{"id":1097,"date":"2012-03-06T10:46:41","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T00:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/knowledgetoday\/?p=1097"},"modified":"2012-03-06T10:49:25","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T00:49:25","slug":"partnership-with-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/blog\/2012\/03\/partnership-with-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Partnership with Government: Will we know it when we see it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peter Shergold | CSI blog<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u00a0was lucky enough last month\u00a0to visit Canada as a guest of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada although, unfortunately, not quite lucky enough to go skiing.\u00a0 So, instead of Whistler, Big White and Lake Louise, my itinerary incorporated Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and Ottawa.<\/p>\n

The trip was centred around the promotion of social innovation.\u00a0 It turned out to be a genuine \u2018thought holiday\u2019.\u00a0 I have returned energised.\u00a0 A full account can be found at \u201cPostcard from Canada<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

In Vancouver, British Colombia (BC) I had the opportunity to deliver a public lecture to a well-informed and engaged audience, on the potential of cross-sectoral collaboration to catalyse creative approaches to the production of public good.<\/p>\n

I took as my text for the evening one of the key thematic motifs from the discussion paper, Together:\u00a0 Respecting our Future<\/a>.\u00a0 The document has been developed by the BC Advisory Council on Social Entrepreneurship.\u00a0 \u00a0It reflects on the scale of the task at hand:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe social, economic and environmental challenges that we face are shared problems that require shared solutions \u2026 we know all this, but working together is still difficult.\u00a0 Our sectors and systems are not currently organised to support collaboration and collective action.\u00a0 Our three main sectors \u2013 public, private and not-for-profit \u2013 often function in isolation and operate with different sets of rules and practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Canada as in Australia.\u00a0 Why, I reflected, is it so difficult?\u00a0 What is needed for change?\u00a0 How, in particular, can professional public services and community-based organisations work together in pursuit of public and social innovation?<\/p>\n

In both countries the traditional methodology of government, based on consultation and submission, is clearly proving inadequate.\u00a0 So, very often, is the advocacy of community organisations.\u00a0 Both founder on the rocks of asymmetric political power.\u00a0 Too often political outcomes are debated and negotiated between those on the \u2018inside\u2019 and the \u2018outside\u2019 of democratic governance.\u00a0 Opportunities to work together as equals on solving the wicked problems of society remain rare.<\/p>\n

In structuring my ideas for the evening I came to the conclusion that there were five new ways in which greater connectedness could be built.\u00a0 These seem to me the essential ingredients of \u2018partnership\u2019.<\/p>\n

First, the delivery of government programs (particularly human services) needs to empower the community organisations that are contracted to deliver them.\u00a0 Bureaucratic red-tape needs to be reduced to the minimum required for public accountability purposes.\u00a0 Reporting needs to focus on performance not compliance.\u00a0\u00a0 There should be no risk-averse micro-management of outsourced providers.\u00a0 Rather organisations need to be appropriately funded for the services they deliver and actively encouraged to be innovative in taking new approaches to the implementation of government policies.<\/p>\n

Second, the design of government programs needs to incorporate the front-line experience of community organisations.\u00a0 Tendering is important.\u00a0 Public services generally do it with integrity and probity.\u00a0 Even more important, however, is engaging outsourced deliverers in framing the administrative guidelines under which they will deliver the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, citizens should be encouraged to take responsibility for the budget management of the government support that they require.\u00a0\u00a0 A number of jurisdictions, led by Western Australia, are enabling people with a disability to organise and purchase the \u2018self-directed\u2019 services they need to live a full life.\u00a0 Such opportunities to \u2018co-produce\u2019 government can be extended to other individuals (e.g. those struggling with mental ill-health) and tailored to the needs of communities (e.g. remote Aboriginal settlements).<\/p>\n

Third, the funding of social innovation needs to be facilitated by government.\u00a0 Public funding and philanthropy will never be sufficient.\u00a0 Government can play a major role in helping to harness private capital for social impact and, by doing so, drive public innovation.\u00a0 Recent moves by Australian governments to provide capital start-up funding to mission-driven social enterprises, to support community development financial institutions as intermediaries and to encourage social benefit bonds based on public policy outcomes suggest a willingness to trail new approaches.<\/p>\n

Fourth, the full benefits of public policy and social enterprise need to be audited and measured.\u00a0 Too often government evaluations of programs is narrowly conceived.\u00a0 If governments are to be persuaded that public funding is investment rather than expenditure, the benefits of intervention need to be articulated and assessed.<\/p>\n

Fifth, and underpinning these criteria, governments and public services need to take a new approach to doing.\u00a0 A focus on \u2018customer service\u2019 needs to be accompanied by a commitment to citizen engagement.\u00a0 Collaboration needs to be more than a statement of principles.\u00a0 The world of wiki and crowd-sourcing can harness social media to engage civil society in framing policy and rewriting legislation.\u00a0 Cross-sectoral \u2018design laboratories\u2019 can drive innovation from the \u2018outside\u2019 but it is equally important to develop collaborative mechanisms on the \u2018inside\u2019 of the public service.\u00a0 I think the Partnership Forum<\/a> that I chair in Western Australia represents one effective approach:\u00a0 but so, too, is the establishment of the Not-for-Profit Reform Council<\/a> at the Commonwealth level.<\/p>\n

The podcast of my speech will soon be available on line, courtesy of ISIS at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. A blog<\/a> on the lecture by one attendee, Susan Brinton, is now available.<\/p>\n

In the meantime I welcome your views on how to improve and sustain collaboration between the public, private and community sectors.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure I understand the problems but far from satisfied that I know the answers.\u00a0 I\u2019d appreciate your views.<\/p>\n

Peter Shergold<\/a> is the Macquarie Group Foundation Professor at the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) at UNSW. This blog post first appeared on the CSI blog<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Peter Shergold | CSI blog I\u00a0was lucky enough last month\u00a0to visit Canada as a guest of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada although, unfortunately, not quite lucky enough to go skiing.\u00a0 So, instead of Whistler, Big White and Lake Louise, my itinerary incorporated Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and Ottawa. The trip was centred […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1097"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}