Partnership Working

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Celebrating Research and Partnership Working ConferenceThursday 15th October 2015

Dr Mashuq Ally – Assistant Director Equalities, Community Safety and Cohesion

Partnership Working – why do it?

Partnership working is and has always been essential to delivering high quality public services.

The key benefits being:• Making the best use of all the available resources• Improving the user experience of services• Ensuring easy and timely access to services• Dealing with difficult “wicked issues” in the delivery of

services• Promoting citizen involvement in shaping services

Partnership Working – why do it?

However, in an era of reduced resources it becomes even more important as Local Authorities and partners have to look at new ways of doing things.

Here Partnership working has a number of additional benefits:• Plays a key role in providing opportunities for people to

exchange views and drive innovation• Driven by information sharing and knowledge exchange

between experts in different fields• Shares ownership• Opens up new markets/business opportunities• Shares the risk in project delivery

Partnership Working – the risks?

Competing priorities Governance and accountability of partnerships Perception that partnership working is an “add-on” to

business as usual Slow bureaucratic decision making Lack of defined vision Mission creep

Partnership Working in Birmingham

NOTHING NEW! History of big strategic bodies as well as excellent work

undertaken often on more informal basis Eg.Community Safety Partnership

Social Housing Partnership

However……Kerslake Review

“the fundamental philosophy that underpins BCC’s approach to partnerships is wrong. The overwhelming view of those we have spoken to is that partnership working in Birmingham needs to be fixed, and that failure to form effective partnerships is creating significant problems for both the city and the wider area”

Approach needs to change – and working through research is a way to start to address this…..

Future Council Approach

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Why Partnership approach to research is important…. While excellent work, skills and experience within our

organisations – we don’t have all the answers We must ensure that our new vision and priorities for the city

as a whole are based on evidence of needs and assets of the communities

Lots of expertise in the city not utilised collectively – eg. Can we shape our academics to work on projects that benefit specific local needs and priorities

Take an upstream and preventative approach to our key issues Answers to some of our key challenges are really complex: eg.

multi-dimension poverty, wider determinants of health

Community Intelligence Network Approach Brings practicing academics together with City Council

research and analysts, to share learning and develop a better understanding of the communities that the Council serves

Develop a robust understanding of inequality – where and why it exists

Build a more comprehensive and responsive understanding of communities within Birmingham – their characteristics, needs and assets

Helps the City Council and partners develop evidence based interventions to help reduce inequality

Institutions Signed Up

The Institute for Research into Superdiversity at University of Birmingham

InterLanD Research Centre, Aston University Centre for Rights, Equality and Diversity [CRED]

Warwick University Centre on Household Assets and Savings

Management, University of Birmingham Centre for Applied Criminology, Birmingham City

University The Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority

Entrepreneurship, based in the Business School