A legacy of co-production and impact: The National Expert Citizens Group
“My work with the NECG at the Lottery has been some of the most impactful. Words like co-production and lived experience trip off the tongue, but what the NECG has done is embedded that language and expectations in services and communities. They’re not nice to have or added extras, they’re fundamental to getting services right and supporting people in a positive, strengths-based way.”
– Tom Mcculloch, Head of Funding at The National Lottery Community Fund
Members and supporters of the National Expert Citizens Group (NECG) recently met in Westminster for the NECG’s 2026 National Showcase. Convening leading voices with lived and learned experience, the day provided an opportunity to celebrate the success of the programme and acknowledge how its body of work can help shape the future.
This event was the culmination of the NECG’s work, as the group in its current form comes to an end. Together we reflected on the achievements of the NECG and its members, honouring the depth and breadth of insight, and sheer will to drive change, offered by those who have personal experience of the health and social issues that others only see in the abstract.
The leading voice on multiple disadvantage and co-production
For over a decade, the National Expert Citizens Group has been a platform for people with lived experience of what is known as ‘multiple disadvantage’: when someone experiences a combination of health and social needs such as poverty, homelessness, involvement with the criminal justice system, mental-ill health, neurodiversity, discrimination or problems with drugs and alcohol.
Starting out via the Fulfilling Lives programme, the NECG then became part of the Changing Futures programme – a wider initiative of the previous government which aimed to tackle multiple disadvantage across England. Revolving Doors has been involved with the NECG since 2019, working with funders at the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG, formerly DLUHC) to bring the NECG and its members to the forefront of policy and practice around multiple disadvantage.
Over the past seven years, the NECG has shaped systems change, undertaken leading research, and led conversations about the ways in which the health and social needs of hundreds of thousands of people across the country can be met – some innovative, some simply common-sense.
Key highlights of the NECG’s work
- Government Homelessness Strategy. The NECG co-designed and delivered forums to shape the Strategy and its recommendations, presenting the experiences, insights and recommendations from people with lived experience of homelessness to inform the strategy, and wrote a foreword to the final report.
- Co-occurring mental health and substance use delivery framework. Sitting on the Expert Reference Group panel to shape change.
- Weaving the Web: the NECG podcast. Presented and led by NECG members, who explored examples of good practice at the heart of multiple disadvantage.
- Exploring solutions to multiple disadvantage: A report from the National Expert Citizens Group. Presenting a deep dive into the NECG’s 2023-25 strategic priorities, including findings and actionable recommendations.
- Lived Experience in Policymaking guide. Working with the Government’s Policy Lab to draw out the principles, behaviours and mindsets, that underpin lived experience work.
- Empowering voices: How co-production transforms public services. Working with Deloitte to explore co-production and public service reform.
- More Than A Roof: Addressing homelessness with people experiencing multiple disadvantage. Exploring experiences of homelessness and rough sleeping of people affected by multiple forms of disadvantage.
- Improving service transitions for people experiencing multiple disadvantage. Identifying the key ingredients of effective prison release support for people experiencing multiple disadvantage.
- Dame Carol Black’s Independent Review of Drugs. Bringing dual diagnosis to the table and highlighting gaps in provision.
- Flipped, Turned Upside Down. Reviewing services’ response to COVID-19.
Putting lived experience at the heart of systems change
“Nothing beats sitting in a room with people who know what you’re talking about. Even just being a spokesperson for other people – it’s nice to reassure people that there will be an end, you’ll get through it.”
– Fiona McLeod, Lived Experience Coordinator at Shelter
The key to the NECG’s success, and to the success of Revolving Doors’ own members, is lived experience: understanding that those closest to the problem are those closest to the solution.
The Showcase Event demonstrated the lasting impact and value of this approach, and of the NECG’s ability to bring together a rich depth and breadth of insight across commissioning, housing, justice and more. Attendees and speakers joined from across the country, including the many Changing Futures areas, national charities Shelter and Justlife, commissioners and frontline recovery workers from Essex, and the West Midlands’ groundbreaking Offending 2 Recovery programme.
We were also extremely privileged to be joined by past and present NECG members, all of whom use their own experience of multiple disadvantage to shape the services and policies that have impacted them. Their own stories of drive and determination – of rebuilding happier, healthier lives; forging stronger communities and achieving personal and professional success – show the power of lived experience first-hand.
Whilst it might be the end for the NECG in its current form, our lived experience work continues, with its vital impact driving transformative change across the system.
“The NECG gave me a structure back in my life and a purpose and a reason, and many times it’s got me out of my own negative thinking and into a positive mindset. I consider my time with the NECG as fundamental to my recovery. It has helped me realise that my lived experience hasn’t all been wasted but can be used as expert experience to help all those suffering out there. We’re all off to different avenues because of the NECG, but we’re all still here, fighting the good fight”
– Charlotte, former NECG member
