WIG’s Annual Interview 2025: Closing the ambition-delivery gap

WIG's Annual Interview 2025 convened 200 senior leaders from across government, industry, education and civil society to explore how cross-sector collaboration can advance the UK's long-term, sustainable growth.

Rachel Sandby-Thomas CB, Chair of WIG, facilitated a conversation with Sir Chris Wormald KCB, Cabinet Secretary, Michelle Mitchell OBE, CEO of Cancer Research UK, and Tom Wilcock, Managing Director of Arup. Together, they examined how leaders can close the ambition-delivery gap, build resilience through partnerships, and strengthen the UK’s global competitiveness.

Key insights 

• Public sector accountability structures, while vital, can inadvertently hold back collaborative behaviours.
• Co-creation with place-based partners from the outset leads to better, more durable outcomes.
• Modern leadership requires versatility; shifting between crisis response and strategic enablement.
• International collaboration is expanding, but domestic partnerships require renewed focus and investment.
• The UK's world-class capabilities in research, data and professional services represent genuine global competitive advantages that must be protected and leveraged.

The accountability paradox

The event opened with a striking statistic from our 2025 State of the Cross-Sector Collaboration survey: 92% of leaders view cross-sector collaboration as essential for the UK’s long-term prosperity, yet only 12% see it actually working in practice.

Panellists highlighted that public sector accountability - rightly focused on personal responsibility for public spending - can inadvertently discourage partnership working. Officials are often judged on individual decisions rather than shared efforts. While this accountability is essential and appropriate, it does not naturally drive collaborative behaviour.

This makes mindset even more critical. Rather than viewing accountability as a barrier, leaders must actively create conditions for partnership despite these constraints. The most successful examples occur at the frontline: multidisciplinary child protection teams, integrated health services, or local regeneration projects, where professionals "leave their organisational hats at the door" to focus on shared outcomes.

Co-creation and the power of place

Speakers emphasised that the most transformative collaboration happens when rooted in place. Examples such as partnerships with metro mayors on transport connectivity in Manchester and Liverpool show the value of engaging partners early and shaping benefits together rather than sequentially. Sharing plans before they are polished requires courage but can unlock far better results.

Panellists also discussed how promoting world-class healthcare research through international partnerships needs to be paired with targeted local action to ensure benefits reach the UK's most in-need communities. The central government's role, they suggested, is to create conditions that allow local partnerships to flourish rather than attempting to coordinate every element from the centre.

Leading in a glocalised world

Speakers contrasted today’s environment with that of a decade ago, highlighting not only the sheer volume of simultaneous challenges facing organisations, but also the blurring of the line between local and global issues.

Where once it was possible to draw clear lines between international and domestic policy, almost every major issue now carries both dimensions simultaneously. From energy and pharmaceuticals to policing and public services, policy decisions have consequences across both domains. Panellists emphasised that this ‘glocalised’ reality demands a fundamentally different mindset and skill set that goes beyond structural reforms to embrace new ways of working, deeper cross-sector understanding and a more adaptive, outward-looking form of leadership.

Versatile and authentic leadership

Panellists emphasised that leadership today requires flexibility: shifting between fast decision-making in crises and enabling teams during periods of strategic growth. As one speaker observed, "leadership is a contact sport", it requires active participation, not commentary from the sidelines.

They also stressed that personal resilience is essential. During the pandemic, leaders used very different mental frameworks - some focused on long-term milestones, others on what could be improved each day - and both approaches proved effective.  Authenticity, rather than a single model, underpins sustainable leadership.

Protecting and leveraging UK strengths

Despite the challenges facing the UK, panellists identified clear global competitive strengths that must be protected and actively cultivated. They cautioned against complacency around world-class assets that international competitors increasingly study and seek to replicate, particularly the UK’s research base, financial and professional services, cultural institutions, and universities.

Panellists stressed the need for investment in areas where the UK risks falling behind, including emerging fields such as AI in healthcare and training specialists who bridge research and clinical practice. These sectors will require bolder decisions and stronger partnerships between government, industry and philanthropy.

Speakers also highlighted the UK's diplomatic relationships and institutional credibility as genuine global advantages, with international clients willing to pay a premium for UK expertise. However, gaps in scale-up infrastructure make it harder for organisations to grow here than in competitor markets, a challenge policymakers and investors must address to maintain the UK’s edge.

Technology, innovation and future readiness

Speakers described certain research fields as being in a "golden age" of understanding, with AI enabling earlier detection of health conditions, better risk stratification and significant productivity gains. However, they stressed the need to partner globally rather than attempting to build all capabilities domestically to drive research and innovation.

The demographic challenge also featured prominently.  Drawing lessons from countries like Japan and South Korea, which are further along the ageing population curve, panellists encouraged a shift from deficit-focused services to redesigning society for longer, more active lives, and to focus on what older populations can contribute.

Cross-sector collaboration: Challenging-yet more critical-than ever

The pace of change makes it harder to build the long-term, trust-based partnerships that collaboration relies on. Yet those relationships provide the resilience needed to navigate uncertainty and respond quickly when crises emerge. Speakers pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic, where strong partnerships enabled seven years of innovation progress in months.

For emerging industries like net zero, long-term investment depends on credible government policy frameworks and collaborative innovation from industry. As one speaker emphasised, “transformational change is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Conclusion

Closing the gap between the 92% who believe cross-sector collaboration is essential and the 12% who see it working will require deliberate choices by leaders across all sectors. The panel discussion highlighted that effective collaboration combines place-based partnerships, versatile leadership and protection of the UK's unique global strengths while addressing capability gaps.

The UK possesses remarkable assets.  What is needed now is not more recognition of collaboration's importance, but leaders willing to put it to work, consistently, courageously, and with shared outcomes at the centre.

The conversations at this year's Annual Interview underscored a persistent challenge: while leaders recognise the critical importance of collaboration, structural barriers continue to limit its effectiveness. So, how are other leading economies across the world bridging this gap?

Read our latest publication, ‘Delivering Economic Growth in Partnership: International Benchmarking Report’, developed in partnership with Global Government Forum to explore how proven global best practices can be adapted to strengthen the UK's cross-sector collaboration and competitive posture.