Involvement and empowerment in local public services

Involvement and empowerment have emerged as major concerns in many local public service agencies, yet pose problems of theory and practice. The meanings of involvement are multiple and can reflect the different interests of agencies and consumers, while the creation of markets and quasi‐markets as a mechanism for empowerment is inappropriate to many public services and can be at odds with the underlying values of that sector. This article reviews different approaches to involvement and presents an approach to understanding empowerment in the context of local public services and their consumers. It stresses the importance of seeing empowerment as a process that individuals and groups go through, rather than something that agencies can impose on people. The relationship between empowerment and disempowerment is discussed and the implications for local public service agencies developed.