Trust is the starting point of any sustainable partnership. Without it there will be no willingness to engage in meaningful dialogue and the relationship will stall. Openness encourages self-examination, the weighing of evidence, the willingness to share information and ideas and to search for new opportunities and solutions. Mutual respect ensures that the partners will listen to one another and that there will be give and take. Inclusiveness ensures that all those with a real stake in the service are represented in the dialogue. A sense of personal responsibility is necessary to ensure that the dialogue is not just about talk, but that the parties will seek to understand their roles and fulfil their responsibilities. These five factors are mutually reinforcing and, as the partnership evolves, will strengthen and enhance one another. 17
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17 A more detailed sketch of how this proposed evaluation framework would work is provided in Appendix 2 at the end of this book.
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