Partnership working and listening to your stakeholders

The focus on effective collaboration between criminal justice and local government agencies has never been greater.  Local Area Agreements, for example, provide frameworks in which delivery partners must work together towards shared outcomes for their citizens.  The ‘Making Communities Safer’ Public Service Agreement (PSA 23) enshrines partnership working in its baseline question, agreement that "the police and local council are dealing with the anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area".

We can help you understand what your key stakeholders think, and what they see as the opportunities and barriers to successful partnership working.  Understanding how others see you is crucial for so many reasons – planning your communications, developing marketing strategies, and improving the services you deliver.  We can bring a variety of methodologies to bear. 

Depth-interviews

Depth interviews are semi-structured one-to-one interviews which enable interviewers to develop a rapport with respondents, allowing individuals’ viewpoints to be explored in significant detail.  Stakeholder research is ideally suited to depth-interviews.

Discussion groups and deliberative events

When stakeholders can be brought together, discussion groups and deliberative events such as workshops can provide the ideal arena for exploring and understanding opinions.  These approaches provide a dynamic forum in which participants can learn about and react to new information, and develop ideas collaboratively. 

Mixed methodology approaches

We understand that stakeholders are often busy, can be hard to reach, and may come from diverse backgrounds and organisations.  As such, a mixed methodology approach, for instance combining telephone, postal and online methodologies, is often most appropriate. 

Innovative approaches

Stakeholder research can deliver highly detailed, complex and inter-linked data, which can be challenging to analyse using traditional research tools.  We have developed innovative approaches to understand what stakeholders are thinking.  For example we have developed an online collaborative tool (a 'wiki') via which stakeholders can share knowledge and develop ideas, and have also used online brainstorming exercises allowing stakeholders to work together to prioritise issues.