Devolution has reshaped how places like Greater Manchester (GM) respond to complex challenges, moving away from siloed, top‑down delivery towards locally driven, place‑based collaboration. At its best, this approach recognises that health, housing, work, education and community are not separate systems in people’s lives. Instead, they intersect in real places, requiring shared leadership and collective action.
But making place‑based collaboration work day‑to‑day, across institutions and communities is hard. This is where the practice of collaborating out loud offers a practical and cultural foundation for doing things differently.
What Do We Mean by Place‑Based Collaboration?
In a devolved context, place‑based collaboration is about:
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- Working across organisational boundaries (local authorities, NHS, VCSE sector, communities)
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- Focusing on neighbourhoods and lived experience, rather than institutional priorities
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- Sharing power, insight and accountability locally
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- Testing and adapting solutions in real time
Greater Manchester’s journey from health and care devolution in 2016 to today’s integrated neighbourhood teams and locality partnerships, demonstrates that structural change alone isn’t enough. Collaboration must be actively practiced.
Where Collaborating Out Loud Comes In
The Collaborating Out Loud (COL) principles provide a simple but powerful way to support this work in practice. They shift collaboration from something we “plan” to something we do openly, iteratively and together.
Work Out Loud and Amplify
Place‑based systems depend on shared understanding. Yet often, insight stays trapped in meetings or documents. Working out loud means:
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- Sharing thinking early, not waiting for perfection
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- Making work visible across organisations and communities
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- Amplifying voices that are often unheard
This might look like neighbourhood teams openly sharing what they’re learning about local needs, or partners blogging, posting, or hosting informal sessions to spread insight quickly. This builds momentum and avoids duplication, critical in a system as complex as a devolved region.
Build Community and Create Space
Collaboration doesn’t happen because structures exist, it happens because relationships exist. GM’s strength lies in its long‑standing relationships across sectors. But sustaining these requires intentional effort:
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- Creating space for connection, not just delivery
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- Investing in trust and empathy
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- Bringing communities into the room as equal partners
Neighbourhood forums, community assemblies, and informal cross‑sector meetups all play a role here. These spaces are the infrastructure of trust.
Embrace Difference and Democracy
A place‑based system thrives when it reflects the diversity of its people. In GM, that means:
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- Valuing the insight of residents alongside professionals
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- Learning from other places and sectors
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- Making decisions transparently and collectively
Co‑production, participatory budgeting, and community leadership programmes are all ways this is already being tested and need to be scaled.
Practice Generosity and Kindness
Collaboration often falters under pressure, especially in systems facing financial constraints.A generous approach can counter this:
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- Share knowledge, tools and credit freely
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- Support partners rather than compete with them
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- Recognise the emotional labour involved in system change
In a place like GM, where reform depends on collective effort, generosity is not a “nice to have”, it’s essential.
Make It Real: Test, Learn, Adapt
Devolution gives places permission to do things differently but progress depends on action. In practice:
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- Create small, psychologically safe spaces to test new ideas
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- Work between formal structures and informal networks
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- Learn quickly and scale what works
Examples in GM include neighbourhood pilots, integrated care models, and community‑led initiatives that start small and grow through learning.
What This Means for Greater Manchester
GM is often seen as a leader in devolution, but its real strength lies in how it continues to learn in the open. By embedding collaborating out loud into place‑based work, places can:
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- Accelerate learning across boroughs and neighbourhoods
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- Strengthen trust between organisations and communities
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- Make collaboration visible, inclusive and accountable
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- Turn strategy into everyday practice
Ultimately, this isn’t about adding more process, it’s about changing how we show up.
A Call to Action
If we want place‑based collaboration to deliver on the promise of devolution, we need to:
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- Share more, earlier, and more openly
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- Create space for relationships, not just outputs
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- Value difference as a strength
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- Act generously and with empathy
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- Keep testing, learning and adapting in real places
Or, put more simply, we need to collaborate out loud. Because in a system as interconnected as Greater Manchester, the work only works when we do it together and visibly so.
