Transcript

LIZ GIFFORD:

I suppose from my point of view, the importance of collaboration generally and particularly, I think, organisation to organisation is different organisations have different things to offer the public. We're all here for the public. That's what we've got in common, with different objectives but that's what we're here for. And if we're going to get the best value for the public and give the best value, we need to work together.

JOHN COVE:

And as we go through an extended period of contraction in the public sector, actually, these new ways of working and these collaborations across fields are going to be increasingly how we all have to work together. I think there's different levels of collaboration that you can have. There's a straight business relationship where a public sector may try and procure a particular service and you're looking at ways of developing that.

But there are, of course, other ways that we can do and a key to it is identifying the common objectives and what you can bring differently to the party. Some of that may be cash resource but others might be people resource or it might be an audience that people need to get to that you can only get to in a particular way per organisation.

LIZ GIFFORD:

You have to identify the shared things that are really important because I think if something's not really important, in the end people won't do it. So it's identifying what's really needed and agreeing that there are things that people can do together which will be better than doing it separately. Often, the things that are needed are not just needed for the public. They're actually also needed for the organisations.

So it's identifying that kind of common cause and then having a systematic way of agreeing what's possible and then building relationships. I think without relationships between the people involved and the organisations involved and building those fairly securely based on trust, you don't get that far with collaboration in the end.

JOHN COVE:

I think the key to me is the relationships, the relationships between people delivering, the relationship between the organisation and the relationship with the community and all those different parts. And they have to be functioning well and be robust enough. Now, with any collaboration, it's a bit like family. The family, you know everybody and work with everybody in your family but from time to time, you have rows.

And that's no different from when you're collaborating. There'll be time that you have rows. And I think actually what marks out a really good collaboration is how you deal with that row and fallout but don't disrupt the whole relationship going forward.

LIZ GIFFORD:

: One of the rich things about the voluntary sector is that huge range of people and skills and support that it can optimise. But that doesn't want to be antagonistic. It needs to be right in there supporting the collaboration.