Councils should make more use of pilots and trials to test innovative policy ideas and not be embarrassed about sharing failures, report says.

Published by the New Local Government Network (NLGN), the report argued councils should trial new ideas on a small scale, evaluate their success, and move on to test different ideas if they are not constructive.

The report, carried out in association with Norse Group and PPL, also said councils should be less embarrassed about admitting failure and better at sharing examples of what does and does not work.

More cooperation like this will prevent unsuccessful ideas and pilots being repeated in other councils, it said.

‘Councils can potentially increase their productivity and their impact by working with others,’ said Lucy Terry, senior researcher at NLGN.

‘We found lots of ways in which councils are already taking a fresh, innovative approach to collaboration and who they partner with.

‘But doing something new requires experimentation – and councils need to be able to test what works and be honest about cases where something doesn’t have an impact.’

‘This will ultimately benefit the whole of the sector,’ she added.

Commenting on the report, Claire Kennedy, joint managing director at PPL said: ‘The twin challenges of an ageing population and financial pressure facing the public sector today are well-known and extremely complex.

‘For us, the key to increasing productivity is about working and thinking differently.

‘Coproduction and collaboration are ways that organisations can work in partnership to enable more effective delivery, and to create the services that we need for the future.’

The report recommended local authorities introduce ‘collaboration champions’ to lead in identifying new and unlikely partners, and co-ordinate insight into what is most effective.