Towards Relational Public Services

Cultivating Outcomes Through Engagement, Learning And Systems

Call for Papers: ‘Teaching Public Administration’ Journal

Who can remember a more challenging time to be a public servant?

“From global heating to demographic change to entrenching social inequalities, a growing cast of wicked issues demands bold new policy agendas stretching years if not decades into the future. Sudden ‘black swan’ shocks from climate emergencies to global pandemics demand the opposite: immediate, game-changing adaptation. Fiscal retrenchment in recent years has reduced the capacity of many nation-states to respond to either challenge while declining trust in governments and public organisations now sets citizens at odds with the institutions designed to serve them.” (French et al. 2023)

To these challenges we can add a further threat: the failure of a generation New Public Management reforms – from marketisation to contractualism to results-based performance management – to improve valued outcomes on anything approaching a consistent basis. There is now widespread acknowledgement that the rationalistic and transactional design principles which underpin this public service reform orthodoxy sit awkwardly with the inherently relational nature of value creation in public service.

In academia and across civil society we find increasing pressure for a radical change in the form and function of government and public service. Calls for a ‘relational turn’ in the trajectory of public service reform are echoed in demands for services to be local and community-based rather than distant and centralised, bespoke to individuals rather than universalist, staffed in the main by generalists rather than specialists, and capable of harnessing complexity rather than seeking merely to simplify matters.

Relational approaches to public services raise new questions such as:

How can we value and nurture the relational core of public service in increasingly challenging times?
How can we learn, adapt and innovate, whether from success or failure? What theoretical perspectives best support the design/re-design of organisations and collaborations to support improvements in valued outcomes?
What is the future role of outcome-based contracting and performance management in a relational context?
Can mechanisms like Payment-by-Results, Social Impact Bonds, Outcomes Funds or other ‘transactional’ approaches support a relational approach to public service reform?
How can the lessons of ‘exemplar’ relational services, e.g. Buurtzorg neighbourhood care, inform contemporary practice?
How can measuring and measurement support relational public service?
What role do information systems and data have in supporting the development of relational approaches?
How should regimes of accountability, inspection and scrutiny be configured for relational public services?
How do stakeholders innovate their relations and relationships in specific contexts, and with what effect?
What research relationships and methodologies fit the analysis of relational public services?
What role does public engagement and deliberation have in the innovation of public services and new forms of relations between governance, management and delivery of public services?
How can new methods such as Human Learning Systems and Learning Partnering recognize and ameliorate problems in relationships?
What role can institutions like Universities play in supporting innovations, brokering partnerships or learning in relationships (as engaged scholars) in areas as diverse as the co-production of the care of older people, community development to climate change?

We invite practitioners, academics and interested observers to join us this June 14/15 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK to explore where this relational turn might lead us, and how it might confront growing challenges in public finances. Our four conference streams will explore insights and innovations from policy, practice and academia to inform a dynamic conversation about the future of public service.

Our Conference Streams

Relational Services: Public Engagement and Deliberation stream Lead: Martin King

Public dialogue and deliberation is typically conceptualised as small-scale, presenting trade-offs and constraints to applications for research and engagement. Advocates of public engagement and deliberation claim a range of benefits including increased empathy, learning, and more legitimate and wiser decisions offering the potential to surface the wisdom of large groups of citizens supporting better and more legitimate decision-making. Yet the method and practice of application introduce and encounter a range of potential technical, social, and institutional issues which may prevent realisation of these benefits including scale, structure, sustainability, and the incorporation of innovation.

We are interested in a range of papers, workshops and case study presentations from policymakers, practitioners, and academics from theoretical frames and applied contexts who have been exploring the use of methods and approaches which have sought to engage with the complexity of relational public services.

Complexity and Relational Outcomes stream lead: Max French

In this theme, we seek submissions that explore the relationship between complexity approaches and the policy and practice of social outcomes in public services. Critics of outcomes-based performance management claim that the rationalist approach to producing outcomes in public services is failing to improve the welfare and well-being of citizens and communities.

We are interested in a range of papers, workshops, and case study presentations from policymakers, practitioners, and academics from theoretical frames and applied contexts who have been exploring the use of methods and approaches which have sought to engage with the complexity of relational public services.

Data and Measurement in Relational Public Services stream lead: David Jamieson

It is increasingly understood that performance targets always create perverse incentives in public services. Using outcomes as targets amplifies this problem because they lie beyond the ability of any individual agent to bring about independently or predictably. Those subject to performance management regimes, therefore, face a significant incentive to take shortcuts – by skewing, withholding, and distorting data to make services accountable without corrupting the measurement and attribution processes on which they rely. There is an emerging sense that a relational approach to the use of data and information with and by stakeholders might be key to more co-productive interpretative measurement processes.

We are interested in a range of papers, workshops and case study presentations from policymakers, practitioners, and academics from theoretical frames and applied contexts who have been exploring the use of innovative methods and approaches to the use of data and measurement which have adopted a relational approach public services.

Learning systems and Engaged Scholarship for Relational Public Services stream lead: Melissa Hawkins

Key to a relational approach to public services are the role of Higher Education and Research institutions. A number of proposed approaches to systems learning (including Human Learning Systems – HLS) are emerging through innovative forms partnership with academics and consultants. Part of this mix is the concept of engaged scholarship which seeks to build boundary spanning practices of applied research and knowledge exchange to produce new models and approaches to change.

For this theme we seek a range of papers, workshops and case study presentations from academics, policy makers and practitioners of studies and reflections on the theory and process of being/working with engaged scholars to produce insights in their attempts to bridge the research-practice gap.

Relational Social Enterprises stream lead: Jonnie Kimmitt

Social enterprises hold an increasingly important role in the delivery of public services, particularly in the UK. Often regarded as a product of the neo-liberal ethos of New Public Management they are now a consistent feature of public service delivery and service relations. This conference theme takes a broad-based approach to understanding the role of social enterprises in this domain. Specifically, prior research has commonly focused on the “mission drift” of social enterprises in mass consumer markets (e.g., microfinance) yet little is known about this phenomenon for those social enterprises who are contracted to run public services. How do social enterprises counteract these organizational challenges? What role does a commissioned outcomes-focus have on organisational development and identity? How is a more collaborative ethos in public service delivery vital for developing organisational identity? Moreover, how do these experiences vary across organisational forms (e.g., charities, co-operatives, non-profits) when compared with social enterprise?

For this theme, we seek a range of papers, workshops, and case study presentations from academics, policymakers, and practitioners of studies and reflections on the theory and process of being/working with social enterprises and entrepreneurs to produce insights in their attempts to bridge the research-practice gap.