After several years of political stasis, the recent General Election has delivered the biggest change to the UK’s political landscape for a generation and with it, a fundamental shift in how business will engage with policy makers moving forward.
Labour has long spoken about how ‘mission-driven government’ will help deliver higher levels of economic growth and improved living standards across society. Partnership with business to deliver the missions has been a centrepiece of the policy. Easier said than done however, with governments historically struggling to get their relationship with business right.
It is clear that to meet the ambitions of Keir Starmer’s administration, we need a new framework where government genuinely partners with the private sector to understand the motivations of shareholders, business leaders and investors; and at the same time, where businesses are honest about their strengths and weaknesses and what can be achieved. That framework does not yet exist, despite warm words on both sides.
Collaboration is the answer to this. At Headland, we are powered by collaboration. Last year, we launched our report What can business expect from Labour to help businesses understand Labour’s approach to policy to successfully engage and collaborate with the party on its development.
In our report the Collaborative Corporate, we identified that businesses benefit from a ‘collaborative advantage’ if they can strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, including government, through shared transformational goals.
Now we are very pleased to take the next step by partnering with Demos to establish the British Partnership Council. The first step of this work is the report Partnership in Practice which identifies six barriers that need to be tackled to encourage stronger partnership working and six policy options that the new government should support.
This paper is the start of a continued conversation. In the coming weeks, the establishment of the British Partnership Council is an opportunity to bring together policy makers, businesses and other experts to understand how we can put the shared desire for partnership into practice.