Originally published in 1989, this study provides an informed and critical analysis of local partnerships between the private and public sectors in response to the unemployment problems. Until this book was published, there had been little objective analysis of the workings of the local partnership model with big business. This book assesses the contribution of local enterprise agencies, and how they related to other dimensions of policy responses to unemployment. An important element of the analysis is a number of local case studies of established partnerships in different parts of the United Kingdom. The book discusses the factors that lead to effective local response, in terms of organizational structures and networks and programmes of activity. It places local factors in a wider political and economic context in order to provide a realistic assessment of the motives and impact of policy actors.