Abstract
Across the UK , contemporary debates on the organisation and delivery of public services are replete with ‘New Labour' references to the value of partnership as an essential element of governance, public policy formulation and implementation. Essentially, partnership involves co-operation between people or organisations for shared benefit, and is concerned with the added value that is alleged to accrue when a coalition of interests drawn from more than one sector is employed to organise and deliver public services. Since the election of ‘New Labour' in May 1997, partnership has come to play an important part in the delivery of public policy goals across a wide range of subject areas, including mainstream areas of public service such as health care, education, transport, and housing. Since 1999, devolution has led to a decentralisation of responsibility for the delivery of services to devolved assemblies for Scotland and Wales .Nevertheless, the partnership agenda has been maintained with both the Cardiff and Edinburgh ‘governments' demonstrating a continued commitment to its implementation. This article offers an early engagement with the role of partnership in relation to the sphere of cultural policy within one devolved part of the UK , namely Scotland , and considers its scope within the particular area of the museums and galleries sector. It provides an overview of the way in which the cultural policy agenda has developed in Scotland since devolution in 1999, and discusses the way in which partnership has informed the Scottish Executive's emerging policy agenda for museums and galleries.

Key words - Partnership, cultural heritage, museums and galleries, public policy, Scotland

By Peter K. Falconer