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| From the very beginning of this Partnership, agencies in Birmingham signed up to a whole-city approach, aware of the creative balance between the Partnership doing more than the partners could separately do whilst, at the same time, working through partners' own strategies.
The added value of the Core Skills Partnership arises not from an attempt to 'own' the work of partners but from the increased effectiveness of joined-up working; the increased efficiency that best value use of additional resources can bring; and the benefit of neutral, critical, responsive, supportive processes that are dedicated to ensuring that changes come about. In order to bring about changes on a whole system basis, impacting on large numbers, there was agreement that the changes had to be driven forward via common strategies and not via old models of small-scale, time-limited disconnected projects. This requires the partners to constantly be aware of each other's strategies and stances, and requires the Partnership to enhance the development plans of each partner. We have recently commissioned three reviews to test whether we are really making a difference through boosting broader corporate, city-wide strategies. It was to be expected (and strongly verified by the reviews) that the impact of the Partnership's development drive would be seen clearly in the education-based strategies: The Education Development Plan; the Education Service Strategy; the Lifelong Learning Partnership's development plan etc. What was more reassuring was to see clear recognition of links between activities via this Partnership and the implementation of a broad range of wider strategies. These include the Corporate Youth Strategy; the Birmingham Crime and Disorder Strategy; the Economic Development Programme; the Quality Protects Strategy for Children in Public Care; the Early Years Development and Child Care Plan; Birmingham Health Improvement Plan; and Birmingham's Family Support Strategy. |
The effectiveness of this Partnership as an example of good ways of bringing about additional change through collaborative working has also been tested by District Audit as one of their professional probings of structural processes within Birmingham.
And finally, GFA Consulting have reviewed the ways that we have attempted to be a learning organisation constantly reviewing where we are, what is making a difference, where to emphasise next, where the gaps are, how best to fill them etc. This has now become so interesting that it has been extended to cover an investigation of the ways that the Partnership, as a network of networks, is being so effective in producing lasting change for people in Birmingham. Look out for future updates on this website. |
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