Co-producing early years policy in England under the Coalition Government

Abstract

During the first half of the current Coalition Government, co-production – a form of participatory governance – was implemented widely in the conceptualization, design and implementation of early years policies. Seen as a revolutionary approach to public service reform, resulting in more effective and more cost-effective public services, the joint approach to co-production by the Department for Education and the Department of Health built on the Labour Government’s strategy to involve ‘active citizens’ as stakeholders in public policy development. Local authority early years managers, directors of children’s services and education trade union officers were among education sector stakeholders involved in this process. Co-production is defined here as sharing features of two models of participatory governance identified by Skelcher and Torfing (2010) in their institutional taxonomy of this concept. The actual experience of co-producing early childhood policy suggests that politics may trump policy-making, despite a high-level commitment to co-production.