Article Mappa---Is Closer Collaboration Really the

Abstract This article considers ways in which the police operate with other agencies under the Multi Agency Public ProtectionArrangements (Mappa). It takes a slice of opinion fromResponsible Authorities (RAs) andDuty toCooperate (DTC) agencies in a discrete geographical area. The research aimed to explore the extent of cooperation and barriers to it. Aside from the traditionally identified factors such as poor information exchange, it also attempted to discern if issues around values and agency identity lingered some eight years after the arrangements were formalized in law under the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. The research revealed that despite cooperation being extensive, there remained problems not only with agencies traditionally viewed as resistant to sharing (health, social services) but also among the core members themselves