Helen Sullivan

Working Across Boundaries: Collaboration in Public Services

The Collaborative Agenda Collaboration and the State Understanding Collaboration Collaboration on Cross-Cutting Issues Collaboration Across Sectors Building Capacity for Collaboration The Dynamics of Collaboration The Governance of Collaboration Citizens and Collaboration Evaluating Collaboration Collaboration and Modernisation Notes on Sources and Research Methods Number and Value of Multi-Agency Partnerships, 2001/2002

Like a Horse and Carriage or a Fish on a Bicycle: How Well do Local Partnerships and Public Participation go Together?

Partnership and participation have co-evolved as key instruments of New Labours agenda for the ‘modernisation’ and ‘democratic renewal‘ of British local government. It is often assumed that partnerships are more inclusive than bureaucratic or market-based approaches to policy-making and service delivery. This article argues that partnership working does not in itself deliver enhanced public participation; indeed, it may be particularly difficult to secure citizen involvement in a partnership context. The article explores the relationship between partnership and participation in a wide range of local initiatives, exemplifying difficulties as well as synergies. The article concludes that public participation needs to be designed-in to local partnerships, not assumed-in. A series of principles for the design of more participative local partnerships is proposed.

Power, participation and political renewal: Case studies in public participation

Introduction Participation in context Inclusive democracy and social movements Shaping public participation: public bodies and their publics Re-forming services Neighbourhood and community governance Responding to a differentiated public Issues and expertise Conclusion: power, participation and political renewal.

Leadership for Collaboration

Abstract ‘Leadership’ and ‘collaboration’ are integral to twenty-first century governance and management but, despite a growing literature, understanding about leadership for collaboration is hampered by a lack of specificity and nuance in theory and empirical research. This article responds to these limitations by working within an interpretive framework and employing Q-method to uncover different interpretations of leadership for collaboration operant among public managers in Wales. The article uses the concept of situated agency to explain why public managers offer diverse interpretations of leadership for collaboration despite working within the same governance framework, and to identify challenges to public managers in determining appropriate leadership for collaboration.

Who Owns the Theory of Change

Policy evaluations in the UK have increasingly espoused a ‘Theories of Change’ (ToC) approach, drawing on North American experiences. Features of ToC include the expectation that all affected stakeholders will be involved in developing, agreeing, monitoring and evaluating a relevant theory for the proposed intervention, and the assumption that widespread stakeholder involvement will extend ownership of the intervention to achieve ‘total ownership’ and also improve attribution. Drawing on the experiences of three English evaluations (Health Action Zones, New Deal for Communities and Local Strategic Partnerships), this article examines the possibilities and limitations associated with the achievement of ‘total ownership’. Analysis reveals some important differences between the English and North American contexts and leads to the development of alternative models of ownership including ‘elite’,‘evaluator’,‘principal’ or ‘community’ ownership. The article concludes that if these models are more realistic than ‘total ownership’ in the English policy environment then this has implications for the appropriate application of ToC.

Theory-driven approaches to analysing collaborative performance

Abstract The theory-driven approach to analysing and assessing collaborative performance provides an important tool for researchers and policy-makers seeking to understand collaborative performance. It explains performance deductively, in terms of the a priori causality of relationships between variables. Different theoretical domains provide different insights into collaborative performance. The theory-driven approach to collaborative performance contrasts with the metric-driven approach. Here, performance is defined in terms of what can be measured, and causality is then inferred inductively. Five performance domains are identified, covering the democratic, integrative, transformative, policy, and sustainability dimensions of collaboration. These draw on democratic theory, exchange and power-dependency theory, institutional theory, policy network theory, and discourse theory. The analytical consequences of each theory-driven approach are examined through three case studies. The article concludes that each theoretical perspective provides a distinctive insight into collaborative performance, thus more accurately reflecting its multifaceted mature than is possible with a metric-driven approach.

Promoting Social Change: The Experience of Health Action Zones in England

When New Labour came to power in the UK in1997 it brought with it a strong commitment to reducing inequality and social exclusion. One strand of its strategy involved a focus on areabased initiatives to reduce the effects of persistent disadvantage. Health Action Zones (HAZs) were the first example of this type of intervention, and their focus on community-based initiatives to tackle the wider social determinants of health inequalities excited great interest both nationally and internationally. This article draws on findings from the national evaluation of the initiative. It provides an overview of the HAZ experience, and explores why many of the great expectations associated with HAZs at their launch failed to materialise. It suggests that, despite their relatively limited impact, it is best to consider that they made a good start in difficult circumstances rather than that they failed. As a result there are some important lessons to be learned about the role of complex community-based interventions in tackling seemingly intractable social problems for policy-makers, practitioners and evaluators.

Modernisation, Democratisation and Community Governance

This article examines the New Labour agenda for the governance of localities, focusing on three central themes: community leadership, improving the management of public services and building social capital. Potential areas of policy tension and conflict are identified between these themes. The different forms of Community Governance are outlined and their coverage of the three themes described. This helps to elaborate and explain the tensions that exist within the New Labour agenda. The article then specifies the key challenges facing elected local government if modernisation and democratisation is to be delivered through a framework of Community Governance.

Situating the local in the neoliberalisation and transformation of urban governance

The local state, and more broadly the logic of the local, remains divorced from accounts of urban governance. Addressing this omission, this article examines how a focus on the local opens up new avenues of enquiry in urban governance. It first discusses the interactions of the ‘urban’ and the ‘local’, analysing the significance of both to an understanding of neoliberalism in action. It then evaluates the opportunities and challenges that emerge from the multiple interplays of the ‘local’ and the ‘urban’, setting out five focal points for the exploration of the local: understandings of ‘crisis’; politics, meaning and affect; agency and regulatory intermediaries; the turn to practice; and place and comparison. The article concludes by calling for the study of local practices, in ways that recognise the multiple logics at play in different conjunctures, and the spaces such ambiguities and ‘messiness’ open up for different forms of situated agency.

The Three Challenges of Community Leadership

Abstract The ongoing reform of UK local government emphasises the development of local authorities as ‘community leaders’. Both the definition of the term, and local governments fitness for the role are, however, contested. Previous research suggests that to fulfil this role local government will have to meet three challenges: engage citizens in the determination of community priorities, provide strategic leadership and develop the collaborative potential of other local agencies. Drawing on case study evidence gathered in six local authorities in England, this paper finds that while local authorities can report some successes in strategic leadership, the development of community engagement and collaborative advantage present more of a challenge.