High-frequency granular data can enable senior government officials to hold poorly performing members of the service delivery chain to account; however, centralised management must translate large volumes of data into appropriate management actions to be effective. 

Drawing on a notable case of collaborative failure in England we show that misdiagnosing public service problems as being of a type likely to be cured by joint working also generates poor results, and belongs conceptually prior to many “go-to” explanations of failure.

A newly published PeopleGov report finds the pandemic imposed a dual imperative on civil services: the need for greater speed, flexibility, and decentralisation of decision-making on the one hand, and for greater coordination and collaboration on the other.