There is a Government of Jamaica agenda for the modernization and improvement/reform of the Local Government system. Among other things, the implementation strategy engages other institutions/agencies in developing collaborations, partnerships and networks and institutionalizing new governance ideas and structures. However, the scope of this agenda, the patterns of reform intervention, and the related tasks of innovation-building portend management implications that seem little understood. Further, the process appears to ignore certain domestic political and cultural determinants that normally ensure effective reform. Within this framework, ongoing patterns of implementation have apparently remained halting, ‘stumbling’ towards the ‘Promised Land’. This landscape indicates an absence of managerial coherence and sure-footedness.

Thus, this article provides a description and functional analysis of the role of collaborations, partnerships and networks in the Jamaican Local Government reform strategy. It emphasises how contextual factors and contingent management arrangements influence how these innovations work. It draws on domestic experience to identify programme successes and risks, proposing ‘solutions’. The paper draws principally on secondary research data on the domestic Local Government system and a relevant theoretical literature to distil meaning, draw implications about managing legislative change, institutional reorganization and managerial professionalization etc., in a resource constrained, highly politicized environment with ‘deformed’ cultural traits.

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