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Networks, collaboration and partnerships between the government and community groups offer prospects for stronger governance and improved public value. Many authors have reported on processes that enhance the prospects for successful collaborations, especially in handling intractable issues, but few have examined the limits to partnerships. A simple theory of government (involving the efforts of"reasonable people") is devised to explore the issues in creating sustainable partnerships. A graphical presentation is used to demonstrate that successful partnerships rely on more than good management; their success also depends on their effects on the rest of the polity, and the response to those effects. These processes limit the potential for partnerships to offer a general solution to problems of governance. Three conditions for sustainable partnerships are derived; benefit, support and acceptability. Attention to good network management, political risks and sound public administration can improve the prospects for a successful and sustainable partnership, but eventually (like other forms of human endeavour) there are limits to partnerships.

An insider's analysis of the relationship between parliamentarians and public servants. (Judges are there too; it turns out there are more than two parties in the relationship between officials and politicians.) Constitutional issues are covered, but the text focuses more on the pressures on people as they work in different parts of government.

This thesis considers how best to administer redistribution policies. It focuses particularly on the information needed to assess relative circumstances, the implications of the government collecting such information, and processes by which the appropriate information may be assembled and assessed. In New Zealand, as with many other OECD nations, the Government's redistribution policies are administered through a range of different agencies, with duplication in some areas and gaps in others. An integrated approach to redistribution systems may offer a means to improve equity and efficiency. Part One discusses the assessment of relative well-being, and adopts the choice set as the intellectual device for this purpose. The time period for the assessment of income is examined in detail, with the conclusion that a long period should be used except where the individual is constrained to operate under a short time horizon. A new concept of "bankability" is developed as a means of identifying those operating under such constraints. Part Two uses the philosophical foundations of the value of privacy to develop a new statement of the right to privacy, such that everyone should be protected against the requirement to divulge information, unless that information is the "business" of another party. A view on the business of the state depends on one's ideology of the state. Since it is generally accepted in New Zealand in the late twentieth century that the state has a role in redistribution, the state has some right to collect information for that purpose. However, the rights of the state are moderated by the existence of a common law tradition of respect for individuals. A set of criteria for evaluating redistribution systems is devised in Part Three. These criteria, which include consideration of the information to be collected, individual control over personal information, and administrative simplicity, are then used to identify significant weaknesses in the systems currentl