The cooperation of local public institutions with non-governmental organizations and citizens is to increase the chances of effective implementation of social policy, understood as a set of actions for meeting social needs and solving social problems. The aim of the article is to present a tool that will allow to determine the level of cooperation between these entities in the scope of creation (co-creation) and implementation (co-production) of social services meeting the needs of residents of rural communes. The results of analyses conducted in 2018 on a representative sample of public institutions for rural communes dealing with responding to the social needs of rural residents, including solving social problems affecting them, will be discussed. In their light, the scale is a three-factor construct that takes into account such factors as: 1. searching for entities to cooperate and acting with them, 2. involving residents of the commune in actions on their behalf, 3. evaluating cooperation and taking actions to implement it in the future.