Mind the Gap Before the Bridge: On the Gaps and Barriers in Cross-Sector Co-production with Vulnerable Citizens

Under the auspices of the new public governance paradigm, co-production and cross-sector co-production are being announced as promising ways of revitalising democracy, fostering social innovation, and developing efficient social services. As co-production is often initiated with the intention of making social services more relevant and responsive to the needs of service users, including the perspectives of citizens in vulnerable positions would seem essential. Yet, the matter of whether and how such inclusion is achieved in everyday organisational life remains insufficiently addressed—both among scholars and practitioners. Based on a three-year qualitative study of cross-sector co-production projects targeting vulnerable elderly citizens and refugees in a Danish municipality, this chapter explores how cross-sector co-production is practised across two fields of welfare service. It documents how an information gap, socio-material barriers, and cultural or cognitive barriers hamper the inclusion and participation in cross-sector co-production for both groups of citizens. Furthermore, the chapter shows how field-level differences in legitimacy and support entail inequality in how actors across fields address these gaps and barriers.