Work with partners and stakeholders
Overview
This standard is about identifying, engaging with, and sustaining effective
working relationships with partners and stakeholders to achieve shared objectives. Partners and stakeholders may come from public, private, voluntary, and community sectors at strategic, operational, and community levels.
Collaboration is essential for resilience, requiring a clear understanding of roles, responsibilities, governance, and risk context. The standard supports individuals in fostering engagement, developing integrated approaches, and ensuring continuous improvement through shared knowledge and collaborative decision-making across all phases, risk assessment, prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- evaluate the roles, responsibilities, and authorities of individuals, teams, partner organisations, and stakeholders in line with legislative and organisational requirements
- engage with partners and stakeholders in ways that foster participation, equality, and collaboration
- agree, record and maintain collaboration arrangements which promote shared understanding and integrated approaches
- assess how your organisation can support collective objectives and address challenges
- represent your organisation's views and policies in line with legislative and organisational requirements
- confirm shared responsibilities and authority to act, ensuring clarity on individual and organisational limits within legislative and organisational requirements
- establish and apply processes to monitor, review, and improve collaboration in line with legislative and organisational standards and lessons identified
- use reflective practice to evaluate your performance, identify lessons, and inform professional development
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- relevant legislation, organisational policies, frameworks, and doctrine that influence collaborative working
- the roles, responsibilities, and boundaries of individuals, teams, partner organisations, and other stakeholders in resilience
- the benefits of and approaches to a systems approach to partner and stakeholder analysis
- the benefits of and approaches to collaborative working, and diverse and representative stakeholder engagement
- governance arrangements relevant to cross-organisational and stakeholder collaboration
- strengths and capabilities of partner organisations and key stakeholders
- how organisations' structure and culture can impact and affect collaborative working
- approaches to identifying and addressing challenges in collaborative working, including conflict resolution and escalation procedures
- methods for improving, monitoring, and ensuring accountability in collaborative working, including recording actions and providing feedback
- the role of reflective practice in evaluating performance, identifying areas for improvement and professional development
Scope/range
Scope Performance
Scope Knowledge
Values
Behaviours
Skills
Glossary
Collaborative Working: An approach to working across organisations, sectors, and disciplines to achieve shared goals in resilience. Effective collaboration ensures a collective view of risks and integrated approaches.
Governance: The arrangements and processes that define decision-making responsibilities, authority, and oversight within an organisation or system at local, regional, and national levels. Governance structures ensure quality, performance, and positive impact by embedding accountability, driving continuous improvement, and ensuring changes are evidenced and retained where needed.
Stakeholder: A person, group, or organisation with an interest in or influence over an activity, decision, or outcome.
Engagement: The process of establishing and maintaining meaningful interaction with stakeholders, communities, or partners to foster trust, inclusivity, and collaborative problem-solving and achieve shared objectives.
Accountability: The obligation to demonstrate responsibility for decisions, actions, and performance, ensuring transparency and ethical conduct to those affected by the decisions and actions.
Systems Approach: An approach that involves understanding and managing the interdependencies within a system to enhance its overall resilience.
Partnership: The process of building and maintaining effective relationships with key organisations that play a central role in delivering an intervention. It focuses on developing formal, long-term structures for collaboration, ensuring shared objectives, responsibilities, and sustained cooperation in resilience.