Rules, control

1
Rules, control trust reconfiguring the
governance of community - government relations

• Governments Communities in Partnership the
  next steps
• CPP BSL Symposium
• 18 May 2005
• Tim Reddel
• Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Qld

2
Introduction

• BSL sustainable economies\ending poverty and
  promoting social inclusion\community development
  and democratic governance
• Community is popular again
• History - Welfare Society and Welfare State
• Today - Partnership seen in the context of
  dominant neo-liberal conservative communitarian
  agendas

3
Key Issues Questions

• Current debates about Government Community
  relations highlight contested nature of
  partnerships
• Need to develop a historical more critical
  understanding of nature of partnerships
• COMMUNITY still the spray on solution
  Bryson Mowbray, 1981 2005
• Is there more than one COMMUNITY?

4
Contested Policy Context

• Relationship between spheres/institutions of the
  state, market civil society is ill defined
• International resurgence (or re-emergence?) in
  ideas/values of community, localism partnership
• Contested policy discourses greater
  responsiveness by government to community
  needs/aspirations, social exclusion and economic
  reforms

5
Contested Policy Context

• NPM competitive market solutions in public
  policy are under some scrutiny
• Hollowing Out of the state searching for
  non-state devolved solutions
• Community alienation disengagement from
  traditional political/policy institutions
• PARTNERHSIP Accepted public policy discourse
  eg. Public-private partnerships

6
Partnerships and Governance Directions
Governance Directions Organizing principles Implications for Community Sector
Social Democratic Participatory Democratic processes Community participation, public sector reform Citizenship
Radical Pluralist Social Movements Activism Critique from diverse sectors
Corporatist Bargained consensus between stakeholders State centric managed access to policy making
Market The Contract minimalist state Regulation Monitoring of Outputs/Outcomes/Risks Policy/Advocacy capacity negated by Clientelism
Conservative Communitarian Active civil society for some! but passive State Social political risk shifted to sector
Associational Networks of State, Civil Society Markets Engagement in localized centralized policy processes
7
Partnership policy dimensions

• Local partnerships policy response to poverty
  promoting social inclusion
• International directions - Geddes (2005) scan of
  national welfare regimes partnership models,
  esp. Europe
• Neo-liberal tendency in local partnerships, but
  national and local politics can make a difference

8
Welfare regime Poverty exclusion Local partnership
Liberal (UK) Disabling Well developed targeted response to disabling exclusion
Conservative (Germany, Austria) Marginal/ Integrated Limited tends to traditional social partner model
Social democratic (Scandinavian countries) Marginal Limited by strong welfare state
Latin rim (Spain, Portugal) Integrated Limited but expanding with EU funding
9
Partnerships Local Governance

• Structural issues
• Power and accountability in local partnerships
  and the implications for local governance more
  widely
• Capacity, fitness for purpose and potential
  governance failure

10
Partnership success or failure?

• Cross-sectoral collaboration between actors from
  the three spheres of state, market and civil
  society
• Co-ordinated institutional and organisational
  change
• Co-ordinated multi-level processes

11
Partnerships in practice

• Australian scan of recent local partnership
  events initiatives over reliance on social
  capital as organising principle
• Notions of trust, co-operation, joint problem
  solving, shared risks secondary to corporate
  management, markets competition

12
Queensland Partnership Initiatives

• Queensland is different Recent history of
  populist and conflictual government policy making
  with citizen participation limited to reactive
  public protest and suppression of other basic
  civil liberties
• Reform from the 1990s based on the nexus of
  policy coordination and public administration
  reform powerful central agencies
• A government of routines - process,
  co-ordination, management and control
• Partnerships not an explicit policy direction

13
Queensland Partnership Initiatives

• Recent Government initiatives capacity
  building, engagement joined-up aspirations
• Community Cabinets, Cape York Partnerships,
  Regional Engagement, Early Intervention
  Prevention, Community Renewal, Place Management,
  Community Sector development, Child Safety
  partnerships

14
Case Study- Indigenous partnership policies in
Queensland

• Regional focus Cape York - to address community
  violence alcohol abuse in areas of exclusion
  Meeting the Challenges, Making Choices
• New engagement models Negotiation Tables,
  Regional Budgets, Government Champions,
  Performance Measurement Systems still
  developing
• Partnerships Queensland - Strategic approach
  across the State

15
Case Study - Community Services Strategy in
Queensland Key Partnership principles

• Statement of partnership between Government and
  community services (Qld)
• Interdependence
• State and Local Government, and non-government
  Community service providers have distinct but
  complementary roles and responsibilities in
  developing public policy and delivering community
  services.
•  
• Independence and autonomy
• The role of community service providers in
  activities outside those funded by State
  Government, includes the development of
  innovative service responses and the right,
  within the law, to publicly comment on, or
  challenge State Government policy and practice,
  and lobby when necessary.
• (Queensland government 2000)
• BUT, THEN WHAT?
• Current project Strengthening NGOS - focus
  on tangible changes eg. Funding reform, capacity
  building for the sector, community outcomes
  (2005)

16
Developing Partnership Technologies

• Policy focus is political shared ownership of
  local strategic vision, problems
• Culture that builds ad hoc coalitions for change
  plus openness closure when needed
• Implementation partnerships based on trust that
  allow for confrontation when needed

17
Developing Partnership Technologies

• Skills stakeholder analysis diplomacy
• Infrastructure devolved centralised
  institutions
• Resources strategic mix of public, private
  community resources
• Accountablities clear rules that promote
  deliberation dialogue

18
Future Directions?

• Reaffirm citizenship universal diverse
• Strategic policy clarity, direction
  leadership Whose partnership and for what?
• Balance local, regional central interests
• Build institutional architecture at all levels
  place, civil society, central government
• Public sector/policy process reform community
  sector infrastructure e.g. role of peak bodies,
  service delivery agencies localized
  associations funding reform