The community cooperation as a co-production experience in public utilities provision An international perspective

In recent years, in many of the so-called advanced Countries, continuous attempts, especially in the provision of public services, have been promoted to introduce new models of public administration governance. In this process, a central aspect is related to the recovery of the users' inclusion: this concept, initially studied with reference to the relationship between individuals and public providers, now is expanded toward the involvement of organizations with specific characteristics, many of which belonging to non-profit organizations (NPOs). The theory we refer to is the co-production theory that, starting from the first studies of the Nobel Prize Elinor Ostrom, is becoming central in the debate on the new relationships amidst State, market and civil society. Coproduction is not only a theoretical topic but is also evidenced by the spread of experiences for new solutions in the production and delivery of public services to the community. Particularly, the paper focuses on a recent Italian experience, named "community cooperative", which is inserted into the tradition of Italian users' co-ops but, at the same time, has unique characteristics. Aim of the paper is to analyze the peculiarities of this phenomenon, initially structured to cope with the depopulation of small towns and the creation of job opportunities, but now also used for the provision of public services. To this end, we will also introduce an international perspective through a comparison with similar experiences in other Countries, in order to highlight commonalities and differences. This practice is highlighted in cases in which efforts are made to go beyond the traditional model of user involvement, and pursue organized forms of inclusion, thus introducing new elements to the classic framework of co-production in public services. This trend is present in a number of international experiences, in France and Britain for example, with the introduction of new types of organizations in the legal system, considered as a prototype of international scope, the Community-Based Enterprise. Such innovations have also proved influential in Italy, where the establishment of the social enterprise has now been followed by the new phenomenon of community cooperation. This involves cooperatives that operate in legal forms already regulated by the legislature (usually with regard to production and labour cooperatives), which include elements of reference to the local community; these elements express the "social reason" for the organization, which is ultimately related to its ability to make a contribution to the development of the local area. Attempts at participative production involving public services can also be observed as part of this emerging phenomenon. This paper aims, with an exploratory spirit, to analyse the potential of such cooperatives in co-production experiences, in the public service category with greater technical and economic content, namely public utilities. To this end, the paper begins with the presentation of a conceptual framework regarding the opening up of the production processes involved in such services to citizen-users, in order to highlight the efforts to overcome the conception of the citizen as a simple user, and achieve a vision of the citizen as a member of the local community. In the secod part, the cases of the Societe Cooperative d'Interet Collectif (SCIC) and Community Interest Company (CIC) will be presented, as international examples of a similar trend. The paper concludes with the study of the Italian Cooperative Community, based on the emerging characteristics of the praxis, and the first literature to examine it. The approach is to verify elements of continuity and innovation with other experiences of co-production, and in particular, those classifiable as Non Profit Utilities (NPU).