No one could accuse this government of being slouches when it comes to engaging business and the voluntary sector. New Deal, Education Action Zones, Health Action Zones, eighteen Policy Action Teams to flesh out "New Deal for Communities" and tackle social exclusion, a hundred or more Ministerial Taskforces. And that is before the City boys and girls get involved in Private Finance Initiative deals. I met one business leader the other night who was planning to submit an entry to the Guiness Book of Records - on the basis that he had not been invited to a Downing Street consultation, a Chancellor's seminar, an RDA board or a government taskforce.

From his first speech on the steps of Downing Street as Prime Minister, Tony Blair has made clear his wish to govern in partnership.

And yet, somehow, the reality has not yet matched the good intentions, the rhetoric or the invitations. Talk privately to the policy wonks and they express frustration at the contribution from business. Move beyond the M25, and business angst at the lack of joined-up government, goal-posting changing with the abolition of TECs , and a plethora of new ministerial initiatives is palpable amongst business-people already trying to participate in public-private-community partnerships. "It's zones R-us" the Cumbrian businessman told me when I was in Carlisle recently. "Here in Brighton," I was told, "we have more pilots than Gatwick Airport!"

So does this mean that the idea of building cross-sectoral partnerships to tackle some of the deep, underlying problems confronting British society - poor schools; disaffected young people; excluded communities; homelessness - are doomed to failure?

Certainly not! But it does mean that we have to get smarter at this Partnership Business! Specifically: we need to be more sophisticated in our understanding of what each sector really can bring to the table.

At its best, Whitehall is good at policy formulation and public accountability. It does not tend to be very good at selling ideas and enthusing; nor at implementation. Business is less confident in the policy arena - but give it a specific challenge to solve! Business tends to be better at understanding markets and technology and making things happen. Voluntary and community organisations may flip either way on the above - but also bring very distinct value-added in terms of the Heineken Effect - i.e. being able to reach the parts that the others cannot.

Secondly, too many partnerships ignore the Golden Rules of Partnership! Namely: to make the time and space to develop a common vision and mission for the partnership; to understand what each partner wants from the collaboration and can bring to it; an agreed action plan with clear accountabilities and timetables - and process for holding partners to account; a communications strategy to ensure that all stakeholders are kept regularly informed and have the opportunity to feedback; and all partners willing and able to respect the contributions of each other.

Public-private-community partnerships are a very different way of operating. Personally, I don't believe they are the answer in all circumstances - but where appropriate they can be a superior route to performance. Given the fact that very people have been involved in successful cross-sectoral partnerships, we should be more willing to recognise that this is a new approach; and that, therefore, there should be a proactive approach to training people in all three sectors to be able to work in partnerships.
A virtual school for partnerships might be appropriate. This would involve some practical courses - taught by practitioners not theoreticians - which can be made available to existing training organisations like the Civil Service College at Sunningdale and the Top Management Programme etc; MBA and executive management programmes in business schools; and third sector training opportunities like the School for Social Entrepreneurs and the Community Entrepreneurs Network.

My own experience in recent years, chairing two government bodies convinces me that there are huge opportunities from building effective but unexpected synergies between the sectors - but that this does not come naturally or easily. Having spent most of my adult life at the interface between business, ngos and public sector, I realise that this is not a common experience and that - for example - many disability rights campaigners have not got strong business networks; nor do civil servants necessarily know axiomatically what business can really be asked to contribute - which would make sense for business as well as for society.

I'd like to see an independent analysis now of what has been the experience of some recent public-private-community partnerships such as the TECs - and what we can learn together from such an agreed analysis. Otherwise, I fear, we will continue to achieve sub-optimal results from what could be a distinctive source of comparative advantage for UK plc if only we could translate the desire for partnership into more broadscale implementation.

David Grayson

David Grayson is a director of Business in the Community. He was co-founder of the Newcastle-based Project North East. He is chairman of the National Disability Council and of the Business Link National Accreditation Advisory Board. He chaired the joint NCVO-BITC Taskforce 2002 and chaired a Social Exclusion Unit Policy Action Team investigation of community entrepreneurs this summer.