Purpose – To review the current debates on partnership working and to examine whether a “fitness for purpose” test is an appropriate way of evaluating existing developments. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the conceptual frameworks within which the partnership discourse...

In the late 1820s, when British Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel introduced legislation into the British parliament to create the very first police department, the phrase that the ‘police are the public, and the public are the police' was developed to allay public fears that the new institution...

Much has been written about the role of information and communications technology (ICTs) as a principled input of the “new economy”. Much has also been written about the demise of older industrial regions and local economies. In a populist narrative about contemporary society it seems that...