This overview and compendium published by CIPFA looks at the issues and possible approaches to evaluating partnerships and how to answer the question ‘does partnership represent a good value-for-money solution?’

The term partnership covers a broad spectrum of meaning. The publication looks only at partnerships that are not underpinned by a contract and which are commonly described as either advisory, strategic or executive. CIPFA’s Financial Management Panel has reviewed existing literature and guidance to provide an overview on how to approach the evaluation of partnerships and a number of organisations have contributed additional resources developed for their own partnership reviews.

Evaluating partnerships is something that many organisations struggle with as it can be time consuming and frustrating and it takes up resources. Organisations with different cultures have to work together in trust and with mutual understanding. There are long timescales for some desired policy outcomes, partner bodies can have different perspectives on what success looks like, and each partnership operates within different contexts.

In this report, evaluation is discussed under three aspects – behaviours, performance and value for money. It will help partnerships and their parent partners develop evaluation approaches and methods to inform future development and improvement.

Published by CIPFA. £100.00.