Learning in and for interagency working: conceptual tensions in 'joined up' practice

Abstract

Contemporary UK social policy strongly promotes 'joined up' working as a driver of social inclusion. However, recent studies suggest that policy directives are running ahead of the conceptualisation of interagency collaboration. In particular, minimal attention has been paid to conceptualising the forms of professional learning required to expand interagency practice and the ideal of 'joined up' working is rarely informed by coherent theories of work. The Learning in and for Interagency Working project's aim is to examine and support the professional learning needed to foster 'joined up', interagency working. Its activity theory derived research is informed by three particular concerns: identification of new professional practices emerging within interagency working; location of emerging forms of interagency collaboration within coherent theories of work; understanding of the historically changing character of organisational work, user engagement and related learning. This paper draws upon the project's initial review of studies of interagency collaboration and upon the experiences described by practitioners in project workshops. A key premise of the paper is that most UK organisations currently seeking to develop interagency provision for social inclusion are operating at the cusp between 'mass customisation' and 'co-configuration', the latter being the form of working currently emerging in complex inter-professional settings (Victor and Boynton, 1998). The reviewed literature reflects the cuspate nature of interagency working in the UK; this is apparent in current literature's tentative analyses of key features of co-configuration in interagency settings, such as the radical distribution of expertise and the dynamic, reciprocal relationships between providers, clients and products through which adaptive, intelligent services are negotiated. This paper focuses upon the need to develop conceptual tools that are adequate to the task of analysing the forms of interagency practice and attendant learning that characterise emerging models of UK social provision.