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British public sector organisations than compared to their private sector counterparts; so the issue of 'voice' should, in theory, be less problematic. Our case study offers insights, therefore, into the development of partnership within a supposedly 'best practice' involvement culture. Any problems identified with regard to the implementation of partnership in the NHS case would be far more pronounced, we would argue, in the less regulated culture of the private sector.

In accordance with the Labour government's human resource management and modernisation strategy for the NHS (see Stuart and Martinez Lucio, 2000), Northern Trust has attempted to introduce a culture of partnership. Thus, it has sought to follow the set timetables established centrally for the introduction of partnership, and a joint management-trade union committee was established to oversee the development of partnership. The committee held joint training days on the nature of the partnership approach, and was assisted by the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA) in this process. Negotiations over the establishment of 'partnership forums' proved, however, unable to deliver an agreement within the nationally established guidelines. Instead, a number of problems emerged which offer useful insights into the potential constraints on the development of partnership in the NHS.

Firstly, the trade union side was concerned that the introduction of partnership could undermine the existing institutional relations and collective forms of representation within the organisation. The increasing management interest in partnership was perceived, by the unions, to be centrally driven and at a tangent with the broad management approach operating at the Trust level, which was more concerned with 'mimicking' the private sector. The Head of human resource management, for example, was regarded as obsessed, at least in rhetorical terms, with the common adage of 'tearing up the rule books and starting again'. Hence there was an element of concern as to how any new partnership forums between management and unions would impact on the traditional remit of union involvement - there were doubts at the way partnership would be structured in terms of its involvement processes. The broad management view of partnership was that it represented a much more generic set of changes to the relations between managers and employees, e.g. developments in individual relations amongst staff and management, a change in the 'them and us' mentality and the adoption of a new commitment to joint problem sharing. This view of partnership as a change in the culture of industrial relations did not coincide with the 'harder' concerns of the unions, which, instead, viewed partnership as an opportunity to increase the levels of traditional structures of consultation and access to information afforded to them.

Secondly, and relatedly, the limited emphasis on transparency and involvement - which is often considered pivotal to the development of partnership and 'new' industrial relations - hamstrung the evolution of the Trust's partnership structure. During the negotiations for the establishment of partnership structures, management attempted to outsource 750 staff in areas such as estates, security and catering as part of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). This issue was to have significant ramifications for the emerging partnership