INTRODUCTION

Partnerships are defined by the Audit Commission (1998) as “joint working arrangements where parties are otherwise independent bodies who agree to co-operate to achieve common goals, create a new organisational structure or process to achieve these goals, plan and implement a joint programme and share relevant information, tasks and rewards”. Stern and Green (2005) clarify the definition of partnerships further as programmes that have “a high level of commitment, mutual trust, equal ownership and the achievement of a common goal, as distinct from networks which involve sharing information or other resources but not for the explicit purpose of joint working”.

Definitions are particularly significant to the topic of this essay, as the component characteristics of partnerships as set out above are often overlooked by organisations and individuals when approaching the delivery of activities ‘in partnership’.

In theory, partnership involves collaborative working where people pool ideas and expertise, so the leadership, energy and services produced are greater than the sum of their individual capabilities. It also requires re-thinking the remit or boundaries of organisations within which leadership is to be distributed and respected. This is particularly relevant when considering partnerships to deliver single outcome agreements that have previously been the responsibility of one body, or several bodies in isolation. These are challenges to which public sector organisations (and those with a statutory remit to deliver) must now respond. This recognises that “expertise is owned by the many rather than the few” (Gronn, 2002), and requires trust and a multi-agency approach for successful delivery.

Working in partnership is a crucial task for councils, police forces, health authorities and NHS trusts. The number of partnerships is set to increase, in response to central government requirements and also as a result of local initiatives (Audit Commission, 2009).

This essay will examine partnership working and the reasons organisations work in partnership. It will begin by noting the features of and reasons for partnership working. The essay will then focus on why it is that a large proportion of partnerships fail, and what can be done to prevent this. It concludes that effective collaborative leadership is required to ensure that the benefits of partnership working can be realised through the delivery of more efficient services to meet the needs of citizens.

People and organisations are driven by multiple reasons to collaborate and work in partnership. Huxham (1996) coined the term ‘Collaborative Advantage’ which refers to something ‘unusually creative’ being achieved that no organisation could have achieved on its own. Aside from partnership working resulting from a statutory duty, the main reasons for working in partnership include to deliver citizen-centred services, to maximise the use of available resources, to reduce the impact of organisational fragmentation and achieve a shared vision. Partnership working is central to government policies for tackling ‘wicked issues’ - these are complex and intractable problems which cross traditional organisational boundaries and which can only be tackled by bringing together the resources of a range of different providers and interest groups (Clarke & Stewart, 1997).

Partnerships have the potential to increase resource efficiency, making better use of existing resources by reducing duplication and sharing overheads. They can add value by bringing together complementary services and fostering innovation and synergy (Mackintosh 1992). The impact of the global recession also means that partnership working and collaborative governance is paramount, as the public sector needs to re-think the shape, scope and scale of the services it provides and the way in which they are delivered.

More recently greater emphasis has been placed on partnership working through the publication of the Gershon review in England and ‘Making the Connections’ in Wales. ‘Making the Connections’ stresses the need for voluntary collaboration and joint working between public bodies. It establishes a vision for a ‘Welsh Public Service’ sharing common goals and working together in a more integrated way (Welsh Assembly Government, 2006).

The Government has also placed a statutory duty on local authorities to form partnerships, including Local Service Boards and Health, Social Care and Well-being Partnerships. All local authorities in Wales have established Local Service Boards, the aim of which is to strengthen collaborative leadership at the local level. Through these Boards, public bodies are pooling expertise, sharing best practice and will increasingly plan and deliver joint services with other public bodies, the third sector, and in some instances the private sector. An example of this is the Ask Cardiff project which aims to deliver a joined-up approach to consultation and engagement in Cardiff across the public sector, including the Police, Health, Fire Service and the Voluntary Sector. This should lead to both improved public services and substantial efficiency savings.

A number of key subjects and services are being identified as priority areas for efficiency and joint working improvements in local government, ranging from broad cross cutting issues such as climate change (such as the Powys Local Service Board) to typical local authority functions such as waste disposal, school transport, contact centers and back-office functions.

Having noted the features of and reasons for partnership working, this essay will now look at the reasons why a large proportion of partnerships fail and what steps can be taken to prevent this.

PARTNERSHIP FAILURE AND PREVENTION MEASURES

Partnership working is a potentially powerful tool for tackling difficult policy and operational problems that local authorities face. It can also be a productive way of achieving more efficient and effective use of scarce resources. However, whilst there is a general recognition of the benefits of partnership working, little focus tends to be placed on the costs/downsides.

Davies (2002) raises the possibility that partnerships can lead to governance failure, may generate more costs than benefits and may not provide an unqualified answer to the problems they are set up to address. Indeed, Strachan (2005) states “auditors have found that a third of public bodies experience problems in partnerships”.

There are a number of reasons why partnerships fail, including protracted decision making processes and the absence or lack of focus on agreed outcomes or evaluation methods. Sullivan and Skelcher (2002) state that “pessimist perspectives on collaboration identify two very important reasons for being sceptical about collaborative efforts. Collaboration will require the organisation to lose some of its independence and it will also require the investment of resources with no certainty about the degree of benefit that will result”.

Problems also occur where there is no formal partnership structure, accountability or trust between partners and a lack of effective collaborative leadership skills in partner organisations. These are now discussed in turn.

Different decision-making processes in partner organisations can make getting agreement on decisions cumbersome as the partnership can only move at the pace of its slowest members. For example, local authorities have long decision making cycles with involvement of elected members which can substantially slow down decision making. Partnerships need to take the time to establish decision making procedures from the outset, to ensure all members are clear on timescales and to reduce frustration. An example of this is through the South East Wales Transport Alliance where major projects or strategies involve agreement from ten local authorities all with different decision making cycles. Major decisions therefore have to be planned at least 6 months in advance.

Once the necessary decision making procedures and formalities are in place, partnerships should make sure that they focus on achieving agreed outcomes and that appropriate evaluation tools are in place to measure success. Effective collaboration requires agreement of common goals and how they can be achieved, and shared information about success and failure. It is usually voluntary and takes time to mature (Sullivan and Skelcher, 2002). However, partnerships also need to recognise when desired actions or outcomes have been achieved. Lack of focussed action can mean that partnerships turn into ‘talking shops’.

Building and maintaining collaborative relationships requires particular competences. One vital attribute of successful collaboration is trust (Sullivan and Skelcher, 2002). Being trustworthy involves behaving in ways that encourages trust and minimising actions seen as untrustworthy by others (Gratton, 2004). Joint working across organisations and sectors is harder if partners do not allow time to build relationships or decide how to work together. For many partnerships, building trust is the most important ingredient in success and can mean that overly bureaucratic decision making mechanisms can be avoided (Audit Commission, 1998). This often requires establishing a common understanding of partner organisations working practices and decision making processes, as a way of building trust and confidence in each partner. It also requires an investment of time from the outset.

An example of this might be in the subtle differences between grant aid and procurement working relationships. Many public sector organisations use grant aid as an incentive for other organisations to work in partnership with them to deliver certain mutual benefits, particularly in the environmental and community sectors. However, increasingly the Government is recommending a shift to procurement arrangements for delivering important services and ensuring accountability (Sullivan and Skelcher, 2002), which implications on grant-giving bodies in the public sector. Grant aid (particularly a 50% intervention rate) implies a joint responsibility for delivery, gives more equal balance of power, strengthens trust, and the relationship has a more open and mutual feeling. Contractual arrangements seek the best value for money, but arguably hand the risk of delivery fully over to the partner organisation, and can feel very formal. If the partnership is not properly managed, trust can be lost.
There is evidence that key personalities can act as barriers to effective partnership working (Maddock & Morgan, 1998). Research has highlighted the importance of personality is a necessary dimension in leading collaboration (Asthana, Richardson & Halliday, 2002). At the individual level, this ‘social capital’ involves relationship building skills and the ability to engage in deep and meaningful relationships. The depth and breath of these relationships is influenced by two personal characteristics; authenticity and trustworthiness (Gratton, 2004).

Partnerships need to decide how they can make sure that their activities are accountable. Partnerships are often less clearly accountable than their individual members. This can make it difficult for service-users to challenge the partnership if things go wrong. “The most successful partnerships hold themselves to account, creating an atmosphere in which the partners challenge each other, regularly revisit the partnerships original purpose and communicate extensively with local people” (Audit Commission, 2009). This highlights the need for appropriate memorandum of agreement between the key parties that openly establishes relationships and measures for recourse from the outset.

Partnerships should take time to evaluate their work and also to examine whether the benefits of partnership working outweigh the costs involved in doing so. A common approach to evaluation is through post-delivery analysis. However, most project/programme management systems (e.g. PRINCE 2) advocate that evaluation should be undertaken alongside delivery of the project or programme – so that the programme can be altered in response to the evaluation and therefore benefits can be maximised. Many partnerships fail to recognise this.

“At both individual and organisational level, leadership is a key attribute and is required from all members of a partnership: from the chair; from partners on behalf of their organisations or the group they represent; and from partners who are required to lead on particular issues” (Boydell 2001). It is critical that member representatives have the remit from their organisation to take decisions, and that they communicate the partnership activity back to their own organisations. Commitment to partnership at senior level is commonly cited as an important factor in ability of partnerships to be effective (Evans and Killoran 2000). Failure is common when less senior representation from an organisation sits on a partnership, and their views, lack of remit, or authority to make decisions differs from those of the senior officers within that member organisation. For example, the South East Wales Transport Alliance is made up of a number of different local authority officer groups who make decisions that then go to a senior board of officers for approval. There can often be conflicting advice from officers from the same authority.

It is also important to bear in mind that significant costs can occur when organisations fail to work as partners (Audit Commission, 2009). The most significant of these is the investment of time and staff resource to establish the partnership and its remit in the first place, which is costly if joint outcomes and actions do not then materialise. This could be why less senior representatives are often asked to attend newly establishing partnerships, but this can result in difficulties later, for example, in their seniority to take decisions as outlined above. This can cause delays particularly when decisions on partnership resources are being discussed.

In order for partnership working and collaboration to be successful, potential partners need to develop their capacity for working together across organisational and sectoral boundaries. Cardiff Council has recently signed up to a waste management partnership with 4 other authorities, recognising that working in collaboration with partners outside of the authority boundary can achieve efficiency savings.

Lessons from the Audit Commission study looking at Local Service Partnership arrangements in England found a number of key messages for successful partnership working, including crucially the need to develop strong partnership cultures to achieve shared goals (Audit Commission, 2009).

Partnership culture is still relatively young in many local authority departments who are used to delivering within their own silos. This can block the spread of knowledge and make collaborative working more difficult. However, this culture is changing. One example of this is the recent merger of Cardiff Council’s and South Wales Police’s Traffic Control Centres to create a new Smart Travel Hub. By sharing services and working with multi-disciplinary and diverse teams, the Council can improve efficiency and free up resources to concentrate on service delivery.

Individual or organisational capacity for collaboration can be important for effective joint working in a number of ways. It is necessary for individuals to gain specific skills and attributes that enable them to work across boundaries. These skills include professionalism, when dealing with organisations that may previously have been seen as competitors or lobbyists. For example, it is now more common for local authority sustainable transport teams to directly work with campaign organisations such as Sustrans, as Cardiff Council has done to help implement the Sustainable Travel City. Successful partnership working will require leadership that recognises that collaboration increases the quality of solutions considered (Grey, 1989) but that is insightful enough to recognise the appropriate scope and barriers of the partnership, and its terms of engagement. Archer and Cameron (2008) list ten key lessons for a successful collaborative leader, including the need to “actively manage the tension between focusing on delivery and on building relationships’ and ‘invest in strong personal relationships at all levels”. This reiterates the fine balance between the time needed to invest in partnerships, and the clarity of focus needed to identify when actions and outcomes have been achieved.

CONCLUSION

Given the budget cuts facing local government, there is a need for stronger and more effective partnership working within the public sector and there appears to be enormous potential for services to reduce cost and improve by working more actively together.

Nevertheless, partnership working is difficult to do well and making partnerships work effectively is one of the toughest challenges facing the public sector. Partnership working can also be costly, and partnerships can be justified only when their benefits outweigh their costs. Partnerships bring risks as well as opportunities and they do not guarantee value for money (Audit Commission, 2005).

With increasing statutory requirements being placed on organisations to work together, the momentum for collaboration is unlikely to be diminished, despite the “problems of accountability, the complexities of the organisational relationships which emerge and the time and energy necessary to maintain these relationships at an organisational and individual level” (Sullivan & Skelcher, 2002).

A number of key ingredients are needed to prevent partnerships failing including agreement of effective decision making mechanisms, actions and measurement of outcomes. There are a number of good examples of public bodies creating internal efficiencies and working jointly with each other. Continuation of this work will require effective change management and a shift away from more traditional approaches.

Critical success factors for collaborative leadership in the public sector, include strong leadership and drive, strategic vision, looking wider and/or longer at how authorities meet the needs of their citizens in a changing environment, focus on the outcomes, and National or Regional Pilots, to demonstrate that large-scale and ambitious joint working can really work (KPMG, 2006).

In summary, there is a need to consider partnership working in the context of achieving positive outcomes, efficiency of the collaboration and the “context within which collaboration is happening as this will influence both the forms and subsequent ambition of the collaborative venture” (Sullivan and Skelcher C, 2002).

Change is required, in order for leaders to be able to collaborate across the public sector to reshape services over the next decade and produce sustainable outcomes. This will require the development of an innovative collaborative culture, identifying the most effective ways of utilising partnerships for getting results, sharing innovation and testing new approaches to service delivery.

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