Local Strategic Partnerships Research Articles

Competências de promoção da saúde: em foco os usuários do projeto Praia sem Barreiras

Abstract Carrying out university extension actions on beaches represents an innovative opportunity to promote the health of people with disabilities or reduced mobility. This article aims to analyze the understanding of users of the Beach Without Barriers (PSB, Praia sem Barreiras) Project about the Health Promotion practices developed by undergraduate students in the health area. Qualitative, descriptive and exploratory study, based on interviews with ten PSB users in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. A thematic analysis of content was carried out anchored on Developing Competencies and Professional Standards for Health Promotion Capacity Building in Europe. Six empirical categories emerged: Dedication of students working in the PSB, Technical qualification of students in the PSB, Emotion during contact with the sea, Mental health improvement, User guidance to students as future professionals and Opinions about the PSB. The qualification of students as agents of change in the local reality, effective communication and strategic partnerships were demonstrated. Actions that transcend bodily limitations and assess the participants’ health needs should be valued in undergraduate school.

From public issues to personal troubles: individualising social inequalities in health within local public health partnerships

ABSTRACT This paper explores public health policy implementation through partnership working at the local level by examining how local actors from public health, and the wider workforce make sense of and work on social inequalities in health. An ethnographic case study was used to examine policy implementation in one local strategic partnership in north-west England during a period of significant resource constraint. Semi-structured interviews were the primary method of data generation. Sensitising concepts from figurational sociology were used to develop a theoretical account of how local policy implementation directed at narrowing social inequalities in health tended to give rise to relatively fragmented and short-term services, projects and practices, which focused on lifestyle factors and behaviour change. Theorising partnership work as figurations goes some way to explaining the apparent paradox among participants who expressed a relatively detached appreciation of wider social influences, alongside emotional involvement in their work. This process of individualisation explains how local professionals tended to conceptualise health inequality and the social determinants of health as personal troubles. Individualisation meant that the social reality of working in partnerships on difficult issues was simplified. Thus, any scope for working on the social determinants of health tended to be overlooked. The extent to which this was intentional or a matter of struggling to see opportunities, or a mixture of the two, was difficult to discern. Although the policy landscape has changed, the findings give some insight into understanding how local collaborative processes reproduce local public health work underpinned by lifestyle choices.

Beyond referendums and 'Austerity': public participation policy enactment in 'new' UK governance spaces

This article generates new insights into what contributes to the effective enactment of public participation policy. It critiques the implementation of recent public participation policy in the UK, focusing on new local governance spaces created in England by Labour governments (1997-2010), and arrangements subsequently enacted under the Coalition and Conservative governments (2010-2017). It reports on a study conducted in 22 local authority areas in one English region, exploring public participation practices in Local Strategic Partnerships, and again seven years after the policy was rescinded. Power and agency feature in the analysis, which demonstrates how the intended impacts of public participation policy is diluted by complex context-specific organisational, cultural and professional factors. The article presents evidence of citizens' continuing enthusiasm to shape and influence policy, through formal structures and non-traditional processes, and argues that public participation policy during 'austerity' should accommodate the potential for progressive outcomes to emerge from both approaches.

Beyond Referendums and Austerity: Public Participation Policy Enactment in new UK Governance Spaces

This article generates new insights into what contributes to the effective enactment of public participation policy. It critiques the implementation of recent public participation policy in the UK, focusing on new local governance spaces created in England by Labour governments (1997-2010), and arrangements subsequently enacted under the Coalition and Conservative governments (2010-2017). It reports on a study conducted in 22 local authority areas in one English region, exploring public participation practices in Local Strategic Partnerships, and again seven years after the policy was rescinded. Power and agency feature in the analysis, which demonstrates how the intended impacts of public participation policy is diluted by complex context-specific organisational, cultural and professional factors. The article presents evidence of citizens' continuing enthusiasm to shape and influence policy, through formal structures and non-traditional processes, and argues that public participation policy during 'austerity' should accommodate the potential for progressive outcomes to emerge from both approaches.

How do empty signifiers lose credibility? The caseof commissioning in English local government

ABSTRACTThis paper critically analyzes how empty signifiers – demands which have been ‘tendentially’ emptied of meaning to represent an infinite number of demands – gain and lose credibility. I mobilize Laclauian discourse theory and a logics of critical explanation approach to examine the case of an English County Council and its Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) articulating ‘commissioning’ as an empty signifier in its new reform to address the Government’s post-2010 austerity agenda. The research characterizes how empty signifiers become formulated by discourses, gain appeal and lose credibility, demonstrating how such ‘universal’ demands require constant work from strategically placed individuals to avoid drifting into floating signifiers, i.e. becoming disputed. The paper makes two contributions: first to our understanding of how empty signifiers lose credibility; second, via its mobilization of concepts of empty and floating signifiers within a case study, into how ‘national’ signifiers such as commissioning have been mobilized by local authorities in diverse ways since the 2008 financial crash.

Public Participation in New Local Governance Spaces: The Case for Community Development in Local Strategic Partnerships

Research into public participation in local decision-making has increased over the past forty years, reflecting increased interest in the subject from academic, policy and practitioner perspectives. The same applies to community development, a values-based profession promoting a transformational agenda. During the New Labour government’s period in office (1997-2010), public participation featured centrally in several policies, reflecting their adherence to communitarian theory and Third Way politics. Additionally, the language of community development (promoting community empowerment and social justice) featured in these policies. Guidance for Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) – central to New Labour’s local government reforms – required them to facilitate public participation in decision-making, and used the language and values of community development. This paper reports on research into LSPs’ public participation practice. Applying a constructivist methodology, the research applied an evaluative framework reflecting the community development values in all 22 LSPs in the Yorkshire & Humber region. Data was collected through documentary review and interviews with LSP officials in each participating LSP. Case study research was conducted in one LSP, concentrating on two communities, generating deeper understanding of the process of facilitating public participation in different circumstances. Notions of power feature centrally in the analysis, and the research concludes that local authorities struggle to relinquish power to communities in any meaningful way, even within the context of government guidance requiring this process to be implemented. These findings are extrapolated to present a brief critique of the present UK government’s stated commitment to de-centralising power to communities in various policy areas

The end of the affair: Abusive partnerships in austerity

The dominant governance model of the New Labour years was that of partnerships. For some, the collaborative arrangements that sought to join-up government represented the ideals of innovation, inclusion and efficiency. The extent to which these values outweigh the perceived problems (slow decision making, lack of clear impact) is now being tested in the absence of area- or initiative-based funding. If partnerships were a valuable model for local governance, one might expect to see them survive the withdrawal of funding. If they represented a necessary burden in order to access resources, one might expect to see them disappear rapidly in straightened times. This paper reviews the experience of partnerships as a form of local governance in the current austere climate. It reviews evidence from a range of partnerships, including Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), their constituent ‘blocks’ and New Deal for Communities (NDC) partnerships. Taking forward the characterisations developed in a previous paper, the authors ask: What has become of the relationships in which so much was invested? Do those relationships endure, perhaps in different institutional settings? Or were they really little more than the ‘temporary suppression of mutual loathing in the interests of mutual greed’?

Contracting for social cohesion: can local area agreements make a difference?

Under the Labour government, Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) in England were responsible for the delivery of Local Area Agreements (LAAs) – agreed targets between central and local government. This paper uses statistical techniques and local authority case studies to explore the impact of LAAs on LSPs’ efforts to promote social cohesion. The results suggest that LSPs with a LAA for social cohesion experienced a better rate of improvement in community cohesiveness than those without, and that tougher targets resulted in stronger improvement. The impact of changes in LSPs’ approaches to promoting social cohesion appears to be responsible for this finding.

New development: Making partnerships work—a local politician's guide to leadership

Local strategic partnerships are non-hierarchical structures requiring facilitative leadership. The authors describe research that shows that facilitation demands acceptability, the development of a shared vision and the ability to deliver it. This implies a plethora of skills and relevant qualities, supported by favourable partners and an enabling political environment, with enough time to get it right.

Scaling Sustainable Development? How Voluntary Groups Negotiate Spaces of Sustainability Governance in the United Kingdom

This paper seeks to address the way the politics of sustainability governance is spatially organised and contested by voluntary and community sector (VCS) groups in the United Kingdom. Using the research lens of the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), we seek to demonstrate how sustainability governance at regional and national scales is negotiated and produced from the ‘bottom up’. We argue that VCS groups are agents of a complex process of ‘scalar manoeuvring’ whereby sustainability governance is produced and contested across a range of sites both within and across spatial scales. Such groups enter into external, nonstate-controlled governance networks as a reaction to state-orchestrated scales like LSPs. In the process, VCS groups engage with and utilise higher scales of state territoriality and governance to pursue quasi-autonomous sustainability objectives back at the local level. Such actions demonstrate how pragmatism is essential in enacting scalar agency in the pursuit of a local fix for sustainability. These findings contribute new insights into the ways in which local spaces of sustainability governance are produced and contested within wider UK state modernisation and rescaling processes.

From Area-Based Initiatives to Strategic Partnerships: Have We Lost the Meaning of Regeneration?

For forty years area-based initiatives (ABIs) were the primary tool used by UK governments to tackle problems of concentrated deprivation and dereliction. The last decade saw these initiatives end, replaced by new forms of city-wide or region-wide governance: Local Strategic Partnerships in England and Community Planning Partnerships in Scotland. It was argued in both policy documents and policy analysis that this change would deliver more effective regeneration for all communities. Challenging this narrative, I present this policy shift as a change in the meaning of regeneration policy using the methodology of interpretive policy analysis. The evidence from Scottish experience suggests that for a key policy actor—community activists in deprived neighbourhoods—the approach of ABIs had a great deal of meaning as regeneration. Furthermore, this meaning was still present a decade after an ABI had ended. Meanwhile, the newer strategic partnerships were delivering little meaningful change. This difference in meaning is used to reimagine strategic regeneration as a more positive process.

Climate change performance measurement, control and accountability in English local authority areas

Purpose – This paper aims to consider how climate change performance is measured and accounted for within the performance framework for local authority areas in England adopted in 2008. It critically evaluates the design of two mitigation and one adaptation indicators that are most relevant to climate change. Further, the potential for these performance indicators to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation is discussed.Design/methodology/approach – The authors begin by examining the importance of the performance framework and the related Local Area Agreements (LAAs), which were negotiated for all local areas in England between central government and Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs). This development is located within the broader literature relating to new public management. The potential for this framework to assist in delivering the UK's climate change policy objectives is researched in a two‐stage process. First, government publications and all 150 LAAs were analysed to identify the le...

(A186) Edward via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) Honduras Dengue Outbreak Emergency Response Case Study

In July 2010, the government of Honduras requested VCOM assistance with a widespread Dengue Outbreak. At the time of the mission trip, over 33,000 Hondurans had been hospitalized for Dengue Fever and a National State of Emergency declared. VCOM sent a team of medical students, faculty and volunteers to answer the call for help. The Honduran government selected five villages where the need for medical attention was greatest. The team provided medical exams, treatment or referral when necessary to approximately 200 patients in each of the five villages. General medical exams were provided in addition to screenings for Dengue Fever and subsequent supportive treatment including oral rehydration salts, Tylenol, vitamins and treatment of complications. National and local strategic partnerships to provide emergency medical response services included the Minister of Health, Minister of Defense, Minister of Transportation and Housing and office of the President of Honduras; Deans of the National and Catholic Medical Schools; President of the Board of Medicine and other governmental and non-governmental offices; Mayors and local officials, and often local media. At Marcala, the Minister of Public Transportation and Housing arrived by Helicopter from Tegucigalpa to greet the VCOM team and patients at the clinic; and at Santa Maria del Real, the Honduran President's son met the team personally. The Honduran support for VCOM's ongoing continuity of health and improved medical care efforts in the country was evident. The trip enhanced the skills and knowledge of participating students and faculty. Student Jenie Sales writes, “I not only enhanced my own clinical experience and knowledge, but I obtained a greater understanding for the people and culture of Honduras.” Student opportunities for reflective learning included case study writing, surveys and evaluations. The successful experience will lead to increased knowledge in the care of patients during a Dengue outbreak.

Sub-national Responses to Climate Change in England: Evidence from Local Area Agreements

The machinery of governance to address climate change at the sub-national level in England continues to evolve. Drawing on documentary evidence and the views of civil servants and local authority officials from the English West Midlands, this article explores the process through an examination of the inclusion of climate change indicators in the recent round of Local Area Agreements (LAAs), negotiated between central government and local authorities and Local Strategic Partnerships. Considerable popularity has been accorded these indicators nationally, but there are important variations in the pattern of take up. Moreover, significant uncertainties surround the contribution of local measures to reduce CO2 emissions and the targets attached to measures to adapt to climate change are seen as undemanding. Conversely, the impending Carbon Reduction Commitment will act as a powerful incentive for public bodies to cut CO2 emissions from their estates. Although potentially contributing to greater coherence in tackling climate change, achieving collective action through LAAs will prove problematic.

A Debate on Transforming Local Governance in the UK: Is Partnership A Better Way?

In order to overcome financial crisis, it is an international tendency to have the shift from a traditional government to local governance. Tony Blair’s New Labour Party came to power in 1997 committed to modernize a local government system to local governance via launching series of long-term action plans. This paper attempts to discuss the institutional transformation and the key policy in the government’s modernizational agenda for local government, i.e. the local strategic partnerships (LSPs). Moreover, the most important aim of this paper is to explore three neglected disadvantages of local governance. However, the local governance mechanism is a double-sided knife. On the one hand, the advantage is the flexibility and efficiency in service delivery and participation; on the other hand, there is the possibility of an increase in collaborative cost, unbalanced power relationship between these agencies and fragmented accountability.

Local strategic partnerships: a panacea for voluntary interest groups to promote local environmental sustainability? The UK context

AbstractThis paper examines the experiences of local interest groups in promoting environmental sustainability within Local Strategic Partnerships. LSPs are expected to be a local pluralist governance platform in which non‐state groups can engage more widely in the promotion of economic, social and environmental well‐being within a local authority area. Using semi‐structured qualitative interviews with state and non‐state representatives in two contrasting LSP areas in the Yorkshire and Humber region of the UK, this paper finds that environmental interest groups have been marginalized by local state members of LSPs. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

The Community Leadership and Place-shaping Roles of English Local Government

‘Community leadership’ and ‘place-shaping’ embody the outward-facing orientation of English local government to engage local communities in deliberative governance. The apparent synergies between them suggest they might be complementary roles yet one emphasizes ‘sense of direction’ while the other stresses ‘sense of place’. What do they mean in practice? Evidence of the impact of community leadership since 2000 suggests the engagement of communities into community governance spaces such as Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) has been partially successful. Rather than empowering participation in governance spaces, community power has been concentrated into the hands of political and managerial elites. Policy statements since 2006 have emphasized a need for councils to exert strong local leadership. Do community leadership and place-shaping provide a complementary governance framework, or does place-shaping indicates a shift away from a normative and problematic model of community empowerment? Using Bourdieu’s notion of the social space, this article considers the nature of ‘governance space’ and its role in a changing model of community governance.

Moving beyond the limits of joined-up government? Meta-governance, quality of relations and addressing the politics of joining-up

Recent research has questioned the ability of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) to secure better coordination and management of regeneration across different branches of the state. In a period of economic recession and a curtailing of regeneration finance, reconsideration is therefore required of how to secure greater horizontal and vertical integration by LSPs in regeneration policy, budgeting and service delivery. To this end, it is suggested that there needs to be i) a deeper analysis of the quality of local relationships between partners; and ii) a greater emphasis on the politics of ‘joining up’. This paper critiques the relative influence of each of these factors. It is illustrated that the ongoing ‘meta-governance’ of LSPs, coupled with a number of horizontal barriers to ‘collaborative governance’, are impinging upon the level of integration being achieved. Further efforts will be required to address such issues, especially tackling a number of barriers identified to the politics of ‘joining up’ at a variety of spatial scales.

Ageing Well in Dorset: How not to be Invisible

Dorset County Council and partners commissioned a project in 2008 to develop a plan for ageing well in the county that engaged and involved older people. The completed plan has since been supported by Cabinet and the Local Strategic Partnership. The project was carried out using outcome‐based accountability (Friedman, 2005), a methodology for focusing on outcomes, and this article describes how it worked to support this strategic development in adult services at a time when it had been in much more regular use in children's services.

Accountable, authorized or authentic? What do ‘faith representatives’ offer urban governance?

Non-elected faith representatives are increasingly involved in public policy decisionmaking. Yet, little is understood about who they represent and on what basis. Drawing on political theory and primary research data, this article examines what, in democratic terms, is going on when a faith leader sits on a local strategic partnership, a service advisory body, or a neighbourhood board. It shows that, despite very real limitations, faith representatives complement traditional electoral representation by bringing new and ‘authentic’ voices and expertise. ‘Representative claims’ are legitimized in part through faith leaders' involvement in dense (and often marginalized) community networks, but also through their very ‘untaintedness’ in relation to traditional electoral processes.