Context to Partnership Working
What are the benefits of partnership working?
A partnership can be formed between a number of individuals, agencies or organisations with a shared interest. There is usually an overarching purpose for partners to work together and a range of specific objectives. Partnerships are often formed to address specific issues and may be short or long term.
The key principles of partnership working are, openness, trust and honesty, agreed shared goals and values and regular communication between partners.
What are the benefits of partnership working?
• Partnership working allows services to be delivered in a joined up way. This has benefits both strategically, in terms of providing a well-balanced service and operationally in terms of pooling resources
• Bringing together the various parts of service delivery provides a unique opportunity to develop new and innovative approaches to service provision
• Economies of scale can be achieved as service providers pool not only resources, but effort and managerial time
• Through coming together and focusing on a common goal, a shared vision is formed of what partners want to achieve and how they want to achieve it
• Partnership working co-ordinates action between organisations which can provide additional momentum to get things done
• Partnership working also allows many organisations to access funding and comply with Government requirements
• In time, partnership working can add a ‘special touch’ to the delivery of a given service, over and above the time and resources that have gone into its provision
• Competition between organisations: although some competition between organisations can be motivating, excessive competition can result in an unwillingness to co-operate
• Authority: it is important that all staff involved in partnership working have the necessary authority to take decisions. Lack of authority slows up decision making and frustrates progress
• Purpose: the broad ranging responsibilities of partner organisations can mean that the specific purpose of the partnership can be forgotten. Also partnerships can often be overtaken by events and lose sight of their main function
• Communication: it can be difficult to get the balance of communication right. Too many meetings can put partners off attending. Too little communication can result in duplication of effort, lack of understanding and mistrust amongst partners
• Funding: there is a danger that some organisations get involved in partnership simply to access funding or to meet statutory requirements
• Culture clash: when different organisations work together it can be difficult to adapt to each other’s style of working. Each partner’s expectations of partnership working may be different, which can lead to conflict when attempting to establish priorities and goals
• Time: the partnership working approach often takes longer to produce results than most organisations anticipate. For example, it takes time to develop trust between partners which can slow up the process of making decisions and using resources
(Adapted from: Top 10 Partnership Killers, Improvement Network)
Find ways to avoid and solve these challenges by using our Top 10 Partnership Killers resource.
