Once you've seen one sports team movie you've seen them all.  From the 5D's of Dodgeball to the travails of the Jamaican bobsleigh team in Cool Runnings, Hollywood consistently preaches that disharmony is disastrous, and teamwork the key to success.

But while local authorities are studded with divisions, directorates, units and groups that have taken this mantra to heart, other parts of government often seem blithely unaware of the pressing need to play as one unified public sector team.

Just last week, I was told of a Mexican stand-off between police and health services for more than four hours over who had responsibility for an individual with mental health issues, while the man in question sat in a state of limbo in a police car in the hospital car park.

And with research suggesting that the police spend up to a quarter of their time dealing with mental health issues, such wasteful use of crimefighting resources is, I fear, far from anomalous.

Another illustration of disconnection came from a council leader who was bemoaning the ineffective deployment of valuable Disabled Facilities Grants money. Houses are expensively modified only for all the equipment installed to be automatically ripped out by the housing association when the inhabitants leave, without any consideration of who else's needs could have been met by that home and its enhancements.

While these are just anecdotes, they are symptomatic of a system that, unchecked, has historically tended towards inefficiency and profligacy.

There are of course many organisational and cultural reasons why different public services don't talk to one another, but the most cited must be the old chestnut of data sharing. Enough is enough – the time is nigh for a presumption in favour of data sharing, as advocated in our report In Sickness and in Health last year.

But, crucial though it is, data sharing can only be the start. Local government has a key role to play in dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging once more to ensure that all forms of government in each locality are effectively joined together.

One day soon it will be hard to credit that blue light services were ever not unified, and siloism will be a relic from a distant age.

Indeed I hope that not too many years from now we won't talk about public services at all, there will simply be one seamless public service.

Alex Thomson is chief executive of Localis