Sustaining collaborations after a crisis: Australian disability and health policy and practice

Abstract It is well established within the public management literature that times of crisis can facilitate collaboration across government sectors and external stakeholders due to factors such as a clear task focus and the relaxation of some organisational and institutional constraints. However, what has been less explored are the mechanisms and conditions for sustaining these collaborations in a post-crisis context. In such contexts there is a need to move institutions and their processes from episodic, urgent networks to enduring governance regimes. This paper uses a case study to explore the challenges and potential solutions discussed at two policy workshops held with stakeholders from the Australian Commonwealth government, statutory agencies and Disability Representative Organisations. The policy workshops explored the experience of collaborative working over the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of contributing to health outcomes of people with disability and desirable institutional changes needed for collaboration to be sustained post-crisis. We outline several practice-based recommendations that combine different governance capacities and mechanisms and seek to address the distinct challenges to collaborative government experienced during the COVID-19 context. Implementing and monitoring the collaboratively-derived solutions for the post-crisis period is likely to assist in sustaining the successes of collaborative gains in the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic to better support people with disability.