In this chapter, we consider the views of senior practitioners and their perceptions of the effectiveness and efficacy of public health partnerships. This grouping includes Directors of Public Health (DsPH), Directors of Commissioning, Councillors and other senior public health practitioners.

The research was conducted in nine locations in England between 2008 and 2010. Nine case study sites were selected according to the strength of partnership working – high, medium, low – with three sites in each category. The sample of field study sites was chosen in consultation with members of the Local Government Improvement and Development (LGID) (formerly the Improvement and Development Agency [IDeA]) Healthy Communities Team and the selection was informed by its healthy communities peer review benchmark (IDeA, 2007), in which local authorities were assessed as to how well they were tackling health improvement and health inequalities in their locality. Assessing the effectiveness of partnerships in combating health inequalities is a key element of the peer review process. As a co-investigator on the study, the IDeA/LGID's input into selecting the nine field sites was critical and we drew heavily on their deep knowledge and experience, which also had the advantage of being up-to-date in a rapidly changing policy and organisational environment.

The LGID benchmark for healthy communities is comprised of four themes: (1) leadership; (2) empowering communities; (3) making it happen; and (4) improving performance. Each of these is further divided into three key elements. The issue of partnership is an important component of themes 1 (all three elements – vision, strategy, leadership), 3 (the elements concerned with resources and delivery) and 4 (all three elements – performance management, learning culture, support) (IDeA, 2007). Our field sites in the high-partnership-based category were performing at the highest level; those in the moderate category were performing well; and those in the weak/low category were not performing as well as they might. Admittedly, these categories are somewhat subjective, being based on the judgements made by the peer review team, but the tool was validated and well-received by those subjected to it, so should be deemed a fair assessment of performance. It certainly seemed sufficiently robust to employ it in identifying the sample of field sites.