THE POLYHEDRON OF CO-PRODUCTION OF PUBLIC POLICIES. Challenges and Opportunities for the Third Sector and Public Administration

 

This week, the 3rd Catalan Congress on Public Management was held in Mataró, under the title "Thinking about Citizenship".

A Congress which I understand was aimed at professionals from the Public Administration, but if we bear in mind what Joan Prats affirms — that "under conditions of complexity, diversity and interdependence, the realisation of the general interest can no longer be a monopoly of public authorities" (Cerrillo et al., 2005) — I believe that some of the reflections shared there should make us think, as different actors who also work for the public interest and the common good.

It is from this perspective that I found it interesting to attend — I am not sure whether "to infiltrate" is the right word — as a Third Sector professional, a couple of sessions.

Listening to Quim Brugué's keynote talk entitled "Public Administration in the 21st century: from efficient management to intelligent decision-making", and the reflections shared by Ismael Peña-López at the round table in which he participated, under the title "Values and public ethics. Models of administration for the 21st century", I was once again struck by the idea that Public Administration and the Third Sector are two faces of the same polyhedron.

Understanding the polyhedron as the design, production and implementation of public policies that are not only efficient but, above all, effective in contributing to addressing the current social challenges we face.

If we wish to move towards real transformation, we will also need to understand the existence of this polyhedron, from which none of its faces can be dissociated. We must work so that each of them fits together perfectly, complementing the others. However, as was also mentioned at the congress, the basis for working collaboratively is to do so from a foundation of trust and mutual recognition.

Below, I outline some of the ideas shared by Quim Brugué in his talk, which I will attempt to complement from the perspective of the Third Sector:

Brugué argued that "the administration does not only provide personal care services, but must transform society", and that "until now, great effort has been placed on the success of services, but not on transformation".

The will to transform society is one of the defining traits of Third Sector organisations. Third Sector entities are rooted in the community, taking community to mean the set of primary relationships of affection, commitment and reciprocity, and a certain sense of identification with other community members (Fantova, 2018); but with the aim of political advocacy and improving living conditions. This therefore also encompasses groups that promote collective action dynamics, pursuing a triple purpose: empowerment, inclusion and transformation of the living conditions of people belonging to a given group at risk or in a situation of vulnerability (Morales & Rebollo, 2014).

I would venture to say that the history of Third Sector organisations is a history of success in social transformation, beyond the role they play in providing personal care services. However, at the current moment, this transformation also requires the transformative gaze — and the regulatory and economic framework — of the Administration.

The Third Sector accumulates, through its daily practice of social intervention, a type of knowledge that no other institutional logic can produce in the same way: professional knowledge is not obtained through the application of external theory but rather emerges from and within practice itself — what Schön calls knowing-in-action and reflection-in-action (Schön, 1983).

The Third Sector, through its immersion in community reality and its proximity to people in situations of vulnerability, systematically produces this kind of situated, experiential and relational knowledge that the Administration can hardly generate from procedural abstraction (Fantova, 2018).

Therefore, the Third Sector cannot be confined to a subsidiary role or merely that of an externalised service provider for the Administration — it must be recognised as a key actor in this polyhedron.

Brugué also affirmed that "current administrations are bewildered and overwhelmed. That is why we need an intelligent Administration".

This bewilderment and sense of being overwhelmed is not exclusive to the Administration. Third Sector organisations also find us in this situation: we are increasingly receiving more people who need support; the difficulties faced by these people are becoming broader, more complex, interconnected and dynamic. In recent years, we have seen an enormous increase (those of us in first-tier organisations have neither the time nor the resources to measure it) in diagnoses we would not have anticipated, affecting a growing number of people. When the population decreases in some age brackets, we find that the proportion of people who need support increases — meaning the demand we face is even greater.

And how do we work?

By putting in more hours, with greater intensity (and sometimes anxiety) in our day-to-day work. The closeness to the people we support, which is a core value, simultaneously becomes a "double-edged sword": we experience first-hand all of this immense social complexity. These extra hours and this intensity are neither recognised nor compensated financially — but that point would be the subject of an entirely different reflection.

What do we need?

Brugué said: "What current administrations lack is the capacity to think". I fully agree with this statement. But this lack is not exclusive to administrations — it affects the different actors who work for the rights and inclusion of people at risk of social exclusion. We cannot keep doing, doing, doing... Simply "doing" is a survival strategy, not a transformation strategy. What is needed are spaces, time, and people charting a shared strategy, trying to anticipate major trends in order to plan — with time, resources and capabilities — how we will respond, not to the challenges that are coming, but to those we are already facing.

We need the different faces of the polyhedron to engage in "co": collaborating, co-designing, co-producing, co-implementing, co-evaluating, co-..... but doing so in a real and meaningful way.

And here, challenges arise at different levels: micro (the individual), meso (the organisation), and macro (the ecosystem).

"Recognising this 'not knowing' how to do it takes us from organisations 'that know what they need to do' to organisations 'that need to learn'", Brugué stated.

For me, this is the essential meso dimension of all this transformation: organisations, both within the Administration and the Third Sector, need to transform themselves towards more agile, participatory, collaborative models — grounded in trust, the knowledge and recognition of people, of different forms of knowing — and move decision-making closer to where the knowledge lies. Decisions in which the professionals who can contribute the most must participate, regardless of the position they hold in the organisation or department, and even regardless of which face of the polyhedron their organisation belongs to.

Organisations that will need to operate with "double loop learning" (Argyris & Schön, 1978): organisations that operate under this type of learning question their assumptions and transform their culture; this will allow them to navigate the tension between external pressures and coherence with their mission, while maintaining their specificity as an actor in co-production processes.

And what will we need to advance towards these organisational models?

Brugué highlighted for me two key aspects: "time and trust", adding that "for trust to exist, mutual knowledge and recognition are necessary".

From my own experience of working in a Third Sector organisation where, nearly 7 years ago, we committed to designing and implementing an organisational transformation oriented towards these parameters, I can say that these two characteristics are indispensable. The foundation of relationships is trust — both at the personal and professional level. And trust requires time. Time to get to know each other, to recognise one another, to understand each other, to question ourselves, to move beyond the "I" and towards the "we" — and it is from this place that collective knowledge can be built: the kind of knowledge that is essential for trying to find ways to respond to the different social needs we face.

To close this reflection, I would highlight the headline with which Ismael Peña-López opened his contribution, in response to the question of how he sees 21st-century public institutions:

Peña-López stated: "Game Over".

I think this expression captures very well where we are: the game as we had conceived it until now is over, and we need to rethink what the model should be.

Peña-López explained that two models currently coexist within the Administration: the Weberian model and the efficiency model. And that the model of open, deliberative governance... is no longer a model because it has failed.

He emphasised the need to have a model.

He explained that we currently have many tools (actor mapping, interest groups, innovation laboratories, open innovation, citizen science, transparency, open data,...) that are entirely disconnected from one another, and therefore we need a team with the toolbox and the time to use them, to build the new model and the time to make it work (Peña-López, 2025).

By way of conclusions, and to close this reflection by linking it to this final idea raised by Peña-López:

The design, construction and implementation of a new model should involve recognising all faces of the polyhedron that work for social transformation and improving people's quality of life.

The challenges, the bewilderment about how to respond to all of this social complexity, are not exclusive to the Administration. Third Sector organisations are also experiencing and feeling/suffering them first-hand. The need to rethink the model at the micro (individual), meso (organisational) and macro (ecosystem) levels is equally necessary for Third Sector organisations to fulfil their mission.

I would therefore encourage us to smooth the edges of the polyhedron and begin thinking and building together — with time, recognition and trust — between the Administration and the Third Sector.

References

Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.

Cerrillo, A., Peters, G., Pierre, J., Kooiman, J., Mayntz, R., Rhodes, R., . . . O'Toole, L. (2005). La gobernanza hoy: 10 textos de referencia. Madrid: Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública.

Fantova, F. (2018). Colaboración y alianzas multiagente en las estrategias del Tercer Sector de Acción Social. Revista española del tercer sector, (38), 135-162.

Morales, E. M., & Rebollo, O. I. (December / 2014). Potencialidades y límites de la acción comunitaria como estrategia empoderadora en el contexto actual de crisis. Col·legi Oficial de Treball Social de Catalunya. Revista de Treball Social.

Peña-López, I. (2025). Nova Governança Pública aplicada: un model de caixa d'eines per a la política pública en temps d'incertesa i complexitat. 4art Congrés d'Economia i Empresa de Catalunya. Barcelona: Col·legi d'Economistes de Catalunya.

Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.

Picture generated by Gemini AI