Last week I had two very different opportunities to gain evidence for how leaders in public services are thinking about one of the core problems we face.  It is a problem expressed in a variety of ways - the transferability of ideas about successful involvement, the transferability of examples of 'good practice' or rather the lack of such transferability, the quality of the evidence for involvement (and the fact that despite an evidence base of sorts exists, actual implementation still feels essentially haphazard) or is it just the plain old power-based rationale for avoiding something that appears to challenge preconceptions about use of power by those in charge of our public services.  The problem?  Why isn't everyone doing it (involvement) and doing it well?

So, as we have argued here recently, there are those who say, 'let's have more evidence, so we can persuade people', and there are others who say, 'we have plenty of involvement, after all our politicians are in charge, and that's good involvement because it's democratic'.  I've also heard it said, 'we need more/better regulation, requiring the public sector to be involving'.  And this train of thought was succinctly captured by one Local Authority leader who said last week in almost exactly these words, "we have to drive citizens to take responsibility for their services".  Quite apart from the fact that this quite clearly externalises the issue and its resolution ('its them, gov, who wont get involved') this approach is also clearly focussed on only one part of the issue, yet it is an approach which has gained ground in recent times.  And in large measure it is a sign of the times, of the need for the 'more for less' agenda, which takes us to the trendy but too often poorly understood argument for 'co-production'.

This mindset is in essence substantially a mindset of push.  What this mindset fails to deal with is the case for, and the need for, pull as well as push.  This is the pull which is generated by logical clarity but also the clarity of the heart, it is the pull which is generated by understanding the benefits of involvement, and it is a pull which gets us beyond the resistances of those who currently operate without true involvement (and which we suspect is a key factor in the failure to generate embedded involvement and to go beyond isolated anecdotal evidence of the impact of involvement).

Which brings me to a more heartening perspective on involvement, from my experiences last week - the insight of one national leader that this agenda is in large measure a question of relationships, of the building of trust at a very personal level. Not instead of the push and the management tasks, but as well as. This is a perspective we endorse.

However, like the fabled pushmi-pullyu in Dr Doolittle, finding the right balance between the push and the pull is extremely rare, and therein lies its value.