Towards a community paradigm: four principles of collaboration that can help us get there

This paper, by Adam Lent and Jessica Studdert of the New Local Government Network, describes a new way of meeting the diverse needs of local communities: 

http://www.nlgn.org.uk/public/2019/the-community-paradigm-why-public-services-need-radical-change-and-how-it-can-be-achieved/

It advocates placing the power and decision-making associated with providing public services into the hands of local people and communities and describes how this is already starting to happen within current practices and initiatives.

It also describes how the above practices and initiatives could be built upon to create a new "Community Paradigm" for public service provision.

This new paradigm will require a wholesale shift of not only money and resources but also thinking and perceptions, and an increased emphasis upon collaboration will be key to making this shift happen successfully.

And collaborative working itself requires a wholesale shift in our usual assumptions about how things get done; indeed, it often requires that we think and act counter to these assumptions.

And thinking and acting counter to our usual assumptions about how things get done gradually reveals four principles that we need to keep in mind whilst collaborating with others: the more we keep the more we waste; the more others take the more we gain (and the less the cost the more the value); the more we control the less we control; and the more we collaborate the more we come into conflict.

The following blog post explores these four principles and describes how we can use them to navigate the complex world of collaboration and travel towards a new community empowered approach to public services.
  
https://cuttingedgepartnerships.blogspot.com/2014/08/surviving-and-thriving-within-weird.html