I found LocalGovCamp a really refreshing and cheering event this year. I’m going to spend a few quick posts writing up my thoughts.
Mary McKenna brilliantly facilitated an excellent discussion on collaboration – why it is needed, why it hasn’t worked that well up to now, and how that might be fixed.
Some great input came from FutureGov‘s Dom Campbell, who spoke about the some of the challenges trying to implement their Patchwork tool across multiple agencies.
There was also discussion of the limitations of the traditional approach to partnership working – overly bureaucratic, slow to make decisions, agencies working individually to deliver what should be shared objectives, really boring meetings, and so on.
What’s needed is a more agile, responsive and flexible approach to working in partnership to deliver shared outcomes.
This needs to mean organisations sharing people, resources, systems, data and more – and not just tick-box style partnerships.
What’s also vital to to this working are grown up conversations are needed about who can deliver what with the resources they have. This is no time for pride.
Heartwarming to hear that agencies are going to work together.
My experience of schools, in particular, has often led me to believe there is a sense of competitiveness between them that makes collaboration in best practice very difficult.
I hope this initiative will focus on education sectors at some point, if it is not doing so already.