Partnerships in Local Government: The case of transition support services for young people with learning disabilities

Abstract

This paper examines a type of partnership that is formed to deliver transition support services for young people with learning disabilities. What makes transition partnerships instructive for partnership research is that they are constituted between statutory and non-statutory agencies across a wide range of service sectors. Transition for this population group with its specific needs has often been described as a ‘wicked problem’. The paper suggests that a split between strategic and operational levels of partnership work adversely affects policy implementation and contributes to the inability of stakeholders to bring about improved outcomes for service users.