Comprehensive Community Initiatives: Addressing a 'Problem' in Local Governance or Creating One?

Pervaded by 'third way' values and identified as archetypal Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCIs), programmes such as Education Action Zones (EAZs) and Health Action Zones (HAZs) follow a procedural rationale based on heterarchy and partnership. They are a response to an alleged prior fragmentation of service provision in welfare across sectors. Employing evidence from an evaluation of an EAZ and HAZ in one location, this article makes two claims. First, it is claimed that the extent of the alleged 'problem' of fragmentation across the governance of local social and welfare services prior to the introduction of these CCIs is contestable and was exaggerated for political purposes. Second, despite the application of CCIs in the form of EAZs and HAZs, it is claimed that a continuing problem of fragmentation across local governance of social and welfare services is evident. Several insights from the emerging theory of governance failure are employed to offer an explanation for why this situation has occurred.