Joined-up thinking, comparatively speaking

Launch of the Institute for Government’s report on achieving more joined-up and effective government this morning. It does provide a useful contribution with new material and research, including cases from other countries (of particular interest to me as a comparativist), even if though its conclusions and recommendations reflect common wisdom.

That we face the question of how to get from A to B was highlighted in the discussion and the importance of politics: who is going to take charge for pushing these recommendations through? I would have liked to have heard a comparative answer to this question and how it has been done in other countries, especially in the second and third chapters on departmental boards and cross-departmental collaboration (by contrast the first chapter on the centre dealt with this somewhat on pages 34-38).

There’s also the question of how to get buy-in from beyond government, to include the opposition. One way is to include cross-cutting and joined-up topics in select committees. But is there a way of building cross-party consensus on this as well?