Who gets to decide? Sharing power in public services

Theme: Power sharing

Public services often claim to be user-centred. Yet the people most affected by them rarely influence the decisions that determine what gets designed in the first place.

This interactive workshop explores what it means to move beyond consultation toward shared decision-making. Using the Dementia Lived Experience Group as a case study, we examine how people living with dementia and carers influence research priorities, technology design and governance decisions within the UK Dementia Research Institute’s Care Research & Technology Centre.

Participants will map where power sits in their own organisations, explore barriers to sharing decision-making authority, and imagine how lived experience could shape governance structures in future public services.

Participant takeaways:

•  gain a framework for understanding different types of power in service design systems, including decision power, agenda-setting power and knowledge power
•  reflect on where decision-making authority currently sits within your own organisation
•  learn practical lessons from establishing a lived experience group that influences research and design decisions
•  explore how lived experience could realistically be embedded within governance structures for public services
•  identify small experiments or structural changes that could strengthen democratic participation in your own work