To what extent does partnership contribute to economic development, effectiveness, efficiency or democracy?

Partnerships (voluntary and imposed) has become the password to influence and resource allocations in the worlds of regeneration and economic development but many operational staff doubt their efficiency or effectiveness and engagement of communities, voluntary and private sectors remains patchy at best, tokenism at worst.

But collaboration has been strongly promoted by the current government backed by new structures, a duty to involve and actions to promote the sharing of resources. However, in practice what is the evidence that partnerships promote democracy or the belief that decisions taken by the many will inevitably be better informed and more sustainable than those taken by the few, and in any case do partnerships take decisions of merely support the making of decisions?

Recent The Work Foundation research suggests collaboration makes sense only when working together will achieve more benefits than any one party could acting alone.

Research findings include:

The success of Collaboration depends on the objectives and the structuring of the partnership,

Cross-sectoral partnerships where different kinds of organisation can learn from each other are likely to be the most innovative.

Economic development collaborations should include a focus on the knowledge economy as it offers the most growth and productivity

Can collaboration help places respond to the knowledge economy?