Fostering collaborative innovation in local employability services

There is agreement among UK policymakers on the need to promote innovation in the content and delivery of public services. However, many mainstream public employability programmes have promised, but not delivered, innovative... [ view full abstract ]

There is agreement among UK policymakers on the need to promote innovation in the content and delivery of public services. However, many mainstream public employability programmes have promised, but not delivered, innovative solutions to the problems faced by people excluded from the labour market. This article deploys the concept of collaborative innovation to discuss key stakeholders’ and service users’ experiences of local employability services in Scotland. The paper draws on work by Sørensen and Torfing (2011, 2015, 2017) to frame collaborative innovation as a distinctive, post-NPM approach to the co-production of services that are responsive to user needs, and highlights the importance of meta-governance arrangements that foster collaboration between public and third sector stakeholders. The paper reports on more than 90 interviews each with (a) key stakeholders involved in partnerships delivering employability services and (b) service users (in this case, unemployed lone parents seeking to return to work). We identify potential benefits from such collaborative approaches in terms of innovative service design and positive outcomes for service users. We conclude that policymakers should look beyond NPM-driven models, to consider the potential added value of collaborative approaches to improving the design and delivery of employability services.