Welfare Co-Production: Hungarian and Slovak Reality

For more than 30 years the delivery of local public services has been undergoing change, from a style of delivery dominated by the public sector to a more efficient, more effective mixed system, characterised by variations in ownership and sources of financing. Concepts such as public-private-civil sector mix, partnerships, co-operation, and co-creation have emerged as ways of organising public-services production and delivery. Our case deals with co-production via the involvement of the third sector in welfare services. The goal of this paper is to map the real relations between public bodies and the non-governmental sector in the co-production of welfare services in two newer EU member countries – Hungary and Slovakia. The information obtained suggests that the examples of good practice exist, but at a global level the quality of partnership between the government and the non-governmental sector is problematic. The study also highlights important drivers and barriers determining the quality of collaboration and the results of projects – limited resources (mostly financial) to implement collaborative welfare innovations on both sides seem to be the core barrier.