To join up services, build readiness to collaborate

Without ‘real and meaningful’ public service reform, George Osborne’s devolution revolution will remain a work in progress: this is the case made by the Institute for Government’s Jo Casebourne in an article for The Guardian recently. It is hard to disagree. So the question is not whether, but how and with whom, this needs to happen. The Institute’s emerging work programme on joined-up public services is instructive. It shows a myriad of attempts to mandate, cajole and incentivize the joining up of public services at a local level: some more successful than others, but none fundamental enough to stop us talking about the need to…well…join up public services at a local level. The most profound question about collaboration in public services is why we want to do it; and the rationale for public agencies is arguably stronger now than ever. The supply-and-demand problem for local public services is acute, with Local Government Association modelling suggesting a £14.4 billion gap emerging by 2025, as a result of spending cuts and demand-driven spending. The challenge may well look even more dramatic after this month’s Comprehensive Spending Review announcement. Meeting these challenges through joined-up service reform cannot happen without building a broader movement for reform that goes beyond public sector ingenuity. For instance, Greater Manchester’s health and social care reform programme – already generating huge activity and creative thinking across the conurbation – is premised on a tangible shift in the relationship between citizen and state. Community resilience, prevention and demand management all require a degree of behaviour change and risk sharing that needs both cross-sector engagement and a role for citizens that goes beyond being a grateful recipient of more integrated services. Collaborate’s recent UK-wide survey work with Ipsos MORI suggests that citizens themselves recognize the need for change; but perhaps on a different basis to the state. A majority of respondents say that being treated with dignity and respect by service providers is just as important as the service being delivered. But only 14% say they regularly get a personalised service, and 48% told us they ‘hardly ever or never’ feel involved in decisions about the services they receive. Put another way, we know what a good relationship feels like, we just don’t experience it enough through public services. The series of ineffective attempts to join up identified by the IfG suggests a lack of focus on the missing human factor in joined-up services: a readiness to collaborate that needs to be valued and more systematically built. Local leaders who understand this are already doing innovative things (think Essex’s ‘Art of the Possible’ festival or Sunderland’s Community Leadership Programme). If the public really do care more about the quality of the services they receive than who is providing them, and the values underlying service provision rather than the business model, then getting the citizen–service relationship right is the place to start. Dr Henry Kippin is Executive Director of Collaborate. www.collaboratei.com @h_kippin