Community Learning Development Resource 302 – 07

 REFLECTING ON THE MANAGEMENT OF

CO-WORKING ARRANGEMENTS

 

SUMMARY

This resource (302-07) explores the reality of co-working, mainly within partnership arrangements in community development and regeneration work, through issues and concerns identified by workers and managers.

 

1. DEVELOPING AND MAINTAINING ARRANGEMENTS:

• Building and managing any co-working relationship takes time and effort

• Monitoring and evaluating the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of co-working arrangements is essential

• Partnership working is not just a requirement – it needs to be purposeful

• Partnerships can have a life of their own and can exist beyond their usefulness

• Co-working relationships can demand an excessive amount of maintenance time and effort in relation to their usefulness

• The nature and depth of co- working relationships is dynamic and can change or be changed in relation to the work purpose and usefulness

• The productivity of a co-working arrangement must outweigh the maintenance costs in time and effort, measured by its effectiveness ahead of efficiency

• The productivity of a co-working arrangement needs to be understood and reviewed, including monitoring and evaluating whether it is needed

• Support for a partner worker or agency, in itself, may be a productive outcome of a co-working relationship –  ‘‘It’s not what you can do for me – it is what I can do for you’’!

 

2. WORKING TOGETHER TO SUPPORT AND ENABLE CLIENTS TO BE SUCCESSFUL

Some concerns about what clients might experience within multi-agency community development work:

• Will the experience of local people from first contact to active participation in community development and regeneration activities, be coherent and consistent?

• Are there barriers and constraints for clients, seeking to move between organisations, which partner agencies might need to overcome?

• Is it necessary to have shared and agreed strategies, to develop and ensure consistently good practice in terms of how people will be received and treated?

• How do we enable the voice of local people to be heard, across partner agencies and within overarching forums and bodies?

• Do the co-working arrangements, enable workers and agencies to be sensitive and responsive to the needs and wants of the excluded, marginalised and disadvantaged?

• How can we help non-confident clients to move comfortably from one partner agency to another?

• If counting client numbers is important, is there pressure to recruit clients into an agency, within a partnership arrangement and what should determine client movement across agencies?

• If clients move from one agency to another, should a feedback mechanism be part of the partnership arrangement?

 

3. SOME LIKELY CHALLENGES IN INITIATING PARTNERSHIPS:

• Resistance to change – within the culture and history of potential partners, e.g., from their independence, perceived role, length of history, standing, secular nature, self-interest

• Trying to cross infrastructure boundaries, with different types of organisations having different cultures and expectations, e.g., between the statutory and voluntary sectors, between the established voluntary sector and emerging community sector.

 

Questions arising about the joined-up thinking of strategic, overarching, umbrella bodies, e.g., a Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) in its co-ordination and implementation of action plans:

• What is the LSP understanding of the purpose and practice of partnership working?

• How is information and planning shared between the strands or themes within the local community strategy?

• Has the local LSP an ongoing strategy for communicating effectively with partner agencies, community groups and local people?

• Has the local LSP an ongoing strategy for encouraging participation by local people, and relevant groups and agencies in the development and delivery of outcomes?

• Is partnership working possible within hierarchical or political organisational settings?