Question

Can collaboration and partnership between communities and governments address the problem of improving the quality of services or is it simply a cost cutting strategy?

Answer 1

Collaboration and partnership between communities and governments can address the problem of improving the quality of services as well as reduce cost. It would be wrong to call it a cost cutting strategy as the problems faced by governments in this century are complex and wicked like unemployment, sustainability etc. Collaboration seems to be an effective tool to improve knowledge and achieve economies of scale.

• Partnership and collaboration improves knowledge and helps in circulation. The improved knowledge helps in improving the quality of services, strategies, policies and decisions.
• Collaboration with organizations working with communities like police, fire, healthcare etc. can improve in achieving economies of scale
• Collaboration and partnerships helps greatly in service areas where there is communication problems. Example of such a partnership was "Communities First Programme" - This partnership was meant to improve communication between public service providers and deprived communities.
• Another example of collaboration with public departments and communities was for child safeguarding. Collaboration happened between healthcare, education, police and social groups.
• Collaboration to share services like HR, payroll, public property etc. to improve economies of scale.

Governments constantly face pressing social problems, complexity and lack of resources. It is difficult for a single organization to be able to solve all the problems and is difficult to create an organization who can tackle all the issues effectively. Therefore, collaboration seems to be a viable solution to government to bring about quality and reduce costs.

Collaboration and partnership do have their side of challenges. Performance of collaboration is still questionable. It is therefore important to identify the services where collaboration can be fruitful and can be managed well.