Partnership working across public and private sectors

This chapter explores the different types of partnership that work within and across public, private and third sectors, analyses their potential benefits and limitations and how collaborative they really are and identifies the key governance principles which underpin partnership working. It suggests that there are major advantages to partnership working in the public domain - but also some important dangers, so that it is likely that many partnerships will be seen in the future to have been inefficient, even unnecessary. Consequently, it is important to subject them to stringent tests of how well they comply with appropriate criteria of public governance, and strategic partnerships will have to learn to focus rather than trying to make partnerships cover all issues.