"Collaboration" is one of the most overused terms in the public sector. It’s hailed as the cure for silos, the spark for innovation, and the key to complex change. All of this is true – but not when the word remains a slogan, not a strategy; invoked in speeches, absent in budgets, and drowned out by daily delivery pressures.
In this context, collaboration often feels aspirational at best, rhetorical at worst. But treating it as a vague ideal is no longer viable. If the UK is to accelerate progress in a challenging political and fiscal landscape, collaboration must be reframed as a core capability: actively built, measured, and sustained.
This need is sharpened by the Labour government’s mission-led agenda. Delivering goals like making Britain a clean energy superpower, building an NHS fit for the future, and breaking down barriers to opportunity demands cross-departmental and cross-sector collaboration on an unprecedented level. Yet the public sector is being asked to meet this challenge with an outdated operating system.
Elaine Whyte, programme delivery expert
Meeting the moment means rethinking how leadership is developed, culture is shaped, infrastructure is designed, funding is allocated, and coordination is achieved at scale.
1. Reward the leaders who connect, not consolidate
Collaborative transformation begins with leadership. It will only take root when leaders are supported and rewarded for building bridges. That means dismantling the structures and hierarchies that block genuine collaboration.
To shift the system, we must rethink what we value in leadership. Systems leadership – defined as the capacity to lead across boundaries and address complex, interconnected challenges – must become a core competency. Cross-sector experience and relationship-building deserve equal recognition alongside technical expertise. Incentive models must evolve too, with leaders rewarded not just for departmental wins, but for impact that benefits the system as a whole, measured by shared outcomes.
Guy Neale, collaboration design expert
An example of this is the UK-run Government Outcomes Laboratory. The GoLab conducts research on how outcome-based contracts and financial incentives can align people to shared outcomes, not simple outputs. For example, one project saw a change in incentives around outcomes for the unemployed. These shifted from being linked to the number of training sessions attended to the number of people who found and sustained employment.
This approach can be a powerful driver of career growth and a critical lever for retaining talent. In our research, The Collaborative Cohort: Leading successful collaborative transformation in Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships, we found that 56% of civil servants involved in collaborative transformation roles reported advancement in skills and professional development.
2. Create a culture of psychological safety and continuous learning
Collaboration gains real traction in a culture of psychological safety, where people feel safe to speak up and experiment intentionally. Psychological safety has been proven to influence performance in public and private workplaces.
Our experience of exploring psychological safety on UK Ministry of Defence programmes found that simple actions, such as leaders providing an ongoing presence and being available for discussion, had a significant impact on how psychologically safe teams feel. The key is that teams don’t need leaders to always have all the answers, but to make the space and time to be available – and to demonstrate an ongoing openness to learning.
This focus on continuous learning can be demonstrated by embedding collaboration-focused training and reflection into budgets and planning, not treating them as optional. Secondments and joint training build cross-boundary understanding, while structured learning loops ensure lessons are captured and shared. Crucially, we’ve found that secondments work when they are time‑boxed missions with explicit outcomes, staffed by people with the right boundary‑spanning skills, and measured like any other investment. This means that the people you pick – and the teams they are seconded to – matter more than forms and process.
Approaches such as these are already delivering impact. We partnered with the Defence Nuclear Enterprise to launch its Career Development Hub, a structured learning platform fostering openness and shared learning. With collaboration-focused content and built-in feedback, the hub has helped create a cross-organisational community. Meanwhile, National Highways has embraced wargaming to strengthen digital resilience, allowing teams to test plans in simulated future scenarios, building their ability to face disruption head-on.
This is just the start; there’s a significant opportunity for government to take wargaming further, scaling it across levels,; from pan-Whitehall ministerial exercises that surface strategic risks and opportunities – such as an exodus of talent or being able to harness the value of AI – through to frontline simulations that build operational connectivity and deliver direct citizen impact.
3. Build infrastructure that works across boundaries
A collaborative culture depends on infrastructure that supports openness, and nowhere is this more critical than in how data is shared, accessed, and applied.
Investing in collaborative capabilities, such as shared platforms and clear data-sharing policies, enables teams to transcend boundaries, align data with mission outcomes, and unlock greater transformative potential. For example, we found that by linking over 70 datasets from DESNZ, DEFRA, the Met Office, and devolved administrations, the UK could radically improve how it tracks and communicates progress on climate change.
Departments also need visibility. Making teams aware of available data, and clearly communicating how it’s used for public good, builds trust. Tools like shared risk registers can foster joint ownership of challenges. For example, the Tri-Borough Shared Services programme used one to align governance across councils, and Cabinet Office guidance now encourages shared risk practices for cross-departmental programmes.
4. Fund collaboration with flexibility and purpose
Just as infrastructure must support openness, funding must enable adaptability. That means shifting from fragmented, siloed funding to pooled, multi-year models that support strategic planning and reduce annual churn.
While the UK operates with multi-year Departmental Expenditure Limits (DELs), many programmes remain constrained by disjointed cycles and isolated funding streams. Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) data continues to show spending segmented across departments and regions, highlighting the need for joined-up financial models that enable cross-cutting delivery.
Making this real means giving cross-functional teams budgetary authority, backed by trans
arency and impact tracking. Funding must be mission-driven and flexible – able to shift with insight, not stall with bureaucracy, and supported by contingency buffers that absorb change.
This isn’t just a theoretical fix; it’s already working. According to the Cabinet Office’s Functional Savings report, functional teams embedded across departments delivered £6.5 billion in savings in FY 2022/23 by collaborating across boundaries. Now, this approach must cascade more broadly – embedding cross-functional financial governance as standard practice.
5. Coordinate collaboration from local to global scales
With leadership, culture, infrastructure, and funding in place, the next challenge is to make collaboration work across borders and political contexts. As the UK invests in global priorities like climate action and security, it must also rethink regional roles and how value is captured locally.
This means connecting national ambition to place-based partnerships. The UK’s climate goals, for example, won’t be met without regional innovation. Accelerating local initiatives – like the Net Zero North West Cluster Plan, which is poised to deliver the UK’s first net zero region by 2040 – can drive impact fast.
We’ve also seen how national security is strengthened when regional efforts align with global defence priorities. The Northwest Cyber Corridor, anchored by the National Cyber Force in Lancashire, is building a cross-sector ecosystem of digital resilience. Meanwhile, Barrow-in-Furness is being transformed into a hub for defence innovation and workforce renewal, becoming a cornerstone of the UK’s long-term strategy. These efforts show the power of local collaboration in reaching national and global goals.
Collaboration is the upgrade the public sector must seize now
It’s clear that collaboration isn’t just helpful; it’s foundational to solving today’s most complex challenges. And we already have the tools and best practices to make it the norm.
What’s needed now is intent: to treat collaboration not as a side project but as a core capability – designed, resourced, and rewarded at every level of government. Do that, and government won’t just respond to the moment, it will define it.