Towards a relational and equitable future for public services?

Could the future of public service reform in the UK be relational and equitable?: learning from three research projects by Lancaster University researchers

In the context of a seemingly deepening permacrisis in public services , this seminar would like to contribute, in an evidence-based and hopeful manner, to the raging debates on public service reform. Four Lancaster University researchers will introduce and discuss the Human Learning Systems (HLS) framework, an emerging theoretical, applied, and practical approach to public service design, management, and policy development which has inspired promising cases of success in piloted and trialled services in the UK and internationally bringing together service recipients, public service professionals, local and national government and the third sector. We will explore and interrogate HLS’s usefulness and adequacy as an explanatory model for public service in/effectiveness, as a viable and feasible blueprint for reform, and as a normative vision for desirable public service futures.

This two-hour workshop will include three presentations, each followed by time for discussion:

Dr Michelle Collins (Research Fellow, Public Health Interventions Responsive Studies Team – PHIRST - LiLaC) will chair the seminar. Michelle is interested in the potential of ‘relational public services’ to address individual and social determinants of health and health inequalities.

Dr Naoimh McMahon (Research Fellow, Lancaster University/NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaboration Blackpool), drawing on her recently completed Wellcome Fellowship, will discuss how Human Learning Systems can help with uncovering the problematic assumptions underlying mainstream epistemic frameworks and institutionalised practices that hinder and preclude public service reform and reproduce current undesirable arrangements. She will explore the potential of HLS as an alternative perspective for describing and tackling complex challenges. You can find a brief and illustrated explainer of her ideas here: https://zenodo.org/records/15766578

Dr Dayo Eseonu (Lecturer in Politics and Policy) will talk about the blindspots and shadows that arise from racialised institutions. Blindspots and shadows can go unnoticed and unintentionally reinforced, causing harm to people who have been marginalised and could benefit the most from the normative ambitions of human learning systems. Furthermore, when due consideration is not given, the system’s practices, knowledge, interactions, tools, and outcomes miss opportunities to improve public services in pursuit of racial equity.

Mr Harris Kaloudis (Senior Research Associate, PHIRST Liverpool Lancaster Collaboration in Public Health - LiLaC) will discuss the potential of relational approaches to remake services for people facing multiple and complex disadvantage, based on his work on evaluating a service offering financial support to people with severe mental health needs.