The Limits of Co-ordination: Community Strategies as Multi-purpose Vehicles in Wales

UK local authorities are subject to a statutory duty to prepare and deliver community strategies in collaboration with a range of public, private, voluntary and community interests. Community strategies are policy instruments intended to enhance local well-being by improving policy and service co-ordination, tackling cross-cutting issues and targeting resources at community priorities. This paper argues that in practice the delivery of community strategies is hampered by the co-existence of multiple purposes. Drawing on early research in Wales, the paper describes and discusses the purposes attached to community strategies by different stakeholders and considers their implications, singly and in combination, for policy and practice. It concludes that there are fundamental tensions between purposes that limit the capacity of community strategies to improve policy co-ordination and service delivery