership with Ipsos MORI on April 25th has opened up an interesting and timely debate around how we can create a new system of ‘services to the public’, a widening of the lens that encourages and empowers citizens to be active agents in the design and delivery of services that matter to them.
Our stark findings, based on an Ipsos MORI poll reveal that levels of satisfaction are poor across the board, largely as a result of tax-payer funded providers falling short in understanding the needs of ‘citizens’ in relation to housing, jobs and living standards. Those already marginalised in society feel this most strongly.
The arguments within this powerful report pose fundamental challenges to public service providers, public managers, practitioners, and policymakers, and not least all political parties in the run up to the General Election. The message is clear – if we choose to alienate a central voice – that of the ‘collaborative citizen’, then we risk heading into a future in which the role and purpose of the state, market and society is transformed, but not in ways that we would recognize as progressive.
This debate is far from over and we are looking to host a follow up discussion event this summer. We would love for you to join us and share your views on how we transform these ideas and thinking into practical implementation, and how we define a new ‘social contract’ between citizens, state, market, and society. For more information about this work, please get in touch with my colleague Adelaide at adelaide@collaboratei.com.
Read some of the fantastic responses to ‘The Collaborative Citizen’ from Julia Unwin CBE of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Dr Greg Parston of Imperial College London, and Ipsos MORI’s Daniel Cameron.
There is plenty more happening at Collaborate so remember to keep an eye on the website here to stay informed!
Dr Henry Kippin, Director
@h_kippin
Calling All Hosts - Social Innovation Festival Autumn 2014
We are looking for partners to host, contribute to, and lead workshop and seminar sessions at our upcoming festival ‘The Unusual Suspects: How Unlikely Connections Can Create Real Social Change’ from 3 – 5 September 2014. This 3 day international event will explore the potential of collaboration and social innovation against some key issues for public and social policy in the UK and beyond, such as how we address imminent issues of youth resilience post-financial crisis, an ageing population, shaping citizen centred public services, minimalizing a digital divide, and much more!
For more information and to get involved contact Henry Kippin at henry@collaboratei.com or Louise Pulford at louise.pulford@socialinnovationexchange.org
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Julia Unwin response to ‘The Collaborative Citizen’
“Alongside the public’s perceptions of services, the environment in which they operate is shifting. There is a new frontline emerging. It is now the shopkeeper who could recognise the signs of dementia in a local resident, the plumber alerting agencies to a freezing home, or the taxi driver who spots a distressed teenager. We rely on citizens to flag potential need. This prompts a conversation about relationships. More than ever, it is relationships and the balance of risk and trust between service users, providers and their communities which count. Public services must be driven by these relationships if they are to begin to join up and identify interconnecting needs in a manner that increases efficiency and offers society security and dignity. This framework would amount to a new social contract between the public and services, starting from an active understanding of people’s aspirations for themselves, their families and others, rather than a negative, disempowering discourse of dependency and passivity”.
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Greg Parston response to ‘The Collaborative Citizen’
“Today, citizens are treated as objects of policy making and of service delivery decisions, rather than as active participants in the changes that will directly affects their lives. The consequence is apathy, disillusionment and even anger – with two-thirds of those polled saying they have neither the time nor the interest in working with public services to improve the quality of their lives. Indeed, both sides in the current debilitating construct – citizens and service providers – lose by remaining ignorant of their collaborative potential: shared goals are impossible; working together is a myth. And without citizens’ active collaboration, many new or alternative providers currently diminish their own role too, with respondents not seeming to trust the non-governmental providers to deliver better outcomes for them than the present public sector lot”.
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