The Evaluation of Partnership Working in the Delivery of Health and Social Care
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076709356885 |
| Author | Lynn Forsyth,Tom Forbes,Rob Ball,Maxine Parris |
| Date | 01 October 2010 |
| Published date | 01 October 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
ßThe Author(s), 2010.
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0952-0767
201010 25(4) 387–407 The Evaluation of Partnership
Working in the Delivery of
Health and Social Care
Rob Ball, Tom Forbes, Maxine Parris and
Lynn Forsyth
University of Stirling, UK
Abstract Recent Government policy in the UK has resulted in a rapid growth of
partnership working. This has lead to a need for the evaluation of partnership
performance, particularly in the area of health and social care partnerships.
Methodologies were developed to evaluate progress on both ‘process’ and
‘outcome’ aspects of partnership working and this was applied to evaluating the
performance of three Community Health Partnerships in Central Scotland.
Results obtained demonstrate that the methodology is capable of discriminating
between the performance of different partnerships and also between different
aspects of partnership working.
Keywords evaluation, outcomes, partnership, process
Partnership working has become of increasing importance in the delivery of
public services in the UK and as a consequence there has been renewed interest
in definitions. Back in 1998 the Audit Commission suggested that partnership
working was a ‘slippery concept’ and since then there have been a large number
of attempts to define partnership working. One of the most accepted definitions
has been supplied by the Audit Commission (1998, p. 8):
Joint working arrangements where parties who are otherwise independent bodies agree
to co-operate to achieve common goals, create new organizational processes or struc-
DOI: 10.1177/0952076709356885
Rob Ball, Department of Management, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland.
[email: rb3@stir.ac.uk] 387
tures, implement a new organizational process or structures. Implement a joint pro-
gramme and share relevant information, tasks and rewards.
Sullivan and Skelcher (2002, p. 43) categorise collaborative relationships from
networks (informal, ad hoc relationships) through partnerships, federations and
finally mergers. Petch (2008, p. 2) notes a proliferation of related terms including
joint working, inter-agency or multi-disciplinary working.
Partnership Working in the UK Public Sector
Partnership working has a long history in the UK. Balloch and Taylor (2001)
mention the adoption of partnership initiatives to address deprivation in particular
areas, such as the urban programme and community development projects that
began in the 1960s. Some awareness of the potential for partnership working
continued with an Audit Commission report in 1989, which was highly critical of
the piecemeal approach of the Thatcher government to regeneration and the
deliberate exclusion of local government (Audit Commission, 1989).
Partnership working is seen to have a number of positive features which
include improving service delivery for people requiring multiple and repeated
services; improving the efficient use of scarce resources; a means for service
managers to share the responsibility of providing public services; and reducing
the organizational stress associated with increased demand for public services
combined with a tight fiscal climate (Glendinning 2002). The use of partnership
working for the delivery of public services has greatly expanded and has become
considerably more important in recent years. Sullivan and Skelcher (2002) have
developed theories related to reasons for the expansion of partnership working.
This begins with the notion that in the 1980s and 1990s the State became ‘over-
loaded’ and that its capacity to address issues that required coordinated action was
limited by departmentalisation and different tiers of government being responsi-
ble for different services. A response to this situation involving the use of the
New Public Management paradigm resulted in a degree of separation of the
service commissioning and service provider role. This development is referred
to as the ‘hollowing out’ of the state resulting in further fragmentation of public
services (Davies, 2000). Around this time, however, Governments at both
national and local level became interested in tackling ‘cross cutting’ or
‘wicked’ issues that cross organisational and departmental boundaries.
Examples of such issues include social exclusion, community safety and sustain-
able development. The combined effect of the hollowed out state and the ambi-
tion to tackle cross-cutting issues has resulted in increased effort to develop
effective partnership working.
The new Labour Government that was elected in 1997 arrived ‘announcing its
intention of moving from a contract culture to a partnership culture’ (Balloch and
Public Policy and Administration 25(4)
388
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