Partnership Working Research Report: Social and Economic Partnership Project

Partnership Working Research Report: Social and Economic Partnership Project

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS - SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING PARTNERSHIP WORKING

Introduction

2. A key aim of the study was to explore ways to enhance current practice in terms of partnership working. During the course of discussions about experiences of partnership working, a number of suggestions were put forward by participants to both address concerns expressed and to build on the successes identified. In this chapter we describe some of the suggestions which were made by both external partners and Executive staff.

3. Suggested Improvements

4. In discussions the following themes for improvement emerged, which are outlined below:

• Early engagement and continuous dialogue.
• Opportunities for partners' input at a strategic level.
• Clarity of purpose and roles.
• Build in review and evaluation.
• Widening access and building capacity.
• Developing a culture of involvement.
• Strategic Executive commitment to partnership working.
• A shared responsibility.

Early Engagement and Continuous Dialogue

2. Lack of involvement early on in the policy process is a frustration documented in Chapter 3. In addressing such concerns, external participants emphasised the need for more time to allow them to involve their members and provide an informed response.
4. Similarly Executive staff were clear about the need to involve partners in a more proactive way, and strengthening of relationships with partners was seen as one way to achieve this. Consequently the importance of developing ongoing, informal relationships with partners was stressed.

5. "…Time should be invested in developing personal relationships…"
   (Internal participant)

   "We need to move beyond considering consultation as an adequate form of engagement into more of a continuous form of relationship with our stakeholders."
   (Internal participant)

6. The need for quality feedback not only at the end but throughout the policy process was stressed by many of the participants. Some participants envisaged partnership relationships as being on-going, two-way dialogue, rather than one-off Executive initiatives which were often seen to be inadequate.

7. "If you have this constant relationship you can come to a point where you…are building up sufficient understanding of where that thinking is that you know, you don't need to go through the formal process all the time. There are different ways of doing it."
   (Internal participant)

   "In any job people should ask themselves what group of people ought to know them by name, be able to recognise them if they saw them, feel free to pick up the telephone to them and they should ask themselves whether all the members of the group do those things."
   (Internal participant)

   Opportunities for Partners' Input at a Strategic Level

8. Related to the above suggestions, external participants called for opportunities for social and economic partners to have a role in focusing more on addressing strategic issues. A clear view which emerged from the roundtable discussions was that what is missing from the partnership landscape is a focus on some of the big, longer-term challenges facing Scotland. The future of the economy, demography and migration patterns were mentioned as issues which were felt to be largely absent in debates with government generally. In addition to the provision of opportunities for partners to contribute to these debates, many participants felt that partnership should have a more strategic approach at its core. Using expenditure and Executive priorities as examples, one commented:

9. "Any discussions about the relative priorities of different strands within the Executive budget happens exclusively behind closed doors. We don't have an open process that leads to people considering before the positions are taken what the priorities for expenditure are..."
   (External participant)

10. While some partners saw this being addressed through a more fundamental change to governance models, others saw this being possible through existing lines of partnership and mechanisms across different sectors.

11. Clarity of Purpose and Roles

12. As noted earlier, clarity between the partners on the purpose of the engagement and on each other's roles and responsibilities was felt to be crucial to successful partnership working. Highlighted as a relative failing of a number of partnership mechanisms, both internal and external participants were unwavering in their aspiration for clarity. Upon agreement over remit, consideration of the appropriate modus operandi was thought to need to follow . In other words, purpose should lead the method and assessment of which approaches or mechanisms are right for the task in hand.
14. Reference to the behaviour of partners was noted earlier and it is worth highlighting this in the context of how roles are defined and how partners should contribute appropriately. Both internal and external participants identified particular problem behaviours which challenged partnership processes. It is very likely that demonstrating a higher level of awareness of how participants expect to contribute to commonly agreed objectives at the planning stage would pay dividends later.

15. Build In Review and Evaluation

16. Several external participants highlighted the need for building in reviews of partnership processes. The relative absence of opportunities to provide feedback on overall process and outcomes from different perspectives was felt to potentially weaken partnership processes. The need for evaluation was seen in the context of ensuring that partnership processes and the partners involved are still appropriate, as well as assessing the final outputs and outcomes of any given partnership. Speaking about a particular taskforce, one participant stated:

17. "The … task force has very little policy influence but it continues to meet and focuses on process issues. It meanders on and nobody has the courage to kill it. It's not focused on particular objectives, it's a bit of furniture."
    (External participant)

18. To that end, regular joint cross checks against the partnership's objectives were suggested. If evaluation was standard practice, some felt that this would enable partnerships to drive forward a cycle of continuous improvement. These findings tally with the conclusions from this project's earlier study of Partnership and Evaluation, which concluded that planning and evaluation in partnership working (and the projects resulting from partnership) were linked strongly to success.

19. Widening Access and Building Capacity

20. Common to all frustrations noted by both Executive staff and partners was the lack of reach beyond 'mainstream' social and economic partners. There was a view that it would be helpful to take a more innovative view of who a 'partner' might be. This was seen in two ways. First there was a view that it is not sufficient to rely simply on the 'big' strategic partners and that there is a need to get beyond traditional players to the grassroots level. Secondly, it was noted that the views of citizens and communities were seldom sought.
22. To address the first issue, a number of Executive staff highlighted the importance of building a network of contacts and relationships in different areas. Using the business sector as an example, one staff member stated:

23. "It is not adequate for example to build a relationship with the CBI but never to have any form of contact with the people who run individual businesses."
    (Internal participant)

24. Participants believed that the views of community organisations and the wider public ought to be considered in addition to the views of the established partners. Stressing the importance of widening the circle of involvement, participants suggested that a proactive approach to involving others is required.

25. "You need a practical approach so it's not the usual suspects and a few self-selecting others… Something which listens for the small voice,… rather than just swayed by the people that barge in or who already have status."
    (External participant)

    "You have to ask yourself where they're to be found in their natural habitat, and go there."
    (Internal participant)

26. Mindful of the difficulties in reaching communities and citizens, Executive staff recognised the need to balance the relative contributions of different groups, individuals and sectors.

27. "We need to try to engineer some sort of processes to balance the effects of inequality of resources. In order to create equality of participation in the dialogue."
    (Internal participant)

28. To ensure that there are opportunities for local participation wherever possible, some suggested that capacity-building processes ought to be supported and a number of suggestions were made by both sets of participants about how the Executive could help this:

• Conducting processes in places that are accessible.
• Providing longer thinking-time in the run up to the process.
• Allowing sufficient time for those who have elaborate obligations in terms of who they need to consult.
• Resourcing partners /communities to be able to engage.
• Considering using surveying techniques and participatory engagement methods as well as usual methods.

"…It may well be that the techniques we use have to be more the techniques of opinion surveying than direct engagement although… some mixture of the two may well be useful."
(Internal participant)

• Supporting 'bottom-up' community development work.
• Joint training between other partners.
• Building on opportunities for sharing good practice within the Executive and beyond.

2. Some Executive participants and partners emphasised that if there is to be a fundamental culture change in how Ministers, civil servants and indeed local government councillors and officers relate to external partners, as well as to each other, a major investment in building partnership capacity across the public sector may be required. This would need to recognise the importance of attributes as much as formally defined skills. Some people suggested that joint training would be a useful way develop appropriate these attributes and behaviours.

3. Developing a Culture of Involvement

4. In addressing inconsistencies in the way the Executive works with partners, Executive participants emphasised the need to develop a culture of partnership working which is fully embedded in the 'psyche' of the Executive.

5. "We need to develop a culture within the organisation which is embedded in the principles of partnership working, which relies on behaviours being rewarded and the developments which support partnership working."
   (Internal participant)

6. To achieve such a shift in Executive attitudes and behaviours, staff felt that the following activities and efforts would be required.

Demonstrating leadership

• Strong leadership provided from the top (Ministers and management), where commitment is both signalled and applied in practice.
• Development of, and building on, existing change processes like Changing to Deliver.
• Reinforcement and creative renewal of messages about change within the Executive to maintain enthusiasm and interest.

Normalising and investing in partnership

• Development of the partnership behaviours which should underpin all engagement.
• Embedding a partnership approach within everyday routines - making partnership no longer an 'add-on'.
• Identification of relevant interests as a standard process.
• Rewarding of partnership behaviours through personnel appraisal system.
• Enhancing the relevant training provision.
• Utilising a flexible range of involvement methods which are fit for purpose.

Developing relationships

• Investing time in the development of relationships with partners.
• Developing more informal and open relationships with partners.
• More 'getting to-know-you' type engagement activity.
• Requiring Executive staff to 'get out more' and meet with partners on their own ground.

"We don't get out enough… Instead of summoning people in to us it would be a lot better if we went out to them for a variety of reasons, whether it is policy, or to see their problems on the ground, or to see the difficulties they face in delivery."
(Internal participant)

" The very process of being there means you have furthered that engagement."
(Internal participant)

2. Interestingly, many participants stressed that these suggestions applied to partners as well as the Executive. By no means were participants implying that these types of behaviours and actions are completely absent from Executive processes, although they were nonetheless highlighted as vital for improving partnerships approaches. These proposals for change were made in the context of building on what the Executive is already doing. As one participant stated:

3. "I think generally by sort of signalling that stakeholder work is important through Changing to Deliver [the Executive will make more progress] . There is quite a lot of follow-through on that and that does involve changing but it's mainly growing from what we're already doing more of and doing it better."
   (Internal participant)

   Strategic Executive Commitment to Partnership Working

4. As noted earlier, external participants questioned why internal initiatives (e.g. Changing to Deliver) are not explicitly linked to broader agendas and are largely invisible to the outside world. In a similar way, Executive staff, who were largely optimistic about what Changing to Deliver could achieve, felt that there was a need to publicly signal the Executive's overall strategic commitment to partnership work.

5. "We have a huge number of concordats and this is where we fall down because you've got to look at a different one every time for a different instance... Are we aware that they are even there? We perhaps need some basic document that sets out our fundamental principles but on the basis that we're going to deliver on them… not just a piece of paper that we've ticked off but actually showing that we're willing to work with it." (Internal participant)

6. Specific suggestions included:

• Developing an overall partnership framework, setting out partnership principles, behaviours and the Executive's commitment to partnership.
• Linking a strategic approach to partnership to the Scottish Parliament's founding (CSG) principles.
• Better linkages being made between existing partnership processes and mechanisms.
• Sharing best practice between different partnerships.

A Shared Responsibility

2. While much of the discussions with both sets of participants focused on the role of the Executive, participants considered that responsibility for making partnerships effective ought to be shared. For example, a number of strategies were suggested which would assist in developing effective partnership working. These included:

• Partners adopting a less adversarial mindset.
• Partners taking responsibility for choosing their priorities, rather than trying to respond to everything.
• Partners co-operating more with other social and economic partners as well as with the Executive.

"Bringing something constructive to the party is something we need to work on a wee bit more… choose your priorities and be clear what you're bringing." (External participant)