Keep on co-producing

At the back of the social care White Paper is a note on how the vision will be implemented. Two new committees are announced: a transformation group, which sounds like it will be quite broad in membership, and a transformation board, which will be for representatives of those bodies with a responsibility to deliver the white paper. Who does have the responsibility to deliver the White Paper. I’m guessing that the board’s membership will include the association of directors of social services and other similar bodies. But if we take the co-production messages of the White Paper at face value, the messages of the paper attempts to reflect the views of people who use services and carers. The paper sets out a vision for a social care system which is co-designed and co-produced with service users and families at every stage. So, to my mind, it is essential that that board does not meet without service user representatives in the room, sharing that responsibility. There is always a risk of tokenism when that happens, but the risks of not co-producing at every level are much more serious.