Making Collaboration Work

Paul ‘t Hart

Australian National University/ANZSOGUtrecht University/Netherlands School of Government

Collaborative Public Management: Arenas

At the ‘front line’: wrapping services around clients

Within executive government: ‘joining up’ departmental silos/baronies

Between sectors: getting more out of public-private interface

Across jurisdictional borders: matching scale of ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’

Government-citizens interface: from ‘consultation’ to ‘empowerment’

Collaborative Public Management: An Emergent Ideology?

“Holistic” (as opposed to fragmented)

“Partnership” (as opposed to hierarchy)

“Engagement”/”Consultation” (as opposed to ‘we know best’)

“Relational” (as opposed to job-driven)

“Transformative” (as opposed to transactional)

Collaborative Public Management: An Idea Whose Time Has Come (Again)?

-Network society scholars/enthusiasts: From ‘government’ to ‘governance’

-Wicked problem sectors: ‘There is No Alternative’

-Non-profit grass roots and peaks: A cry for a ‘New Deal’

-Collaborative Federalism enthusiasts: Moving ‘beyond COAG’

Example: Compacts

Bilateral relational agreements between govt and not-for-profit sectors

Have no statutory or legal force

Intended to codify the values, expectations and behavioural/procedural norms expected to prevail between signatories

Focus on the characteristics of the relationship between the parties rather than on discrete transactions

Source: Butcher, 2010

A wave of ‘Compacts’

ACT NSW NT QLD

Social Compact (2004)

Working Together (2006)

Common Cause (2004/05)

Q’land Compact (2008)

SA TAS VIC WA

Stronger Together (2008)

Tasmania Together (2006)

Partnership Agreement/ MOU 2002-2012

Partnership Forum (2010)

Collaboration:Rationales

Acknowledging one another: empowerment(e.g. offsetting principal-agent perversities of contract-driven approaches;

participatory policy-making)

Overcoming fragmentation: pooling resources(e.g. complex case management; emergency response/recovery; one-stop

shops for citizens)

Addressing complex/’wicked’ problems: forging innovation

(e.g. area development/regeneration strategies; cross-sectoral challenges)

What collaboration does not (necessarily) mean:

Doing things (more) efficiently

‘Everybody wins’, all of the time

Governing as a ‘love-in’

A panacea for all dilemmas and conflicts

Collaboration: A Public Service Paradigm Shift

‘Genuine collaboration… requires public servants who, with eyes wide open, can exert the qualities of leadership necessary to forsake the simplicity of control for the complexity of influence… [T]hey need to operate outside the traditionally narrow framework of

government, which they have for so long worked within’

Peter Shergold (2008: 21):

Making collaboration work: StrategiesSeduce stakeholders: Forge a sense of interdependence among all actors involved

Keeping talking: Orchestrate intensive and sustained communication between participants

De-politicize processes: Create ‘off-line’ venues with new interaction rules

Develop shared understandings: Align expectations what partnership is for and what constitutes success

Build relationships: Don’t be in a hurry, be prepared to earn trust, expect setbacks

Maintain momentum: Invest in joint administrative support systems

Perverting collaboration

Going through the motionsConsultation/engagement/partnership as ritual

Boxing it in from the outsetRestricting mandate, terms, duration etc.

Playing small-p politics in the processLeaking, blaming, ducking

Breaking commitmentsCreating ‘surprises’

Under-investing in continuityImpeding capacity-building

Organizing for Collaboration:Implications

For political and public service leadershipPrivileging superordinate goals/identitiesResisting the tyranny of the short termSharing responsibility and risk

For institutional design of policy/deliveryInstitutionalizing meaningful interfacesBalancing horizontal (siloed, internal) with vertical (integral, networked) funding and accountability incentives

For developing ‘in-between’ competenciesSelection/rotation (taking longevity seriously)Boundary spanning skills (‘brokers’, ‘diplomats’, ‘interpreters’)Process management skills (as distinct from project management)