Co-Production Capacity Assessment Tool

Building Strategic Partnerships for Commons-Based Care

To develop care services that are collectively owned and locally embedded, partnerships must sit at the heart of the design. In contrast to traditional models—often transactional, hierarchical, and service-led—a commons-based approach depends on collaborative, ongoing relationships between care workers, recipients, families, volunteers, and community partners. The success of such a model hinges not just on shared values, but on sustained capacity, alignment, and strategy.

Equal Care’s Co-Production Capacity Assessment Tool was developed in response to the practical and philosophical challenges of building such partnerships. It provides a structured approach to assessing the readiness and capacity of collaborators across ten key dimensions, enabling project leads to build a resilient, cooperative care ecosystem that meets community needs while fostering trust, inclusion, and mutual support.

Six Dimensions of Partnership: The Values Foundation

Before exploring the mechanics of the tool, it is important to name the six foundational dimensions of partnership that emerged from Equal Care’s pilot in Commons-Based Care. These dimensions articulate the values and qualities of strong partnerships and form the moral compass that guides the use of the Assessment Tool. Crucially, our efforts to enact these dimensions during the pilot exposed the variability in partners' capacity, alignment, and resourcing—reinforcing the need for a practical tool to assess readiness and fit.

1. Shared Ownership and Governance.

Redistributing decision-making power across care workers, receivers, family, volunteers, and partners helps services stay grounded in lived experience. During the pilot, this principle came to life through self-managing teams and Circle roles, yet we also encountered barriers with external partners unused to distributed governance. The need for mutual understanding of governance approaches was clear.

1. Pooling and Sharing Resources.

Commons-based care is built not only on financial inputs, but also on time, space, skills, and knowledge. Our pilot showed how local care wealth—from community meals to neighbourly favours—could sustain teams. However, fragile infrastructure and unequal access to resources made some partnerships vulnerable. A tool to identify and balance these gaps became essential.

1. Integrating Formal and Informal Care.

Much of care happens outside regulated services—in libraries, gardens, food banks, faith spaces, and conversations between neighbours. Through community mapping, we revealed the richness of informal care in Clapton. But bringing this together with formal services proved challenging due to differing protocols, language, and rhythms. Assessing alignment and adaptability early on could support better integration.

1. Fostering Trust and Social Capital.

Trust is the invisible infrastructure of care. Our pilot showed that people consistently turned to those they knew and trusted. Trusted local groups were vital partners—but some were overstretched, while others remained outside formal partnership structures altogether. A systematic approach to understanding existing trust networks is key to strengthening them.

1. Co-Producing Services.

Continuously Co-production is not a one-off consultation; it is an ongoing commitment to shaping services together. We piloted co-produced evaluation tools and shared team planning sessions, but sustaining this work required time, clarity of roles, and shared culture. The experience highlighted that not all partners are ready or supported to engage continuously—and that we needed a way to assess and grow that capacity.

1. Building Partnerships with Intention .

Not every organisation is ready or resourced to co-produce. We learned that building strong partnerships takes care, clarity, and sustained investment. Some partners aligned with our values but lacked infrastructure; others had capacity but different priorities. The Co-Production Capacity Assessment Tool emerged as a response to this tension—a way to support honest dialogue and strategic focus.

While the Six Dimensions of Partnership outlined above provide a relational and values-driven foundation for commons-based care, the Co-Production Capacity Assessment Tool translates these dimensions into an actionable framework. Together, they offer both the heart and the hands of partnership-building.