What is a ‘partnership’ and what is ‘partnership working’?

As previously mentioned, the terminology of partnership working in general terms was mentioned commonly in the available literature but precisely what this meant in specific contexts was not easy to identify (see Chapter 3). It was clear however, that partnership working has become the accepted way of working for many professions, including Public Health, with the value of working in partnership not being questioned.

The interviewees were asked about their experiences of partnership work. Although

collaboration was promoted as key to licensing work, definitions of what this entailed or how partnerships ‘worked’ were lacking. Moreover, active engagement in partnerships was

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variable and accounts were contradictory – illustrating confusion around how the policy

‘ideal’ on licensing was implemented in practice.

One Public Health interviewee, who attempted to provide a definition of partnership working, said:

“I think it means everybody involved in licensing, working together and having a clear understanding of how we can all work together” (PH4).

The language used in this quote was interesting. This respondent used the words of ‘I think it means’, indicating a level of insecurity regarding the definition. Typically, when respondents were asked to define partnership working, there was a pause before responding. This appeared to be because they had to think, as though they had never been asked for a definition before.

At times however, the information provided during the interviews was not reflected in the partnership working practices reported outside the taped interview. For example, on one occasion, after the interview recording finished, the interviewee explained that they had a disagreement with a licensing colleague and since then they had little contact or involvement within licensing decisions. This was a different impression of the circumstances than the one presented during the taped interview. During the interview, the impression presented was one where despite challenges, partnership working was occurring as this respondent said:

“There is a different relationship with each Responsible Authority group, because we part fund a trading standard post and another environmental health post, I think that relationship is a lot stronger, more collaborative. I think with the police again it’s been a very productive relationship. I would say with licensing, I think that’s probably been more of a challenge and I think at times it doesn’t feel that Public Health is an equal partner” (PH2)

The licensing colleague referred to within the above quote was also interviewed, but they did not mention a disagreement. At other stages during interviews respondents would make comments like ‘this is off the record’ and ‘don’t use this’ which indicated that they were concerned about potential implications of discussing the partners with whom they worked.

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There was a dilemma, therefore, in defining partnership, as it may exist at an administrative level but not at a practical level. At an administrative level, the partnership involved all Responsible Authorities and some respondents were positive about partnership working.

Licensing professionals, for example, implied that successful partnership working did take place. According to one respondent:

“Well, I think there's a lot of partnership working that goes on most definitely yes. You know the police will do lots of operational visits with various members that can include Public Health, Trading Standards, and our enforcement team. I've worked with the Director of Public Health. So yeah there is collaboration and of course the Responsible Authority meetings that take place” (L1).

Public Health also saw some advances in partnership collaboration:

“I have definitely seen over that time, things move forward. But I think so much of it is to do with not just having the evidence base but about relationships, it takes time to build

relationships” (PH7).

This reference to building relationships implied that for partnership working to occur there must be good working relationships between all Responsible Authorities and that this takes time. When this research was completed however, Public Health had been working as

Responsible Authorities for a few years. It could be proposed that this amount of time should be adequate to allow the development of relationships within the partnerships, but the reality was somewhat different.

In practice, according to interview accounts and field notes of observations of Licensing Sub-Committee meetings, three Responsible Authority groups did not engage – planning,

children’s services and the fire brigade. When respondents were asked why they thought they did not hear from certain Responsible Authorities, they produced similar answers. In relation to planning, it was stated that the planning department operated under its own legislation and therefore this group did not feel the need to participate as a Responsible Authority within licensing. For children's services, no real reason for the lack of engagement was identified. This lack of involvement from children's services was not limited to the local areas interviewed however as it was also mentioned during an informal meeting with a

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representative from a national organisation (N1). As there is a specific licensing objective on protecting children from harm, it was interesting to note this lack of involvement and, among interviewees, it also raised concerns over which Responsible Authority group was

representing the interests of children within licensing. As one Public Health respondent commented in relation to the absent Responsible Authority groups:

“There never seems to be any representations or input from them around applications [children’s services]. I think I have seen something from them once when there was an application for an off-licence right next to a school and in an area where there were already several off licenses but other than that nothing and they never come to the licensing forum meetings. Planning also is not heard from but they say they have their own legislation” (PH 7).

In relation to the fire brigade, one suggested reason for their lack of involvement related to restructuring within the Fire Brigade across London. It was reported that there was now only a small centralised team who were charged with responding to licensing applications across London on behalf of the fire brigade. As this was a small team they lacked the resources to become involved in all licensing decisions in each local area.

During the period of fieldwork, varying levels of involvement from the different Responsible Authority groups was observed. Respondents quoted above (L1, PH7) stated that there were Responsible Authority meetings taking place, but within the London boroughs included in this thesis, while two areas reported that they had a Responsible Authorities group, neither of these areas reported that this group was currently active. During the seven months of

meeting observations within one borough, where the respondent quoted above (L1) worked, no meetings occurred. In addition, from the observations of the fourteen Licensing Sub-Committee meetings (Area A) during fieldwork, no Public Health professionals attended the meetings; therefore, in that area, Public Health were deemed as not fully engaged within licensing decisions. This information was confirmed during interviews with two local councillors who also stated that there was not a large amount of involvement from Public Health. This opinion on the level of engagement by Public Health within that area in licensing was not shared by the Public Health respondents.

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Moving away from local levels, respondents who represented regional and national

organisations, all spoke of the ‘policy ideal’ and advocated for Public Health being involved in partnership working around alcohol. An interviewee from a regional organisation said:

“Where Public Health has good engagement or is being more effective is where they’re working alongside their Responsible Authority colleagues. They’re engaged in the responsible Authority groups, they’re engaged with the councillors, they understand the data and they understand the strengths and the limitations of the data that they have. They’ve also been involved in applying that data to Statement of Licensing Policies and Cumulative Impact Policies and that has then led them to understand how it can be used. They’ve also presented it in a way that is understood by the councils and local authorities” (R1).

The general picture to emerge in relation to partnership working was, therefore, mixed with considerable lack of a clear definition regarding what partnership entailed, coupled with very varying degrees of engagement of different Responsible Authorities and with few attempts to activate Responsible Authority partnership meetings. This was reflected in the discussion around specific aspects of partnership working which are discussed below.