When we discuss partnerships, what are we really talking about?
Generically there are three fundamental types of partnership;
The focussed partnerships
We know them - they know us, and some form of relationship has developed with them. What ‘they’ share with us is an interest in the services that we provide. ‘They’ may be County Sports Partnerships (CSPs), school sports partnerships, community groups, peers from other local authorities, local sports councils, special interest groups and sports clubs. ‘They’ raise issues, offer assistance and are usually keen to champion a particular agenda. We have the job of co-ordinating their work, involving them in a positive way and giving them information on how we are performing.
An example of a good effect focussed partnership can be found here:
Case Study - Linking into "Every Child Matters" - Children and Young Peoples Plans partnership
The voluntary sector is a key partner for sport and your organisation needs to have negotiated a strategic relationship with it – do you have to explain what a strategic relationship is? The Government have promoted this relationship through their “Compact with the third sector” policy.
County Sport Partnerships (CSPs) exist around the country, some examples are;
- Greater Manchester Sport Partnership
- Lincolnshire Sports Partnership
- Leicester–Shire and Rutland Sports Partnership
- Sport Cheshire
- West of England Sports Partnership
Case Study – West of England Sport Partnership
l actively contribute to increasing participation and widening access to
sport and physical activity and the achievement of sporting success.
CSPs will be pivotal in delivering the 1% per year participation target set by Government
with a particular focus on: - Developing more community sports opportunities for young people by supporting the delivery of the PESSCL strategy; and
- Helping develop more opportunities for hard to reach groups and those not already engaged in community sport
- ·County Sports Partnerships and National Governing Bodies are integral to the Single System for Community Sport
For more information visit Sport England's CSP website |
Contracted partners
These can be suppliers, other local authorities, private coaches, franchisees, consultants and contractors delivering front line services. There can often be a blurring of delivery functions with these groups. What characterises them is that they have a business interest in our service, and generally a stake in our success.
Whilst we are used to self reporting arrangements, open book accounting, direct customer interfaces and delivery of performance information for our own reporting, we are less used to the concept of direct accountability of contracted partners to the public. This though, is just the type of scenario that we are soon being asked to deliver.
Local partnerships
We already work closely with local strategic partnerships, (LSPs) residents groups, local area forums, and individual members of the public. At IDeA you can find a whole tool on Local Strategic Partnerships. This sets out good practice and common challenges around partnership working. Some of these, such as issues of accountability, respective roles and culture and the effective use of people, skills and resources, are particularly relevant in relation to communications. Under new local performance reporting arrangements LSPs may see their role as managing performance and improving services in a positive way, or they may take a different view and try to use their position put pressure on to “Hot House” their issues.
Because of these potential problems in partnership working we will need to sort out whether our objectives, service plans, service standards and Local PIs reflect our partners and the community’s views about priorities and aspirations. Just as importantly we need to ensure that partners’ plans are complementary to each other.
The partnership listing section contains a list of potential partners.
More
|
