Serving Communities, Connecting People: A Cross-Government Learning Event

This practice paper captures an emergent journey of collaboration, learning, and reflection on Relational Public Service delivery in Ireland. It documents how a cross‑government group came together over several months to design and deliver a learning event in November 2025.

Rather than setting out a fixed definition, the paper describes our evolving understanding of Relational Public Services as a way of working that centres relationships, trust, and responsiveness, and that learns continuously from practice and lived experience.

Through six case studies, it explores how relational approaches show up in real settings, and what they reveal about the conditions needed within policy, governance, and organisational systems to support this way of working.

The paper traces the development of the November event, including how relationships were built across departments, how leadership and responsibility were shared, and how case studies were supported to ground learning in practice.