Partnerships

Partnership working is increasingly becoming the way forward for the delivery of public services. Working in partnership is an effective way of meeting local people's service needs, minimising the financial burden on council taxpayers and, overall, providing strong community leadership. It is recognised that coordinated and collaborative action is more effective than separate action by individual agencies.

Working in partnership can produce many benefits:

• Ensures that strategies and programmes take account of the needs and interests of all relevant groups and stakeholders.
• Improve the efficiency of service delivery by making making better use of resources whether in the public, private or voluntary sectors and avoids wasteful duplication.
• Addresses issues that lie outside the remit of individual partners to deliver more "joined up" services that better meets the needs of the users
• Developing policies or delivering services in a way that would not be possible working separately
• Gain access to previously unavailable resources
• Can address complex/cross cutting issues

However, it is not easy – partnership working is complex, it challenges many of the traditional organisational, professional and cultural boundaries, and could demand significant changes.

Chichester District Council is involved in may different partnerships that cover issues such crime, health and voluntary sector and the Local Strategic Partnership.