Devolution relies heavily upon the success of joint working within the public sector.
It is also the case that tackling the challenge of maintaining access to services while reducing costs is increasingly looking to joint working between councils, other public sector organisations and the private and voluntary sectors.
Many attempts at joint working, however, fail to deliver the potential available.
How then do you make joint working more successful?
First, those seeking to pursue joint working need to be clear about what they are seeking to achieve.
Joint working has to deliver more value than is possible from the sum of individual organisations.
This should not be a marginal increase in value but should seek to achieve a significant increase in value.
If it is not a significant increase in value then the rationale for doing it has to be seriously questioned.
Second, the organisations involved need to be clear about the nature of the joint working into which they are willing and able to enter.
Moving from transaction to collaboration to partnership takes time, political and managerial commitment and leadership, different competencies, capabilities and capacity, and often a change in organisational culture.
Believe me, it is not for the faint-hearted and will test you and your organisation.
It’s important to be clear that there are two types of joint working: collaboration and partnership.
Too often joint working is branded partnership when it is barely collaboration.
Where this is the case the reality of performance and behaviours undermines credibility and confidence, and the joint working underperforms.
This leads to a spiral of decline.
Internally and externally organisations can’t just jump from having transactional relationships to partnership working.
If your organisation doesn’t have partnership working internally, how can it be an effective partner externally?
As a management consultant I could tell straight away when entering an organisation whether or not it had effective internal joint working.
Every time someone has contact with your organisation they can tell whether or not there is effective internal joint working.
The bigger and more diversified an organisation the bigger the challenge to have effective internal joint working and external joint working.
Test your internal and external joint working by answering the following ten questions:
1. Is there evidence that the organisations involved in the joint working have a shared understanding of, and commitment to, the objectives for it?
2. Is there consistency between the objectives for the joint working and what are communicated as priorities in each of the organisations?
3. Is there evidence of shared accountability for the performance of the joint working?
4. Is there evidence of a willingness to take risks and innovate within the joint working across the organisations?
5. Is there a sharing of corporate risks and rewards between the organisations?
6. Is there a willingness to share information and to explore all options to address challenges and opportunities together?
7. Are resources viewed as belonging to all of the organisations involved in the joint working or to individual organisations?
8. Is there a consistency of leadership, organisational culture and behaviours for the joint working across the organisations?
9. Is there a consistent approach to the development and use of competencies, capabilities and capacity across the organisations involved in the joint working?
10. Is there a consistent and tangible illustration of the shared ambition and commitment in all of the organisations involved in the joint working that is delivering a transformation in performance?
These questions need to be answered within each organisation and by each organisation for specific relationships externally.
The results then need to be shared.
Devolution and Public Private Partnerships are examples of joint working.
If they are to be successful and to transform outcomes for communities councils, and those with whom they work, need to be clear about not only what they want to achieve but the type of joint working they need internally and externally to have in place.
Malcolm Morley is chief executive of Harlow DC and author of The Public Private Partnership Handbook: How to maximise value from joint working
