Is the tail wagging the dog? Cross-sector collaboration between an environmental group and public bodies

Third sector groups are often wary of working closely with public bodies. Environmental groups, for example can show how their work also helps more dominant social concerns of health, cohesive communities and economic development. However, if they focus on these outcomes they risk being drawn away from their main concern, protecting the natural environment. Action research offers an approach that empowers weaker groups in society to ensure their interests are integrated into decision-making. This approach sets the conditions to develop practical wisdom, a combination of theoretical understanding and practical experience to know how to collaborate towards a goal of national well-being. A systemic approach to action research aims to understand collaboration from multiple perspectives to gain a critical understanding of sources of power and influence.Over the autumn and winter of 2017/18 I set out with a small group of cross-sector partners to explore how conditions in the Public Service Board area of Anglesey & Gwynedd affect our attempts to collaborate. We find a developing sense of reciprocity helps us to integrate our interests towards a common vision. Pressure to ensure financial resources for collaborative work causes delays and prevarication, but is overcome when we take a place-based approach and identify local assets and resources. We start to understand the ways in which a situation of environmental degradation, reduced public budgets and the legislative framework of the Well-being of Future Generations Act affect cross-sector collaboration.