A guide to developing an outcome improvement process

This guide is about working together to improve services. At the end of the day, that’s what participation requests are all about! It can be used to inform the ‘What makes a good process?’ activity, which you can find links to at the end of this resource.

The thinking behind this

If you’ve read our guide on What the legislation says, you may have noticed that there isn’t much there on how the discussion, or outcome improvement process, should work. That’s maybe because there will be different ways of working together that suit different people, groups, organisations and circumstances.

At the same time, the process of working together is the most important bit of participation requests! If done well, it involves people listening to, and learning from, each other. As a result, it can lead to better ways of doing things.

If it’s not done well, a participation request that was successful at the decision stage can end up being a huge disappointment. Unfortunately, it is the case that many real participation requests have stumbled at the outcome improvement process.

So this guide, and the accompanying activity (see links below), is an attempt to try and help the process to be a good one. It’s not directly based on the legislation and, in this regard, neither your group or the public body are required to follow what it says. However, it brings together some ideas and approaches that anyone genuinely wishing to enter into a collaborative process will want to make use of.

Sharing power

The outcome improvement process is about equals coming together to look at how things can be improved.

Public sector officers have professional experience and expertise which communities may not have. Sharing this professional experience or explaining any statutory restraints that the service may be operating within, helps communities design improvements that can be delivered. Public sector officers may also have knowledge or information from other parts of the community which they can bring to the discussion.

The local community have lived experience and expertise in engaging the wider community and exploring the practical application of solutions and how they will work in practice. Sharing this community experience or explaining a local context that the service may be operating within, helps public sector officers design improvements that will meet the community’s need and will be used. Community representatives may also have appropriate technical skills and knowledge in the area or have undertaken recent research on the subject, which should be recognised.

A good outcome improvement process will start from a point of recognising that everyone is bringing something to the table.

Sharing information

The outcome improvement process isn’t a battle ground, with each party needing to show they know more about the subject than the other.

While public sector officers are professionals, they are often stretched and may benefit from you sharing your sources of data or information before you come together. If you have recently attended an event or read some new materials on the service area you would like to see an improvement in, share that with the officers. There’s no harm in recognising that they may already be familiar with the material, but that you thought you’d share it just in case.

Similarly, it can be useful to invite them to share anything they think it would be useful for you to read to prepare for the discussion. It can be handy to prompt that a plain English version of any information would be welcome. There’s also no shame in feeding back if materials were written in organisational language that was hard to understand and asking for a quick summary/context from officers in plain English at the meeting.

Support

The public service authority is required to offer support to groups who need this. This includes support to make the participation request and to take part in the outcome improvement process.

The type of support available may vary and it can be useful to find out what will be offered, before submitting your request. The type of support available may affect what you can commit to undertaking as part of the outcome improvement process.