Second Opinion: Interagency working doesn’t have a hope without legislation

Neighbours, volunteers and communities showed an amazing generosity of spirit during the recent flooding disasters. This was not surprising. According to a recent OECD report, How's Life? 2015: Measuring Wellbeing, Irish people have the best social support networks in the world. However, networks are not enough and citizens affected by the floods are asking "who is to blame" and "who is in charge?"

Government ministers who visited flood-stricken areas insisted local authorities are in charge. Really? The Shannon is 224 miles long and flows through 11 counties, each with a local government. Does Leitrim County Council act on its own and shove the problem downstream?

The flooding crisis showed the lack of joined-up planning that has dogged the delivery of public services, including health, since the foundation of the State.

Managing waterways is a complex task, and, like all complex tasks, such as ending obesity and poverty, involves multiple- agency partnerships, something public sector workers do not do very well.

Absence of collaboration

Over the past 20 years almost every report into the operation of public services has highlighted the almost complete absence of intra- and inter-agency collaboration. The Kilkenny incest investigation in 1993 found that each health discipline dealt with the case “entirely separately and without interdisciplinary communication and co-operation”.

The national obesity taskforce, which published its report in 2005, did not include public sector partners who could actually do something about obesity, such as local authorities.

The 2014 report of the independent review group on the Department of Justice and Equality showed it had a "closed, secretive and silo-driven culture."

The latest report from the Garda Inspectorate, Changing Policing in Ireland: Delivering a Visible, Accessible and Responsive Service, showed that "there are gaps in developing formal information- sharing protocols with other agencies and this was identified [on field visits] as hindering partnership working".

Not only are government departments and public sector agencies not working together, they are not working in partnership with communities and citizens. At worst, communities are manipulated and their representatives are persuaded to sit on rubber-stamping committees that are then cynically used in public relations exercises.

At best, the public sector pays lip service to partnership and regularly employs placation methods.

Token individuals

Hand-picked token individuals, who will not rock any boats, are invited onto strategy groups. Citizens are invited to make written submissions or attend public consultation meetings. This is not partnership.

In rare cases where power has been shared with citizens, it has been wrested from the powerful as opposed to being handed over. True partnership involves citizens participating as equals with public sector workers in setting the agenda, defining the problems and developing solutions.

It is not as if the Government, civil servants, local authorities and public sector agencies are not aware of the partnership imperative. Healthy Ireland: A Framework for Improved Health and Wellbeing 2013-2025, has 70 references to partnership working.

The 2012 government strategy, A Guide to Putting People First: Action Programme for Effective Local Government, states: "Effective implementation of the framework will require a broad partnership comprising central government, local government and the State sector generally, as well as the broad range of actors across Irish society and the community at large."

So why is it not happening often enough? The simple answer is that, unlike the private sector, public sector workers do not know how to partner with either citizens or other agencies.

Collaborative working is not part of their education and professional socialisation. People spend years training to be nurses, social workers, doctors, teachers, or whatever, learning the jargon and culture of their particular discipline.

By the time they are competent disciplinarians, they are unable to work with other disciplines in an effective way. In fact, the purpose of a professional education is to emphasise the differences between professions.

Rivalry, competition for funding, mistrust and power imbalances are the inevitable result.

Intractable problems such as child poverty, obesity and health inequalities will not be solved without partnerships. Legislation is needed to force public sector agencies to work with each other and with citizens.

Some countries such as Canada and Norway have already legislated for compulsory citizen and stakeholder engagement, including early-stage involvement to define problems and possible solutions.

Public sector workers need training in partnership working, trust-building and power-sharing. Cliques, hidden agendas and power bases are out. Credit must be shared between partners.

If nothing else, the flooding crisis might finally get people working together; something they should have been doing for the past 50 years. Dr Jacky Jones is a former HSE regional manager of health promotion and a member of the Healthy Ireland Council.