identify?
Practitioners can be enthusiastic and invest enormous amount of time, energy and resources into providing learning and skills. These findings indicate that their responses presented a less than ideal impression of their current collaborative practices. It suggested an increased awareness amongst VCOs, and their partners, of the recent and current debates on their position in the service delivery argument. They had all experienced a sustained growth in the number o f collaborative relationships between public sector agencies and national businesses and voluntary and community agencies. This study’s respondents made numerous references to the increased requirements to work more collaboratively as something that was expected or required of them by contractual or funding arrangements. The literature underpins this sentiment clearly as a way of working which is either recommended as good practice or enshrined within legislation as a necessity (Miller and Ahmad, 2000). The literature suggested what respondents identified from their practice: a focus on what was seen to work; irrespective of which type of organization was delivering it (Kramer, 1999).
Another finding was the polarization of views from within VCOs which was levied towards other VCOs. This was presented as a criticism of what they perceived as ‘financial inertia’ on the part of some of the local groups they partnered with. However, what was significant was the concern expressed by both VCO and non-VCOs about the impact, and the increased difficulties, in delivering a more differentiated and stepped provision into learning for those learners for whom a level two course was not appropriate. This raised a
number of concerns from all respondents but these concerns were expressed most forcibly by the smaller VCOs who had the most direct and recent experience of delivering entry (below Level 2) learning and skills provision. There was a very clear indication in the data that highlighted changes to practices that were clearly linked to the issues and challenges identified in this study’s introductory chapter. VCOs felt that financial uncertainty was the most significant influencer as to which projects they became involved in and which agencies they partnered with. The “ever present cloud of financial uncertainty” (VCO, funding officer), was attributed with the idea that autonomy was “an embraceable ideal, locked in a world of make-believe” (VCO, funding officer).
In the interviews, the majority of respondents who worked with VCOs felt that they needed to offer more administrative support than they had previously. This was viewed as a direct result of increased accountability requirements due to tighter funding criteria. Many VCOs simply could not afford to access specialist services and training. This highlighted differences in perspectives and polarized some respondents. It was felt that everyone’s practice had had to change in some way as a result of reductions in funding. In turn, this was seen as continuing to have an impact of the experiences of learners and the diversity of local provision that they could access. Sometimes, the result was that some learners could only access learning and skills development opportunities from the better-financed mainstream providers such as the local college. This represented an important departure from previous models o f delivery that had placed much of the same type o f provision within community-based provision and was cited by learners as their preferred location for training. Coffield (2000) questions the future of different forms of learning opportunity if the focus remains on a polarization of provision towards more formal provision.
7.4 How can knowledge of issues and challenges of working in
partnership contribute towards improving practice and informing
policy?
The literature has suggested that the conception of collaborative partnership-working is constituted of paradoxes (Maor, 1999). I suggest that some of these contradictions can be located in the idea of ‘overlapping fields’ and ‘fault and fracture lines’. These find expression in the ‘textual’ and social practices of individuals, organizations and societal levels at micro, meso and macro levels respectively (Fairclough, 1992). This study’s participants have contributed towards an examination of these ‘fields’. Burgess (1984:102) suggests that interviews can be interpreted as “a ‘conversation with a purpose’ which is grounded in specific contents, events and examples in order to illuminate the complexity of the phenomena being investigated”.
Interestingly, there was little recognition in the responses from participants that indicated anything other than a Tight sprinkling’ of awareness of the contradictions inherent in much of their professional interactions. Whilst the literature (Das and Teng, 2000; Vangen and Huxham, 2011) refers to the contradictions of working collaboratively. Working in partnership was considered to be a way of ‘getting things done’ and was actively encouraged and promoted at a local, regional and national level by local authorities, infrastructure agencies and the majority of sources of funding that were available. The direct impact on the working practices of individuals, and their organisations, and how this shaped what they did, appears to be largely ignored in the bulk of the writing on partnership.
What constitutes learning and skills development has been shown in the literature, and through the narratives of this study’s respondents, to be diverse. It is the flexibility and responsiveness of individual and localised collaborative working arrangements that has enabled so many successful examples of partnership-working to have emerged. In attempting to explore partnership, this study has illustrated that there are tangible reasons why the sometimes fragile dynamics of organisational relationships, and the policy landscape that contribute towards shaping them, may have implications for TSO/VCOs. The implications of this may extend to government intentions to build the skills, training and a broader educational base through the collaborative practices involving government agencies, private organisations and TSOs.
The literature suggests that working in partnership is viewed as a complex, challenging and policy-infused concept that operates across a range of contexts and serves a multitude of agendas (OTS, 2006; Martin et al, 2001). Evidence from practitioners is under-represented in the literature and policy decision-making itself was not underpinned by rigorous, well- thought through, and sufficiently evidenced-based decision-making processes (Bullock et al, 2001; Coffield, 2008). The findings from this study suggest that experiences from organisations are not universally sought from service providers in an area. Often, ‘snap shot consultations’ as they came to be known in one location, were solicited from an unrepresentative sample of providers. The next chapter will present a synthesis o f this point.