Engaging public sector clients
Subtitle: from service-delivery to co-production
By: John Alford.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 261
ISBN-13: 9780230223769
Subjects: Management -- Case studies; Public administration -- Case studies
Genres: Case studies.
Description: Delivering better services to clients has become a watchword of public management, but its proponents miss a critical aspect: they neglect the important role clients themselves play in co-producing public services. This means more than simply participating in decisions or giving feedback about programs: it entails clients contributing time and effort to delivering services. Exploring three rich cases (postal customers, long-term unemployed, and taxpayers) across the US, UK and Australia, this book analyses firstly when it makes sense for public agencies to try to harness clients₂ co-production, and secondly how organizations can better elicit this work from them, by providing good client service and appealing to their intrinsic needs and social values. It also suggests how organizations can better equip themselves to tap client co-production. In the process it challenges many of our assumptions about how government can relate to the public it serves.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The co-production concept; title: Clients in the public sector; title: Legal compliance, regulation, and co-production; title: Theoretical constructs and methodology; title: Postal service customers as co-producers; title: Long-term unemployed people as co-producers; title: Taxpayers as co-producers; title: Client co-production : an exchange perspective; title: Managing for client co-production; title: Implications.