The chapters in this book have focused on a wide range of partnerships – between statutory agencies such as health, social services and housing, between communities and statutory agencies, between users and service providers and between voluntary organisations and statutory funding bodies. They have illustrated some of the advances made in theoretical and practical approaches to partnership working in the last decade in these different but closely related fields. Progress has undoubtedly been stimulated by the political commitment to combating poverty and deprivation and to “widening the policy agenda beyond issues of material poverty to address the multiple and interrelated difficulties found by people facing social exclusion” (Pearson, Chapter Three). To this must also be added the promotion of active citizenship through the empowerment of individuals and groups often excluded from the political process. This commitment has focused on partnership working as the main vehicle for policy implementation across a broad range of activities.

Partnership working has, as our contributors show, spread across the country and across policy areas. As Reid explains, for example, housing services are now expected to work in cross-functional partnerships “to tackle the more complex and intractable challenges presented by socioeconomic disadvantage and ‘problem’ housing estates” (Chapter Four). Reid shows that such arrangements are extremely diverse, exhibiting different degrees of formality and both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ development. At the least, a majority of local authorities in England now report that they consult with a range of organisations and interest groups when developing their housing strategies. However, the commitment to consultation demonstrated in many of our chapters is only one step along the path that can lead to defining people’s needs in terms with which they agree and pursuing the outcomes that service users and communities themselves would choose.

Challenges to partnerships

Partnership and power

In the Introduction to this book we spoke of political, cultural and technical challenges to partnership. The political challenge is, ironically, the most serious at a time when partnership has become a political principle. The challenge derives from the inability of agencies involved in partnerships to address, or even be prepared to address, issues of power.