Tough decisions should be made together

By all accounts, we will be seeing some savage cuts in services in the coming months. In recent years there has been much government rhetoric about the need to listen to service users when planning and developing services, so it will be interesting to see the extent to which the views of families inform local and national government's budget choices.

Since pinpoint has been commissioned to develop parent participation in Cambridgeshire, we have seen a slow but gradual increase in the number of services contacting us about involving parents in, for example, commissioning new services, staff interviews, workshops, being representatives on Partnership Boards and so on. Services and organisations would do well to also involve their users in making the tough decisions we now face if they want them to feel valued, and to believe that decisions are being made in an open and transparent way.