At the final project meeting on 3 October in Brussels, participants concentrated on discussing the three draft briefings prepared by researchers, Christoph Hermann and David Tarren. Below are some of the main points:

• Revise introduction to highlight the fundamental differences between the public (democracy, transparency) and private sectors (profit-driven) – highlight reason for public sector to exist and emphasise that service users/patients cannot be treated the same as customers, while long-term outcomes need to taken into account and not just short-term results

• In Finland the unions have redefined productivity and come up with the idea of sustainable productivity that takes account of social, economic and ecological aspects, including crucially well-being at work – a political, not a scientific definition that challenges the employers’ view of productivity as primarily about job cuts

• There was considerable debate about definitions and the need for clarity as to what productivity means at a technical level and its relationship to concepts such as efficiency (can it be measured?) and effectiveness with the possibility that some practical examples would be useful to illustrate these concepts

• Importance of taking account of service user views – potential for three-way discussion but also political question and debate with politicians, especially in case of local services

• Suggestion that there should also be some description of the framework for negotiations and that the central question has to do with work organisation and so should clearly be a process of negotiation or the very least information and consultation

• Need to take account of different levels of potential negotiation – national framework agreement allowing for negotiations at local level

• Role not just for trade unions but also question of employee involvement as experts in what does and doesn’t work at local level

• Nevertheless a major challenge to define and assess the quality of public services

• Process of competitive tendering opens up debate about quality and how that can be integrated into contracts

• In assessing quality, expectations were very important and perhaps challenge at the moment was to adjust users’ expectations to reflect the pressures under which public services were operating

• Useful to stress that public services are not just an expense but positively contribute to the economy and society

• Concern expressed about the risks involved in discussing productivity and the possibility that employers will try to link this with pay determination

• Might be useful to refer to some attempts to assess/acknowledge quality in public services by international organisations

Final report

On the basis of the discussion a final report was drafted and translated into French, Finnish, Danish and Romanian. However, the some participants at the final meeting had further comments on the report and it was proposed that during 2012 a supplementary report or article(s) be drafted in order to take account of these views.

Productivity Final Report EN

Productivity Final Report DA

Productivity Final Report FI

Productivity Final Report RO

Productivity Final Report FR

Report of three regional meetings

Reports on the first and second regional meetings are available - the first here, the second here and the third here.