Reversion to the Mean? Exploring the Barriers to Embedding Human Learning Systems

This chapter explores the potential and some limitations of Human Learning Systems (HLS) thinking through the development of a case study of Collaborative Newcastle, a UK-based multi-agency health body (2020–2024). Based in the North East of England, Collaborative Newcastle was a non-statutory partnership made up of institutions in Newcastle including Hospitals Trust, the local Integrated Care Board (NENC ICB), Newcastle City Council and the voluntary sector. The aim was to reduce health inequalities using HLS principles and practices. HLS is one approach that can loosely be termed relational perspectives on public policy and management. HLS enables tailored, collaborative solutions to be created to help practitioners navigate effectively through complexity. It moves beyond linear thinking, focusing not simply on cause and effect in the context of public services as trying to deliver change with reduced resources, competing value sets and overworked practitioners. The chapter reports on the successes that adopting HLS brought but also the barriers to implementation. Some of these barriers are exogenous and point to structural issues, such as funding restrictions, central–local and regional–local government relations. Others are endogenous: leadership churn, failure of continuous learning, perverse incentives and a propensity to fall back into more comfortable and familiar ways of working. The chapter shows that where barriers of either type are embedded, there is a tendency to revert back to the certainties of new public management (NPM) practice, which we suggest serves as a caution for all relational policy initiatives.