Effective Partnership Working

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• Effective Partnership Working
• Our experience in the Black Country
• Factors that support partnerships
• Factors which inhibit partnerships
• Sustainability

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• Douglas Adams
• The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy
• Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect
• A terrible predicament
• The solution!!
• Dont Panic

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• Dudley
• Sandwell
• Walsall
• Wolverhampton

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• What we did in the Black Country
• Launch event 14th April 2000
• Consultations 200 organisations
• Board and LMC Structures
• Size and inclusion

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• The realities of partnership working
• Too many partnerships
• Fear of talking shops
• Cynicism in schools
• Tensions and baggage
• Money!!!

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• So far we have built on
• A common goal things must get better
• Some excitement
• Involving young people
• New ways of working
• New Start

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• How it is working now
• Voluntary sector shadowing group
• Special needs and LDD
• Black and ethnic minority young people
• Involving young people
• Partnership development funding

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• Partnership working is it an art or a science?
• If it were a science it might have rules like
  this
• The velocity of dissemination of information is
  inversely proportional to its veracity!!

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• Factors which support partnerships
• where there have been pre-existing partnerships,
  the prospects for effective collaboration are
  enhanced
• importance of involving voluntary organisations
  at different levels
• recognition that there is no single style of
  partnership that works

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• early planning which determines areas of benefit
  well in advance
• devolved project management subscribing to key
  common principles determined by strategy group
• research phase used to discover what different
  partners can and are prepared to bring to the
  initiative

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• Factors which inhibit partnerships
• changes in personnel and local politics
• where a new partnership is needed trying to keep
  it as complementary to other policy initiatives
  at the same time as keeping it distinctive enough
  to 'make a difference'
• emphasis on strategy rather than projects makes
  some of the partners question the partnership's
  credibility.
• criteria of funding streams determining
  activities   

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• attitude among some partners that 'we don't have
  to do this' because it's not in their plans
• formative nature of partnerships which are
  looking for some organisation to take on the lead
• co-ordination impaired by virtue of it being only
  part of a person's job
• partners want to be on board for different
  reasons some because they do not want to miss
  out they take more than they give at meetings

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• Dilemmas facing partnerships
• should resources be injected into a selected few
  projects or dispersed thinly across a much larger
  number?
• how to involve communities, young people and
  their families in discussions and decisions about
  policy and project development?
• how also to involve and win support from less
  keen partners and staff?

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• Sustainability
• professional and political will are essential to
  keep partnerships going at local level
• need to produce evidence that partnerships bring
  success as far as motivation, participation,
  achievement and progression are concerned
• continuous monitoring and review of outcomes is
  essential this should involve external
  evaluation and this will incur costs

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• results of these reviews should be fed into
  relevant policy-making groups and committees
• important to share budget information among
  partners
• partnership way of working needs to be embedded
  in mainstream practice
• in time if all these provisions are made the
  costs involved should be met by the savings
  incurred from winding up inefficient and
  ineffective provision

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• Success factors

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• Conclusions

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• Lets fly!!!