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Participation has traditionally been framed normatively; it creates value for individuals and society simply by being included in the process of public service transformation. The Co-VAL research departs from this idea and suggests that participation should be understood as a way of creating and destroying value.

Co-VAL aims to understand the transformative potential of value co-creation. The research starts with a systematic review of the literature examining the potentials and contingencies of citizen participation.

There is a strong perception that public sector decision-making excludes important stakeholders, to the detriment of public service improvement, innovation and democracy. The answer has been of normative prescription, with calls for increased participation and a shift from a passive, dependent citizen to an active, empowered one. Participation has therefore been forwarded as the ‘right’ and ‘smart’ thing to do offering, for example, a means of democratic renewal and an evaluative tool for service improvement.

However, an important question arises from this idealistic conceptualisation of participation: how can the benefits of participation be achieved when significant power asymmetries and structural barriers exist?

Power asymmetries have been reinforced mainly through the differentiation of roles between public managers, stakeholders and service users, with power being retained and exercised by the former two. Professionals and managers who plan and deliver public services are generally positioned as having the organisational skills, knowledge, capacity and creativity to influence decision-making and produce solutions. Service users, by contrast, are typically type-cast as individuals with limited capacity, knowledge or expertise. Public service reforms over the past sixty years have also centred predominantly on institutional change via decentralisation, networks and direct citizen participation with the aim of empowering citizens to varying degrees. Despite specific iterations, participation has continued to be consigned to the periphery of public service design and delivery.

An alternative approach to public service reform – the Public Service Logic (PSL) – has developed over the past ten years and offers a potential solution to the marginalised position of participation.

The PSL’s focus is different and centres upon the concept of value. It articulates a three-dimensional model which includes the elements of value, the locus of value creation and the processes of value creation. Importantly, for PSL, the focus starts with the role of the public service user because participation is understood as inalienable to public service delivery. The PSL suggests that although value creation, in various dimensions, is the aim of public services, value can also be destroyed. This has significant implications for how participation is managed and understood in practice, particularly in terms of the effective management of the service relationship.

Empirical research is currently underway to test the PSL framework. It is exploring what ‘value’ means to public sector actors and services users, and how and at what stage in the public service cycle value is created/destroyed.

More information on the research project can be found on the .

This project is funded by the European Union.