Making mission-based government a reality: relational contracting to achieve outcomes across organisational boundaries

The success of the newly-elected UK government's mission-driven approach hinges on effective implementation. Ultimately, citizens' perception of how well public services function will be the true measure of success. But the design and implementation of effective services is no easy feat – particularly in complex social environments where it is impossible to confidently predict in advance how service users will behave, how to best achieve outcomes, or what other external factors might change.

Achieving better outcomes and delivering value for citizens requires purposeful partnerships across sectors and a willingness to learn and adapt in the face of emerging evidence of what works. However, traditional contracting practices are often identified as a key blocker for genuine cross-sector collaboration, as they remain deeply embedded in transactional and adversarial processes and mindsets. This, then, is at the core of the challenge we want to address:

How can we design contracting and partnership models that enable flexibility, adaptability, and learning while maintaining public accountability?

To suggest an answer to this question, over the last couple of months, the GO Lab’s Fellow of Practice Liam Sloan, his colleagues at Public Digital and the GO Lab team put their heads together to explore how a more relational contracting approach could address the challenges of complex public service delivery. Combining the GO Lab’s work on formal relational contracting and contract design, and Public Digital’s approach of designing agile services with fast feedback loops, we came up with a “first bad draft” of a four-step prototype to help commissioners and providers adopt a more relational approach to formal contracting.

This year’s Social Outcomes Conference offered the ideal platform to test our assumptions: we brought together a group of engaged practitioners and academics during the SOC’s brand new 'Croissants & Collaborations' sessions, embodying the conference’s spirit of bridging the gap between academia and practice. The session provided an informal and relaxed space to test our assumptions and ideas with a group of expert thinkers and doers.

Practitioners from central and local government, delivery organisations, and academics actively contributed to the development of our model, fostering a rich exchange of perspectives and insights. The group engaged in a wide-ranging discussion, touching on topics such as the critical need for the inclusion of user voices in the contracting process; strategies for building trust among diverse stakeholders and across organisational functions; the potential tension between trust-building and public sector accountability principles; and how a legal contract might serve as a vessel for concrete commitment to these relational practices.

Our journey towards reimagining how governments partner with other sectors is only just starting. We are currently reviewing the feedback we received during our conference session and will incorporate new insights into our evolving prototype. In November, we will present and discuss the new version with a group of commissioning practitioners and other stakeholders for further refinement.

Our aim is to iteratively build a common language to discuss these challenges and co-develop a set of practical guides and tools that empower commissioners and suppliers to collaborate in new and effective ways. We believe that this work may create the conditions for a truly mission-driven government to thrive, by contributing to a contracting environment where public services are fundamentally more flexible, adaptable, and responsive to the needs of service users, whilst remaining committed to transparency and accountability.

We're excited to continue making strides towards our shared vision of improved public service delivery. Our upcoming workshop in London this November is a key step in that journey. We'll delve deeper into these concepts and actively seek commissioners to partner with us, testing and refining our tools in real-world scenarios - so, if you’re interested in joining us or learning more, please get in touch.