Money, credibility and coproduction

I got an email from SCIE today.

They had this link to a lovely new job as director of Think Local Act Personal (TLAP). I have a lot of time for TLAP, and they have some great case studies of doing things differently.

So I clicked the link http://www.scie.org.uk/erecruitment/advert.asp?vacancyid=153&utm_campaign=6146381_SCIE%20ebulletin%2010%20Sept%202015&utm_medium=email&utm_source=SCIE&utm_sfid=003G000002E7CLgIAN&utm_role=&dm_i=4O5,3NQKT,JI6RHO,D5PHQ,1

And I almost died of shock when I saw the salary. I reckoned it might be around £30,000, even £36,000 as it is a pretty responsible job because, although there aren't many staff to manage or systems to run, you get to help shape the future quality of public services and the job has a high profile.

I will let you click to see the figure (and have a think about applying). It was more than double my idea of a fair salary.

Quick aside: The rest of this may read like a rant against TLAP. It isn't. TLAP is probably much better than most organisations with the job of encouraging public bodies and large service providers to change how they relate to the people who use their services. So I do hope (if they read this) that they will be able to see past the rant to the real need for us to rethink how we value expertise, how we decide what (and who) is credible and how we get people with vastly different institutional/social status to accept their equal status as human beings and coproducers.

Having picked myself off the floor, I had a read to see what could justify such an exceedingly large salary. I think I found the clue here:
"The Director will already be recognised as having a high level of expertise and credibility in social care and/or health"

My guess is that they mean "The Director will already be recognised by chief execs and directors of public bodies and national service provider organisations as having etc"

Because sometimes, in those circles, credibility and high wages go together. I remember trying to work out why cash-strapped public bodies were willing to fork out enormous (in my sight) consultancy fees when they could have got someone else in to do the same work but without the gloss and at a tenth of the price. It's down to credibility. If you charge a lot, you are more credible. And if you are more credible then the people who gave you the contract probably think there's more chance that others will comply with your recommendations. And they may be right. It's a lot harder to justify wasting £30,000 by ignoring what a consultant advises than to justify wasting £3,000.

So, high salary = higher credibility with chief execs and directors of large provider organisations. I get that, even if I don't like that.

But the providers are only one side of the social care and/or health context.

I can't help feeling that the salary/credibility equation may not work for the people who use public services, the people who are on 'the other side' of coproduction. This side generally doesn't get paid at all for their coproductive work. And yet coproduction would fail without them. They may be called a "member of the public", a "citizen", a "service user". Now I hate to talk about sides when I'm talking coproduction, because the aim of coproduction is to work together on an equal footing, to create a shared space. But until that little fantasy becomes reality and I have to be identified with a side, then it's the unpaid side that I'd choose to be identified with. 

Does the high salary = higher credibility equation work in relation to them? I can think of twitter friends who bring immense insight, strategic thinking, humanity and expertise and can operate at the highest levels of leadership and who have a seat at the coproduction table because of their use of public services. And daily I see they not being given the credibility they should. Equally, they are very rarely (if every) paid as they should, and may even have to beg for expenses to be reimbursed. And I wonder again the extent to which credibility and pay are intertwined. Is their expertise treated as less credible because they aren't paid handsomely enough? Do the powers-that-be doubt the value of their expertise? - in which case, they should stop inviting those people and find people who do have the right expertise.

If you ask any of those twitter friends, they'd probably say (like me) that they do not judge someone's credibility by the size of their salary. 

So what does determine credibility with people on 'the other side'? How about:

• listening with an open mind and an open heart
• doing what you say
• seeing and engaging with people, not labels
• making it impossible to tell who is powerful and who isn't from how you treat them and speak of them
• doing what's needed and not what your job title says you should do
• doing what's needed, even if that means doing it in your own time (after all, that's what people on 'the other side' do all the time)
• looking for ways to stop institutional rules getting in the way of coproduction

I accept the Director post needs to be overpaid in order for him or her to have credibility with the chief execs etc. But I do hope the Director post will also demand the qualities that will give him or her credibility with the citizens who are involved in coproduction.

So let's hope the new Director manages to have credibility with both sides - and perhaps even has enough credibility to move everyone forward into the elusive 'shared space' where people give up allegiance to their sides, are rewarded on an equal basis and work together as one.