Guidance - 24-06-2025
Nature and people grow stronger by reaching up and out. Develop your local authority’s approach to partnership working with our explorer’s guide and toolkit.
Communities - Community engagement
This resource looks at how local authorities can help shape a better future for people and places by taking a strategic approach to partnership working. It looks at different frameworks, its potential benefits and things to watch out for. There’s also a best practice guide with tools to get you started.
Working in partnership can be particularly beneficial where resources are pooled to deliver shared outcomes. For example, partnering with a voluntary sector organisation to deliver an urban greening project could maximise the social benefits for the local community and provide a solution for future stewardship of new green assets.
Partnership working can equip you with tools that allow you to tackle challenges in a new way. Focusing ambitions, diversifying income, sharing resources and achieving common goals by allowing everyone to bring something unique and valuable to the table.
Those who’ve taken a strategic approach to partnership working tend to see better results. In other words, it’s best to think of how you work with external organisations as part of your overall urban greening delivery plan.
Three local authorities share how they’ve taken a more strategic approach to partnership working, and the benefits it has helped to deliver for people and nature.
Hull City Council
Gateshead Council
Oxfordshire County Council
There are various types of partnerships. A defined framework provides a level of due diligence and risk management for your local authority and gives external partners reassurance and support. Here are three types to consider:
Each local authority will have slightly different ways of defining partnership working. Below are some ways that partnership working could be applied in a local context, and some examples of where it might not be appropriate. For more help deciding when to apply a partnership framework, here’s an ‘opportunity spotter’s guide’.
Local authorities have differing views on whether commercial or service contracts and grant awards constitute partnerships. A more holistic and strategic approach would tend to consider these types of arrangements as partnerships, which will usually result in additional benefits.
If an issue or development is primarily the responsibility of one organisation, with others only having a marginal interest, then a partnership may not be appropriate. Similarly, where the local authority has direct control over a budget and decision-making responsibilities, it would be better to consider an alternative way to define the situation.
It can be tempting to minimise bureaucracy and take a more informal approach to partnership working. In the long run, clear governance is essential. It may however be appropriate to have a level of flex for the amount of ‘red tape’ needed depending on the level of risk, agreed responsibilities and complexity of the agreement.
There are many benefits to partnership working which all interact with and support each other.
From helping everyone involved achieve their strategic objectives to accessing a wider range of skillsets and funding opportunities, here’s a rundown of the benefits it can bring.
A partnership of organisations working with communities in different ways and at different levels is well-placed to respond to people and nature’s needs at a very local level.
In a partnership context, varied working timelines and scales can support quick decision-making and progression of ideas, to enable partners to jump on opportunities and be responsive to local need.
An external partner could offer support to trial and flex new ideas, leading to new and innovative ways to help people and nature thrive.
An external partner may be better placed to negotiate and offer different insights.
An alliance of partners brings different viewpoints, skills, experience, services and industries together.
Partnerships can offer mutual benefits in helping to deliver a range of strategic objectives, such as positive social or environmental outcomes.
Partnerships could ensure that the needs of specific marginalised groups (e.g. disabled people, refugees or care leavers) are met, enabling even more people to enjoy nature near to where they live.
A partner may have formal or informal knowledge and data about communities that helps deliver projects that meet their needs.
Strategic partnerships can improve the visibility of a cause or project, engaging a more diverse group of people with the positive work of the organisations involved.
External organisations may be eligible to apply for new funding opportunities, which means more bees, butterflies, parks and ponds for urban communities.
An external partner might offer additional funding for community projects, which means more opportunities for nature to recover and thrive.
Partners may have the means to generate different sources of funding, such as private or charitable income, which means potential funding for delivering services, projects and developments.
Access to a pool of resources across a partnership can make it easier to help nature thrive, getting the right skills, to the right places, at the right times.
An external partner may be able to provide the local authority with resources or value in kind that are not met by their own budgets.
An external partner may have the means to secure things for lower prices, which means investment in people and nature goes further.
To set your partnership up for success, it’s important to think ahead about any implications and challenges you may need to overcome.
Here are some things to watch out for and consider. You’ll find tools to avoid these potential pitfalls below.
The approach, setup and management of partnerships can be time consuming and require varied resources from within the local authority (including procurement and legal) meaning there is an internal cost.
The external partner may not have the resources and/or skillsets needed to meet the requirements of the local authority’s partnership framework/administrative essentials.
If a strong governance structure is not in place, tensions and conflict around roles and responsibilities could arise, potentially resulting in a termination of the partnership.
Our toolkit below has recommendations on how to manage risk around:
The long-term nature of some projects and partnerships, which may mean that the partnership needs to evolve, and an exit strategy is required to manage this
Cost-saving requirements and cuts within local authorities, which can mean a change in priorities and/or a structural change, possibly impacting on a partnership agreement
The income generated by various activities which may go directly to the partners or other stakeholders rather than the local authority. This could mean the local authority has less control over how this income is spent
Rectifying a problem caused by a partner or the potential resulting legal elements which could be time consuming, reputationally damaging and costly
The relationship management element of partnership working requires specific skillsets and experience which the local authority needs to carefully consider, ensuring a suitable level of resource is allocated to maximise the return on investment.
If the process is not seen to be fair and transparent, other organisations or individuals could raise objections to partnerships on the grounds of partiality or discrimination.
Tension between partners or a difference in vision could cause relationship issues or reputational damage.
Here are three stages towards a more strategic approach to partnership working. Expand the tiles below and explore the tools using the buttons to the right to get started.
For more support and ideas, take a look at the Local Government Association’s (LGA) guide to place-based partnerships and the outputs from the government’s Partnerships for People and Place programme.
The Local Government Association has created a guide that supports local authorities to work with partners to achieve shared goals and improved outcomes for local nature, people and places.
Read the LGA guideThe Partnerships for People and Place programme tested a new approach to how government departments undertake ‘place-based’ policy design and delivery.
Visit the programme pageText on this web page is licensed by the Urban Forest Accelerator programme under CC BY 4.0. The programme was run in partnership with the Community Forest Trust and Woodland Trust, and funded by the Trees Call to Action Fund. This fund was developed by Defra in partnership with the Forestry Commission and is being delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Special thanks to Birmingham City Council and Birmingham TreePeople.
The following works contain open-source material licensed under CC by 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0