ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a good example of the programme he designed to support the improvement of leadership in a local strategic partnership (LSP), a new type of organization set up by the UK government to re-focus the delivery of services to meet local community needs. The LSP includes police, the local health trust, education, voluntary, business, and other sectors. The book also emphasizes that it is important to see systemic consultation as both similar to and different from any other approach to consultation. Consultants from any walk of life would probably agree that these six stages of consultation are fundamental to the work, although they might cast them in different terms.
