EDITORIAL What Are We Learning From the Partnership Experience? John Diamond Edge Hill College of Higher Education Joyce Liddle University of Durham The growth in partnership working across the public/private/voluntary sector over the past 10 years has focussed our attention on the extent to which it represents a significant shift in the processes of public policy making. In particular, we have become accustomed to the notion that the partnership model is a necessary pre-condition for effecting change not only in the policy process but in the delivery of public services. At the same time we can observe how 'partnership' within the public sector is now considered the norm. Alongside this growth in partnership working has been the emphasis on 'collaboration' and 'learning' from the partnership experience. In setting the context for this special edition of Public Policy and Administration we want to revisit some of the assumptions which have informed this shift, in practice and to identify the ways in which we might provide a helpful paradigm from which to learn. We need to remind ourselves that the growth in partnership working is based upon two apparently contradictory propositions: Firstly, that the bureaucratic model of the public sector with its rigid divisions between different professionals and its inflexibility in service delivery needed to be reformed. In the UK in the late 1970s/early 1980s two distinct models emerged. At the level of local government a significant number of Labour (and Liberal) run local authorities sought to assert their independence to develop an alternative set of policies in the New Right's response to the perceived failings of the welfare state. Whilst this approach laid claim to the primacy of 'localism' in articulating a set of initiatives to meet the needs of their local communities they had a lot in common. They attempted to restructure the organisational boundaries within their respective local authorities by moving away from a departmental run approach to services to a more integrated approach by stressing the needs of Public Policy and Administration Volume 20 No. 3 Autumn 2005 I