This article was originally published in the MJ, on the 7th August 2024
Anna Randle considers how the collaboration agenda across public services has changed in the past eight years, and says that with a new era of mission-driven government ahead there is still plenty to do
I’ll admit it, when I was offered the opportunity to join a new organisation called ‘Collaborate’ eight years ago, I wasn’t sure what it was all about. I’d spent the previous four years helping spearhead the Cooperative Council agenda in Lambeth by building a more equal relationship between the council and the community, so perhaps it should have been more obvious. But collaboration seemed like a new word, applied in a new way, and to found an entire organisation dedicated to progressing the thinking, culture and practice of collaboration across public services seemed… well, a stretch.
However, I knew the fledgeling organisation was already working with some creative councils and I had faith in the instincts of its founder, Lord Victor Adebowale – so of course I hopped on board.
Eight years later, as I prepare to stand down as CEO of Collaborate this summer, I think it’s fair to say that a shift towards collaboration as a core underpinning principle for today’s local government has been a crucial part of a quiet revolution over that time. Today I see collaboration built into the organisational values of local authorities, government legislation such as the NHS ICS reforms, public sector commissioning and leaders’ job descriptions. Whole layers of government have been created at regional level which depend on good collaboration between tiers of government and different sectors. Councils are commissioning collaborative leadership development programmes and asking for help to collaborate with their partners and stakeholders in complex areas like SEND and tackling health inequalities. I could go on. So: what changed?
I think we can point to a handful of key things.
Firstly, I think there’s been a broader cultural shift in society which has changed the mood music in the public sector too. In a post-deferential, post-paternalistic age, organisations are learning how to collaborate with, not do to, building more equal and mature relationships of reciprocity and mutual gain.
Secondly, in the absence of a coherent national agenda for public services and in an era of austerity, the most important public service reform innovations have come primarily from local government and local public services over the past decade. As budgets have shrunk, councils have hugely expanded their lens to place rather than organisation, becoming real place leaders, influencers and convenors. They’ve thought not just about what they can do, but also about what others can do – partners, communities, other sectors – with human resources like energy, ideas and passion for places regarded as crucial local assets.
Thirdly, through thinking about place, not organisation, the connections between the complex issues and challenges faced by people and communities have become more evident, further driving collaboration between local government and local partners across health, policing, the VCSE and beyond. When Collaborate and Nesta convened the ‘Upstream Collaborative’ of pioneering councils in 2020, I recall one senior council officer spoke volumes when they said how unusual it now felt to be in a room of only local government people. We’ve also seen a welcome rise in interest in what councils and their partners can learn from system and complexity thinking and system leadership to support better collaboration.
Today I believe collaboration is a core skill of any public servant in local government and beyond. To enable communities and places to thrive in a complex, resource-constrained world, we need people who can work collaboratively, build relationships, see the wider system, lead from where they stand and empower others. We need organisations across all sectors driven by a strong ethos of public good, rather than a narrow set of accountabilities, that can collaborate with their partners across the public, private and voluntary sectors and communities to achieve the right outcomes for people and places. A lot has changed in the past eight years, perhaps also in some part thanks to Victor’s vision when he declared collaboration to be the future of public services and founded an organisation to help make it happen.
However, with no new money and a range of hugely complex challenges from inequality to climate change to tackle, talk of Total Place returning and a new era of mission-driven government beginning, there is still plenty to do. Organisations and services accustomed for decades to working in silos still need help to understand each other better and change long-established ways of working. While the language of collaboration is now well established, we need a more mature debate about when and how to collaborate effectively. And we haven’t even started really getting serious about collaboration between the public and private sector, which provides many services the public rely on. So, as I prepare to hand over to my successor at Collaborate, I believe our work to support the quiet revolution is more needed than ever. The era of collaboration may have dawned, but the day is still young.