New Labour's Partnerships: Comparing Conceptual Models with Existing Forms

The establishment of partnerships has been a central feature of British social welfare policy since 1997 when the New Labour government came to power. Although the academic attention given to partnership working since then has grown considerably, there have been few attempts to link conceptual models of partnerships with existing forms. This paper addresses this gap and finds that, while there are links between actual and model partnerships, there is little evidence that actual partnerships have been designed or structured to meet their particular tasks.