The end of the affair: Abusive partnerships in austerity

Abstract

The dominant governance model of the New Labour years was that of partnerships. For some, the collaborative arrangements that sought to join-up government represented the ideals of innovation, inclusion and efficiency. The extent to which these values outweigh the perceived problems (slow decision making, lack of clear impact) is now being tested in the absence of area- or initiative-based funding. If partnerships were a valuable model for local governance, one might expect to see them survive the withdrawal of funding. If they represented a necessary burden in order to access resources, one might expect to see them disappear rapidly in straightened times. This paper reviews the experience of partnerships as a form of local governance in the current austere climate. It reviews evidence from a range of partnerships, including Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), their constituent ‘blocks’ and New Deal for Communities (NDC) partnerships. Taking forward the characterisations developed in a previous paper, the authors ask: What has become of the relationships in which so much was invested? Do those relationships endure, perhaps in different institutional settings? Or were they really little more than the ‘temporary suppression of mutual loathing in the interests of mutual greed’?