In brief
In a breakout session at the Changing our Permissions event on July 12th we discussed working with the new government. We heard from Rob Mc Cabe about his experience of working on changing systems with the Birmingham Pathfinder team and others contributed other insights from working both locally and nationally. We thought that the conversation, or at least the headlines, were worth sharing. Here are our ten top tips.
We have a new government and new Prime Minister, newly elected mayors in many regions and rejuvenated councils in many more. None of this makes change inevitable, not real, deep change in how we live together, but all of it creates possibility. Openings and opportunities will ripple out. How can we work together on building a world of good relationships?
Amass the evidence (and continue evaluating, to keep it up to date). Numbers and stories are much more persuasive than theory or ideology
Position your work as an answer to the question that the politician is asking, today. Be creative! No matter how good your work may be, if the politician doesn’t recognise and
prioritise the problem they won’t be interested in your solution
Consider the second bounce. We know the top line policy commitments. These are the promises that were in the manifestos and discussed in the campaigns. They are largely beyond influence. The questions now are where will they land? And who will they affect? Get ahead of the game. Anticipate and intercept to influence the second bounce and then the third
Build your activity outside the system but don’t stay there. Pick your moment to get inside
Think outside the box. Politicians and officials find it hard to innovate. Outside of statutory systems we have the freedom to innovate. We bring something different to the table. To the
thoughtful politician, this is what makes us good partners
Don’t limit your influencing to one leader, no matter how senior. Getting anything done in government requires the active support of at least 20 people in different parts of the system. And they turn over quickly, so build support in depth as well as breadth
Your argument will always be stronger if you bring matching resources. Be explicit about what you bring. It needn’t be cash – maybe pro bono support from other partners, materials you
have already developed, a wealth of lived experience etc
Alliances, particularly cross-sector alliances, are invariably more effective than solo missions. Build different partnerships to help you to reach and impress parts of the system that you can’t reach. Especially unlikely ones, the more different the better
Austerity has changed the landscape. Some challenges lie beyond the short term. We can’t game this out, playing for the upturn. We need to be clear and frank about the scale of change that is needed. We should be willing to talk about “refounding” a service or an organisation and to work not only with current leaders but also the next generation. This isn’t an alternative to pursuing short term priorities, it’s in addition
Make it safe for officials to learn and change. Don’t “demand”. Build together
These are the top ten tips that came out of our conversation. Please add yours in the comments section below
Further reading
Relationship-Centred Public Services
In brief In this piece for Joining the Dots blog Ray Shostak considers the “enabling conditions” for developing relational practice and suggests a framework for supporting them. Ray has been a teacher, a local authority worker, a civil servant and eventually Head...
Politics as usual or a new beginning?
In brief In this Joining the Dots blog (written back in the days when parliaments sat and terms were predictable), Iona Lawrence and David Robinson consider the place of relationships in our national politics. Iona works for The Cares Family and previously...
Time for ‘relationship-centred government’? How about it Mr Johnson?
In brief In this blog, David Robinson, who leads the Relationships Project, challenges the UK’s new Prime Minister to take a relationship-centred approach to government, and makes some suggestions for how to go about it. This blog also appears on A Better...
