Co-creation in Local Public Services Delivery Innovation: Slovak Experience

Abstract

The new approaches to the delivery of local public services include co-creation. In this paper, we focus on two local public service delivery actors: local governments and civil society. Our objective is to identify different types of co-creation in social innovations and the relevant drivers and barriers that account for the success or failure of co-creation processes at the local government level in Slovakia, focusing on the fields of welfare and the environment. The main findings of our analysis are that co-created innovations are mostly initiated by non-governmental actors, and that most local governments have neutral or even negative attitudes to co-created innovations. We provide a positive case study, in which the local government was open to co-creation, and public services were provided in an alternative way. Our study uses a qualitative approach and is based on original survey data from our own research, conducted mainly within the ‘Learning from Innovation in Public Sector Environments’ (LIPSE) research project.