Old fashioned “partners desks” were built so that, the partners worked on the same desktop, sitting facing each other and the drawers could be opened from either side. The furniture itself reinforced the need to come at issues of common interest from different directions and to be as open as possible in order to engender trust.Now let us look at the problems that LGA delegates are complaining about with DWP, the NHS and in fact, any potential partner (see localgov.co.uk piece here). "Why", local politicians ask, "can’t these people see that it is in their best interests to enter into arrangements whereby some of their resources will inevitably come under, at least the influence of, if not the control of local politicians?" "Come on", they say, "never mind your senior civil service competency-based appraisal system (which is anyway, largely ignored when making senior appointments and reward decisions, where much more weight is given to a track record in implementing the minister’s wishes) and get over the fact that in your careers to date you it has not been necessary to work in arenas involving locally elected members."Well yes. I think that we may have moved a little closer to identifying the actual problem with Total Place and most partnerships. Few partnerships really pass the “better off” test, that is, can the partnership deliver better outcomes than the parties alone can? The test is often fudged when funding depends on working with others, even those you would not choose to (as Churchill said, “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons”). The resultant tidal wave of cash may produce some progress toward the desired outcome; but, one wonders, what could the individual partners done with similar funding?Other ways of fudging the test seen in the unbalanced partnerships in health where the smaller GP practices are encouraged to “partner” with each other (even though they are in a, currently gentlemanly, form of competition with one another) and with larger health bodies. Guess which agenda is the one that the “partners” have to work to? Will it be the GP’s who are intrested in curing Mrs Jones' lumbago and little Jimmy funny rash or that of the larger bodies' Directors of Partnerships whose career and bonus is dependent upon progress toward some specific goal?People in your local DWP are mainly working in the DWP’s delivery agencies that were purposefully detached from the centre in order to more efficiently run repetitive systems. Similarly most of your local NHS managers got where they are today by running tightly regulated delivery organisations. It seems to me that the task for local government, if it wants to influence spending of other agencies in its localities is to get civil service managers, particularly in the delivery agencies and bodies, to think that working with local authorities will help them achieve their central departments’ goals and, in doing so, enhance their job satisfaction and careers. The current approach often seems to be to promise future policy rewards for people who have short-term targets to meet. No wonder they won't play with local government.
