ABSTRACT
In recent years, 'partnership' between organisations, across different sectors, or with service users, has become one of the most talked-about issues in UK policy making. Some of the most controversial features of cross-boundary working, especially those associated with public/private partnerships, regularly make the headlines of the national press, as in the following extract from the Guardian: 'Stephen Byers, the transport secretary, was plunged into a new political crisis last night after it emerged that the taxpayer is to throw a £30m life-line to the partprivatised national air traffic control system' (Treanor, Wintour and Harper, 2002).
