Bridging the accountability gap - Audit Commission

20
Governing partnerships | The partnership landscape
Figure 4
NHS organisations’ partnership working to improve services
NHS organisations also experienced problems with the governance arrangements in
partnerships.
Percentage
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
PCT Average Trust SHA
NHS NHS NHS NHS
(n=303) (n=602) (n=271) (n=28)
NHS body
Base: All NHS organisations
Source: Audit Commission 2004
NHS bodies
involved in any
partnership
arrangements
...and
experienced
problems with
the governance
arrangements/
controls
environment of
the partnership
46 Despite the problems that public organisations can experience in partnership working,
only two in five of all fire organisations (38 per cent), police authorities and councils (41 per
cent each) involved in partnerships have partnership agreements (Figure 5). Because
proportionately more NHS bodies enter partnerships using Health Act flexibilities, they are
more likely to have these agreements, which set out the nature and scope of the
partnership, the key risks and accountabilities. We return to this topic in Chapter 5.
47 An analysis of auditors’ returns shows that PCTs without an agreement are nearly twice
as likely as those with one to have problems with their partnership governance
arrangements (45 per cent compared with 27 per cent). For acute trusts, the difference is
even more marked – those without an agreement are nearly three times as likely to