Great piece as ever, but I can’t help thinking that any strategy for collaboration needs to take a step back from the tech and focus on remodeling the wider picture of service delivery.
Why do so many councils individually buy the same “portals” for planning, libraries, housing and so on and skin them to match their branding, rather than there being single national, or a few regional digital services? It’s because there isn’t a culture of collaboration among service managers and I think that’s what needs to be cracked before we see true change.
Register to Vote isn’t perfect by any means, but shows a model of a single digital service used by hundred of service teams across the country can work. GDS are now moving on to redesign the Blue Badge service which uses a similar model.
The Homelessness Reduction Act seems a great opportunity, and perhaps local government could take the lead on creating one digital service, delivery nationally, used by hundreds of local service delivery teams?
