**Area-Based Partnerships and Social Welfare: Innovations and Challenges**

Brendan O'Keeffe

*Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland* 

## **1. Introduction**

88 Social Welfare

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Partnership is one of the most repeatedly used terms and concepts in public policy. Yet its meanings and interpretations vary, and despite its apparent popularity, some policy-makers and agencies are inclined to be fearful of the whole notion of partnership. What began as a proposal for a more effective way of supporting subsidiarity in decision-making about three decades ago, has now developed into sets of institutional arrangements and frameworks, whereby government, the social partners and the community and voluntary sector come together to address issues of mutual and common concern. This chapter looks at the growing importance of partnership and endogenous approaches to aspects of social welfare. It notes how partnerships have piloted new methods of social welfare provision and service delivery, based on local flexibilities and tailored responses to client needs and potential. Over time, many pilot approaches have become mainstreamed, and lessons from the local have come to impact on and influence the national. Other partnership initiatives have however faltered and waned, mainly due to the inabilities of agencies to make the transition from traditional and hierarchical government to multi-lateral and flexible governance processes and arrangements. Across Europe, partnership governance is most imbedded in institutions at the regional and sub-regional tiers, and Area-Based Partnership organisations tend to provide social welfare services as part of a suite of local development actions that include training and up-skilling local populations, supporting new enterprise development and animating the community and voluntary sector. Thus, social welfare has become integrated into broader territorial development strategies.

In several European states, a shift towards endogenous approaches to social service and welfare provision in tandem with local development interventions has yielded considerable successes in promoting social inclusion and reducing levels of dependency. Italy has a long tradition in endogenous development, which was brought into sharp focus with the economic crisis of the 1970s. A concentration on diversifying local economies based on optimising endogenous resources has enabled Emilia-Romagna to become one of the most developed regions in Europe with consistently low levels of unemployment (Mazzonis, 1997; Noya, 2009). Producer co-operatives and social enterprises in Spain provide job opportunities for persons unable to access mainstream commercial employment. These grassroots activities also provide essential local services and ensure that produced capital is retained locally. Furthermore, co-operative banks such as *Mondragón* have enabled people to

Area-Based Partnerships and Social Welfare: Innovations and Challenges 91

Tallberg, 2011) mark a reduction in the power held by top-down agencies as partnerships allow for inputs from service-users, communities, unions, employers, producers and local government. Thus, challenges emerge in respect of the capacity of endogenous efforts to generate innovation, the interfaces and dynamics between representative and participative democracy, accessing resources for development, determining the appropriate spatial scales of intervention and the ability of partnerships to effect long-term change in mainstream

This chapter draws on experiences in social welfare service delivery across four European states. It outlines and assesses how Area-Based Partnership organisations in Ireland, Finland, Spain and Sweden have approached social welfare provision. The specific case studies that are elaborated here demonstrate how partnerships have integrated social welfare into local development actions. They have done so to varying degrees and with variable levels of success. Their approaches have been shaped not just by national and local policies and systems, but by the levels of collaboration or conflict between agencies involved in the partnership itself. The selected case studies for this chapter are all located in predominantly rural areas. Thus, they provide insights into outreach delivery of welfare services, and they reveal how agencies responded to issues such as accessibility, transport provision and information dissemination. The case studies also address how rural partnerships seek to support progression to employment in the context of a narrow local

The chapter opens with a review of the emerging and increasing roles that Area-Based / territorial Partnerships play in social welfare services generally. It examines the drivers of such processes and how these have manifested themselves in different locations and contexts. The chapter describes partnerships as development agencies with a social welfare brief, and it presents and discusses their composition, structures and operations. Subsequently, the chapter considers the outputs and impacts of Area-Based Partnerships' approaches to social welfare, including stakeholder participation and the degrees of innovation, the extent to which initiatives have become mainstreamed, and the ways in which regional and national policies and practices may have been amended as a result of local pilots and lessons. The chapter also assesses the limitations of area-based approaches, and it questions the significance of factors such as the lack of long-term funding streams,

Collaborative partnerships have been part of the political landscape for several decades. Corporatist or national-level partnerships involving governments and the productive sector have ensured social stability in Scandinavia and in the Alpine States since the 1950s. Enterprise and issue-based partnerships have proven adept at rehabilitating districts affected by economic re-structuring and de-industrialisation notably in cities of the UK, France and Belgium. Joint venture companies and strategic partnerships have enabled agencies to tap into expertise from industry and the education sector in areas such as heritage, landscape management and ecology among others. The most prolific and significant model of partnership that has emerged in Europe over recent decades can be classified as Local Development or Area-Based Partnerships. These can be defined as formally-agreed organisational frameworks that bring together representatives of the

shortcomings in enforcement and limited information dissemination.

**2. Emergence and evolution of area-based partnerships** 

policies and systems.

economic base.

invest their savings locally and access credit on favourable terms. Such movements serve to alleviate poverty and support community development (Briscoe and Ward, 2005), and their successes at local level have had the effect of enticing statutory bodies and the productive sector to engage in collaborative structures with civil society.

Global economic trends associated with the increased mobility of capital, trade liberalisation and the growing significance of regional and territorial conditions in determining macro and micro-economic performance (Vázquez-Barquero, 1997; Sternberg, 2000; 392 and Stimson et al. 2009), accelerated the willingness of businesses to engage in partnership with trade unions, statutory and regional agencies, local government and the community and voluntary sector. These factors, together with a recognition of the limitations on central governments motivated the state to become a gradual, if somewhat reluctant advocate of partnership approaches1. In addition, the EU has provided a critical impetus to the development of partnership processes specifically through initiatives such as INTERREG, which targets cross-border collaboration among cities and regions, and LEADER, which is a strongly bottom-up approach to rural development. The EU has also promoted dedicated Community Initiatives in the area of social policy such as URBAN (targeted at disadvantaged urban communities) NOW (New Opportunities for Women) and EQUAL (which sought to promote equality of access to the labour market, with specific targeting of marginalised groups). Thus, national (state level) and supranational factors have had a significant influence on the evolution of partnerships and the emergence of varied and multi-level approaches to social welfare provision. The OECD has noted that "support for endogenous development can be highly effective in supporting long-term development through measures such as support for entrepreneurship, developing human capital, spreading innovation, and building local institutions and firm network" (1999: 32-33).

The burgeoning of partnership structures and mechanisms has propelled a shift in the management and delivery of social welfare, whereby traditional state-led schemes (universal and / or means-tested) are either being replaced by or complemented with service provision models that are more tailored to addressing individual client needs and potential and are more territorially differentiated. Consequently, social welfare is increasingly viewed not just as a safety net for those experiencing poverty or disadvantage, but as part of a suite of interventions designed to promote social inclusion, empowerment and community cohesion and development (NESC, 2005; McEwen, 2011). New and emerging approaches to social welfare provision and actors' perspectives thereof raise a number of challenges and questions that this chapter seeks to elucidate. The role of beneficiaries in shaping and influencing the delivery of supports and the degree to which service users are actually empowered is a key issue. Allied to the change in the perception of welfare recipients from clients to customers and their increased participation in making decisions about the orientation of social welfare services, is the complex issue of governance. Partnership governance implies that agencies share power with other stakeholders, including representatives of the beneficiaries (Douglas and O'Keeffe, 2009, Stimson et al, 2009). New power structures and networked decision-making arrangements (Herrschel and

<sup>1</sup> The European Foundation (2003: 14 and 2005) provides further examples of what it describes as "grassroots initiatives" that have stimulated the development of partnerships in Germany, Portugal and Austria. Noya (2009) and Noya and Clarence (2007) provide case study analysis of social economy contributions to local economic development in Canada and Europe.

invest their savings locally and access credit on favourable terms. Such movements serve to alleviate poverty and support community development (Briscoe and Ward, 2005), and their successes at local level have had the effect of enticing statutory bodies and the productive

Global economic trends associated with the increased mobility of capital, trade liberalisation and the growing significance of regional and territorial conditions in determining macro and micro-economic performance (Vázquez-Barquero, 1997; Sternberg, 2000; 392 and Stimson et al. 2009), accelerated the willingness of businesses to engage in partnership with trade unions, statutory and regional agencies, local government and the community and voluntary sector. These factors, together with a recognition of the limitations on central governments motivated the state to become a gradual, if somewhat reluctant advocate of partnership approaches1. In addition, the EU has provided a critical impetus to the development of partnership processes specifically through initiatives such as INTERREG, which targets cross-border collaboration among cities and regions, and LEADER, which is a strongly bottom-up approach to rural development. The EU has also promoted dedicated Community Initiatives in the area of social policy such as URBAN (targeted at disadvantaged urban communities) NOW (New Opportunities for Women) and EQUAL (which sought to promote equality of access to the labour market, with specific targeting of marginalised groups). Thus, national (state level) and supranational factors have had a significant influence on the evolution of partnerships and the emergence of varied and multi-level approaches to social welfare provision. The OECD has noted that "support for endogenous development can be highly effective in supporting long-term development through measures such as support for entrepreneurship, developing human capital, spreading innovation, and building local institutions and firm network" (1999: 32-33).

The burgeoning of partnership structures and mechanisms has propelled a shift in the management and delivery of social welfare, whereby traditional state-led schemes (universal and / or means-tested) are either being replaced by or complemented with service provision models that are more tailored to addressing individual client needs and potential and are more territorially differentiated. Consequently, social welfare is increasingly viewed not just as a safety net for those experiencing poverty or disadvantage, but as part of a suite of interventions designed to promote social inclusion, empowerment and community cohesion and development (NESC, 2005; McEwen, 2011). New and emerging approaches to social welfare provision and actors' perspectives thereof raise a number of challenges and questions that this chapter seeks to elucidate. The role of beneficiaries in shaping and influencing the delivery of supports and the degree to which service users are actually empowered is a key issue. Allied to the change in the perception of welfare recipients from clients to customers and their increased participation in making decisions about the orientation of social welfare services, is the complex issue of governance. Partnership governance implies that agencies share power with other stakeholders, including representatives of the beneficiaries (Douglas and O'Keeffe, 2009, Stimson et al, 2009). New power structures and networked decision-making arrangements (Herrschel and

1 The European Foundation (2003: 14 and 2005) provides further examples of what it describes as "grassroots initiatives" that have stimulated the development of partnerships in Germany, Portugal and Austria. Noya (2009) and Noya and Clarence (2007) provide case study analysis of social economy

contributions to local economic development in Canada and Europe.

sector to engage in collaborative structures with civil society.

Tallberg, 2011) mark a reduction in the power held by top-down agencies as partnerships allow for inputs from service-users, communities, unions, employers, producers and local government. Thus, challenges emerge in respect of the capacity of endogenous efforts to generate innovation, the interfaces and dynamics between representative and participative democracy, accessing resources for development, determining the appropriate spatial scales of intervention and the ability of partnerships to effect long-term change in mainstream policies and systems.

This chapter draws on experiences in social welfare service delivery across four European states. It outlines and assesses how Area-Based Partnership organisations in Ireland, Finland, Spain and Sweden have approached social welfare provision. The specific case studies that are elaborated here demonstrate how partnerships have integrated social welfare into local development actions. They have done so to varying degrees and with variable levels of success. Their approaches have been shaped not just by national and local policies and systems, but by the levels of collaboration or conflict between agencies involved in the partnership itself. The selected case studies for this chapter are all located in predominantly rural areas. Thus, they provide insights into outreach delivery of welfare services, and they reveal how agencies responded to issues such as accessibility, transport provision and information dissemination. The case studies also address how rural partnerships seek to support progression to employment in the context of a narrow local economic base.

The chapter opens with a review of the emerging and increasing roles that Area-Based / territorial Partnerships play in social welfare services generally. It examines the drivers of such processes and how these have manifested themselves in different locations and contexts. The chapter describes partnerships as development agencies with a social welfare brief, and it presents and discusses their composition, structures and operations. Subsequently, the chapter considers the outputs and impacts of Area-Based Partnerships' approaches to social welfare, including stakeholder participation and the degrees of innovation, the extent to which initiatives have become mainstreamed, and the ways in which regional and national policies and practices may have been amended as a result of local pilots and lessons. The chapter also assesses the limitations of area-based approaches, and it questions the significance of factors such as the lack of long-term funding streams, shortcomings in enforcement and limited information dissemination.
