2.6.5 Costs of partnership

While there may be financial savings from partnership, there can also be added costs. As Chauhan comments, ‘it takes resources and sustained efforts to establish, develop and maintain partnerships, whether these resources are in the form of money, time, skills, facilities or equipment’ (Chauhan, 2007, p. 239).

Networking and relationship building take a lot of time – a regular complaint of practitioners engaged in partnership working is that it involves lots of meetings – and time is money. Different organisations will have different levels of resources and capacity to engage.

Individual agencies may be fiercely protective of their own budgets. In addition, potential partners may also be potential competitors for funding, without which their own organisation might not survive. These sorts of pressures can act as strong disincentives to collaboration.