Building better contexts for partnership and sustainable local collaboration: a review of core issues, with lessons from the "Waitakere way".

• Author: Craig, David

Abstract

The prospect of government agencies, local government and community groups working together holds a number of promises. In Waitakere City, collaborative activity in social sectors is based on a long tradition of community activism, interagency collaboration and city council facilitation. Through these processes, a number of lessons have been learnt, and a language and new processes of collaboration have been developed. Drawing on these lessons, and also on international literature and wider New Zealand policy developments, this paper explores a number of critical areas for policy around collaborative planning and partnership working. It describes the need to create a better environment for local collaboration by being much clearer about the mandates that are to be managed locally, and lining these up with appropriate funding and (shared) accountability structures. These are policy challenges for central government as well as local government. There are also everyday, practical policy issues to address, including the need to recognise and resource the roles of "strategic brokers", to enable community networks and forums to achieve better "mandated representation", and to support better-coordinated action around shared outcome indicators. In particular, it suggests the formation of local "common accountability platforms" as a sustained basis for substantive local and regional collaborative action.

INTRODUCTION

Joining up government, local services mapping, regional coordination, local partnerships, collaborative strategic planning--all of these are a part of the rising complexity of social services delivery and governance, and the growing diversity of stakeholders and players (see, for example, Glendinning et al. 2002, Lamer and Butler 2003, Newman 2001). It is becoming clear that a number of cross-cutting issues--such as safety and violence, school-to-work transitions, and poverty and wellbeing--will need new alignments and assignments of responsibility between different government agencies, local governments and community-sector organisations. At the same time, attempts at local collaboration, and joining up services and accountabilities, add new levels of complexity of their own.

In international literature and common experience, a number of key questions and issues are emerging, with important policy implications at national and local levels. These include issues of "vertical assignment" of tasks and accountabilities:

* Which issues should be addressed locally, at territorial authority level, regionally, or nationally?

Also included are issues of "horizontal" or local intersector integration and accountability:

* How do you break out of the "silos" of sectoral service delivery and get sustained, coordinated attention to issues?

* What horizontal (local-local) and vertical (local-regional-central) accountability processes and structures are appropriate?

There are policy issues of participation and "downwards accountability":

* How do the community get a sustained voice within decision-making forums?

* What is the role of local government in social services?

Then there are technical policy issues about how to join up:

* How do you cope with the complexities of different agencies, all with overlapping mandates to address interrelated problems, but with different consultation, planning and funding cycles (Considine 2002, Craig 2003, Sullivan 2003)?

In Aotearoa New Zealand, anyone involved with local service delivery or planning will be familiar with the kinds of complexity referred to here. This complexity will not go away any time soon. The legacy of fragmentation from the previous period remains, and it means high transaction costs of joining up: the cost of attending so many meetings, and the time and effort needed to get everyone signing on the same page. So far in collaboration this type of coordination has not been well resourced, and funding incentives (such as devolved funds local agencies could access on a collaborative basis) have been few. Many of these transaction costs have been borne locally and voluntarily by agencies and less-well-resourced community groups contributing their time and expertise.

In a number of areas things are changing. As the government's "Review of the Centre" (State Services Commission 2001), its Mosaics overview (Ministry of Social Development 2003) and strategies--including the Sustainable Development Strategy (Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet 2003)--demonstrate, central government agencies are seeking to promote joined-up, results-oriented ways of working. The Te Rito domestic violence initiative (2) has been funded on a collaborative basis. Local governments' Long Term Council Community Plan processes have been given a mandate to deliver community outcomes, in collaboration with other agencies. These developments, joined to local governments' wellbeing mandate (based on the Local Government Act), will increase the need for funding of collaboration at regional and more local levels.

With collaborative funding will come other policy considerations:

* How should joint accountabilities for outcomes be administered locally? (This has important Public Finance Act implications, as we will note.)

* How should collaboration be more effectively joined to ongoing budgets and planning cycles?

Here is the challenge for public policy: to create a better context for local collaborative effort by:

* establishing parameters and commitments

* creating better incentives and rewards for joined-up efforts

* reducing transaction costs and making voluntary time and effort more effective

* shaping clearer (shared) accountabilities around local and regional outcomes.

THE WAITAKERE WAY

However, in the meantime, at regional and local level many local authorities seem to be developing their own ways forward. In a number of these places, processes involving combined community sector and interagency forums have been established. A level of trust and familiarity with each other's ways of working has had to be developed. A common language for addressing collaboration is developing. Waitakere City is one such place. Building on more than 20 years of community activism, networks and forums, around issues such health and wellbeing, mental health, safety and disability, a number of community groups, the city council and government agencies have been developing ways to work together to promote wellbeing. As we will describe below, what has evolved is a series of community forums, added to by council-sponsored networks of networks, involving community forum representatives and representatives of government agencies meeting to work towards wellbeing in Waitakere. This three-way collaborative process between community, council and government agencies has been called the Waitakere Way.

"Building the Waitakere Way" and, since 1996, the "Waitakere Community Wellbeing Strategy" have community-wide Wellbeing Summits attended by hundreds of agency and community representatives, committed to the Wellbeing Strategies (Community Sector Networks in Waitakere 2000). Most recently, a "Waitakere Wellbeing Collaboration Strategy Process" has been developed involving headline "Calls to Action", each with a range of collaborative projects. Support from council staff, local and national politicians, and government agencies has also been important at many points.

During the current Collaboration Strategy process, a research project on Local Governance and Partnerships from the University of Auckland has been observing and informing proceedings. This paper has emerged from the research project's observation, participation, and a series of interviews and discussions around the process. It demonstrates some of the issues that have arisen and the language for discussing them that has developed, and makes clearer some of the policy implications. Overall, this paper aims to suggest a number of policy issues that need to be addressed if local partnerships and collaboration are to enjoy a more enabling environment than they have had so far. Readers interested in pursuing this material further should refer to our substantial issues guide arising from the wider Local Partnerships and Governance project (Craig and Courtney 2004), available from the project's website, (3) or from the author.

Getting the Right People Around the Table

The first issues to be addressed are getting the right people who can make a decision around the table, getting beyond over-consultation, and taking it back to the networks: the value of forums, summits and ongoing mandated representation.

In Waitakere, the development of locally attuned collaborative and partnership practice in service delivery and advocacy has been addressed largely bottom up, with relatively little guidance or support from central levels. This "smell of an oily rag" development process has engaged many, many folk over many years, in service delivery, activism, and network and community forum participation. Over decades, a range of community networks have held network forums where a range of sectoral issues have been fully and frankly discussed. The topics include mental health, urban Maori issues, domestic violence, social services, disability, health and wellbeing, community safety, among others.

The Waitakere experience has been that these forums provide a sustainable place for issues to be raised in ways that mean they do not slip off the agenda. Rather, there can be ongoing, iterative engagement and the development of shared strategies and advocacy around the issues. In forum discussions, people learn how to make their point and develop shared positions against which service providers, other organisations and government agencies might be in some ways held accountable. A number of strong community leaders have emerged in these forums. Plenty of government and sectoral officials and professionals have learnt ways of engaging both the community and each other...