The issue of ‘joined up’ governance and partnership working (between statutory partners, between the state and the voluntary sector and between the state and the private sector) is one which currently occupies the attention of policy makers and academics across mixed-liberal welfare states such as the European Union, Nordic, Commonwealth and North American welfare regimes (Geddes and Benington, 2001; Considine and Lewis, 2003; Bradford, 2003; Ovretveit, 2003). Many of these states, the UK included, are attempting to tackle the issues of growing demands for services, the perceived ineffectiveness and inefficiency of governments in responding to welfare need and the ‘hollowing out’ of the state that is a feature of modern mixed-liberal welfare states, particularly those which are attempting to find a ‘Third Way’ between socialist bureaucracies and market-driven liberalism (Giddens, 1998). The policy response, both in the UK and internationally, has been to encourage ‘partnership’ working between the various arms of the state, and between the state and the private and voluntary sector, as well as emphasizing ‘partnership’ working between the state and local users and communities.