Partnership working

The financial crisis which is now starting to impact public agencies means that there will be change: there will be less money; there will be more partnership working; and all partnerships will have to prove they are effective…

The changing landscape of public services in the last decade, particularly the emphasis on outcomes, has meant that partnership working has become a fundamental aspect of the relationships between public, private and third sectors.

Tight financial budgets over the next few years are likely to mean a greater emphasis on collaboration and partnership, to get the most out of the resources which individual organizations bring to public services. Partnerships need to be designed to ensure appropriate levels and types of collaboration between all agencies involved in public services to eliminate duplication; to share resources including assets; to assess needs jointly; to strategically commission across traditional boundaries and to procure together.

However, there is also likely to be a more rigorous assessment of which partnerships add public value, and which are more ‘talking shops’ or ‘excuses for inertia’. For the latter, there is likely to be a ‘bonfire of low value partnerships’, so that excellent organizations can act fast and directly without having to go through elaborate and inefficient processes of building consensus with partners who are only marginally involved in adding public value.

Governance International has developed a number of approaches which both help public agencies to develop and sustain partnerships which work but also to identify and redesign (or phase out) partnerships which are adding little public value.

In particular, the Governance International team has been involved in

• Peer review of partnership arrangements at local strategic partnership level, advising on structures and processes to improve services and partnership governance

• Developing the Governance Audit as a Multi-Stakeholder Assessment and Community Empowerment Tool for local partnerships, e.g. in Carrick (UK)

• Developing a model for joined-up commissioning of public services at area level, particular in the One place and Total Place initiatives in the UK

• Assessing the value-added of a major public-private service delivery partnership in the UK, including advising on which aspects of service delivery might best be done by individual partners, rather than through the partnership approach