Our Innovations in Public Policy series continues into 2025, exploring key themes and ideas shaping the way the new Labour government is operating. In this piece, Tom Entwistle (Professor of Public Policy and Management at Cardiff University) discusses Collaboration. Increasing collaboration – between the public and private sectors, for example – is regularly proposed as a way for governments to cut costs and improve services. This briefing assesses these claims, finding evidence that collaboration rarely reduces costs, but can improve service delivery – under certain conditions. The article argues that collaboration is not a ‘silver bullet’, but can bring new resources to intractable policy problems if implemented properly.
What is it good and not so good for?
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