A cross-sector venture will be a hub of new ideas that provides a forum for conversation, debate and problem-solving.
John Tizard
All but the most statist of thinkers now accept that the public sector cannot address all society's needs and expectations - nor should it. Contemporary social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges are increasingly complex. They cannot be tackled by the state alone, any more than they can or should be left to markets and the business sector alone. No one sector can deliver all the solutions, but all delivery should be values-based and there must be public accountability when public money is involved.
This is not about outsourcing or the rolling back of the state, but about a new paradigm of cross-sector collaboration. More working between the sectors is not a temporary phenomenon, nor simply a product of the current austerity and ideological agendas, but a trend that is likely to accelerate over the next decade. Yet there are obstacles: some are structural, or relate to governance, but many are behavioural - betraying innate prejudice, inflated egos or an inappropriate moral or commercial stance.
The public rightly wants problems solved and needs met in the most effective and responsive manner. Yet all too often, people must accept what is offered because services are organised to fit institutional systems, frameworks and silos that we have spent decades, even centuries, creating.
Given the right conditions (and behaviours), the benefits of cross-sector collaboration are immense. When organisations from different sectors bring their own distinctive capabilities and expertise, the whole can be vastly greater than the sum of the parts.
These sectors have many important differences that should be respected: blurring of accountabilities, and spurious attempts to conflate values, are unhelpful. Collaboration is not the same as merger or even convergence of sectors, nor can it be based on a traditional contracting model or outsourcing. Equally, it is not about one sector taking over or dictating to another.
Collaboration should bring benefits for all those involved with clear objectives based on better outcomes. Staff and users of services should be involved in designing and delivering collaborative arrangements and should themselves be beneficiaries. But we need to learn from past experience while we develop new models and approaches.
On Thursday, we launch an exciting new venture, Collaborate, to help foster such learning and development. It will act as a hub of new ideas, groundbreaking policies and leading-edge practice; it will be a centre of leadership and skills development; and it will provide a forum for conversation, debate and problem-solving among the business, social and public sectors. All its programmes and activities will be on a cross-sector basis.
Established as a community-interest company based at London South Bank University, which is a partner, we will work with practitioners, academics and policymakers in the UK and internationally - with our strategy overseen by a council of leaders from all sectors.
As part of this venture, the Public Management and Policy Association (PMPA) is transferring to Collaborate from Cipfa, the public finance body, and a series of public lectures and seminars on policy and practice issues will build on the cross-sector collaboration which has been PMPA's hallmark for more than two decades.
Our overriding aim is to foster genuine respect and understanding between the sectors for the public good - for better outcomes for citizens and for communities.
- John Tizard is founding director of Collaborate
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