Partnership working in regions: Reflections on local government collaboration in Wales

Abstract

Set against the established political mantra of partnership working, this paper considers the conceptual framings of the local authority partnership agenda in academic debates and concurrent empirical research. We compare and contrast the changing formal territorial remits of political intervention with the spatial constructs understood and employed by those stakeholders responsible for delivering children's services. In so doing, we illustrate the uneven nature of local government partnership working and reflect on the ways in which organizational asymmetry, cultural connections, shared material experiences and historic rounds of local authority restructuring enable and constrain collaborative practice.

From governance to meta-governance in tourism? Re-incorporating politics, interests and values in the analysis of tourism governance

“…Calls for new modes of governance in public administration beyond the new public management started to emerge in the mid-2000s (Hall & Zapata Campos, 2014), when Dutch public managers and regional authorities argued that shifting between and combining hierarchies, markets and networks modes of governance were the best ways of cooperation in the event of disasters and subsequent recovery (Meuleman, 2008). Focusing on the UK context, policy-makers and scholars acknowledged the rise of challenges of effective policy-making as result of the so-called 'third way' and the subsequent devolution of legislative power to regional and metropolitan authorities (Allmendinger & Haughton, 2009;Heley, 2013;Heley & Moles, 2012;Tewdwr-Jones, 2012). In Denmark Lund (2009), demonstrated how metagovernance modes for effective environmental conservation and stakeholder participation were hindered by the pressure of national bodies and of conservation authorities in particular.…”

New Localities

“…1 The paper does not discuss the research programme or its findings in detail HELEY, 2012;HELEY and JONES, 2012b;HELEY and MOLES, 2012), but rather it seeks to move from the particular to the general and highlights how principles from the 'new localities' approach have been engaged to allow meaningful representations of 'locality' to be constructed and mobilized through the research.…”

A Welsh Innovation in Inclusive Governance. Examining the Efficacy of the Statutory Third Sector-Government Partnership for Engaging the Third Sector in Policymaking

“…In Wales, a partnership approach was embraced with devolution, 5 although this could also be seen as part of a wider UK strategy of Blair's New Labour which sought to overcome ideological barriers to private sector partnerships by locating the partnership discourse between the third sector and state. 6 Nevertheless, a distinctive feature of Welsh devolution was the breadth of partnerships established at different scales, including sub-state level (involving business, trade unions and local government), local government level and sub-regional level, 7 as well as community level with the establishment of the community regenerations partnerships. 8 The present case study is an exemplar of the Welsh partnership ethos that underpinned devolution.…”