District councils should lead the way in ensuring devolution delivers improved services and outcomes for people and places through better collaboration, according to a new report.

The University of Birmingham’s INLOGOV centre’s report is due to be launched today at the joint County Councils Network and District Councils’ Network summit on devolution.

Building Better Collaboration praises two-tier working and calls for decisive leadership from district councils to drive public service reform and economic growth in shire areas.

There are five key themes, according to the findings of the report, that influence effective collaboration:

• Selflessness: district councils should shoulder a bigger share of the costs for innovative projects than they get back in direct benefit if these projects benefit those they serve.
• Leadership: chief executives and council leaders should take responsibility for driving change.
• Momentum: small obstacles should not be allowed to stall innovative projects.
• Trust: it is important to build trust across the public, private and third sector.
• Risk: a sense of shared risk can introduce a sense of urgency into risk management and failure prevention.

Cllr Neil Clarke, chairman of the District Councils’ Network (DCN), welcomes the report as further evidence of the important role district councils play in delivering better outcomes for communities.

He also emphasises the key role of collaboration across boundaries and sectors in achieving this.

‘Districts are integral to such collaborative arrangements,’ cllr Clarke said, ‘and the ‘selfless’ behaviour identified by INLOGOV as a critical success factor is indeed ‘completely role-appropriate for districts.

‘The DCN welcomes the report’s findings and will continue to promote the "preeminent collaborative leadership skills" of districts to influence decision makers, develop future work with our partners and provide support to our members.’

Building Better Collaboration also underlines the importance of three key factors which influence collaborative performance at an individual, organisational and structural level:

• Talented leaders, nurtured by districts, who can drive collaborative working.
• An organisational culture of cross working with agencies, including counties, central government departments and agencies, the voluntary sector, Clinical Commissioning Groups, commercial operators and Local Enterprise Partnerships.
• Collaboration between district councils in overcoming regulatory and national policy hurdles.

In order to spread best practice, the report also contains ten case studies of successful collaboration across broad service areas.

Finally, in 2016 the DCN will launch a regional workshop programme to help its 200 members get to grips with the leadership role of districts in the new devolutionary landscape.