In recent years, the "document" and "data" aspects of XML usage have become increasingly differentiated. This paper brings these aspects of XML together, by describing the use of XML to integrate the information sources, process management, record keeping and output for a business activity.

The context of this work is a requirement for several public sector bodies to work together in partnership, with each agency performing a role in a shared activity. Each agency contributes and receives information, and undertakes specific actions that are accountable to the partnership. The flows of information require close monitoring to fulfil legal requirements for security and data protection.

A traditional data standardization approach was not appropriate, mainly because the partnership activity is only a small part of the business of each agency concerned. In addition, much of the information is semi-structured, with a combination of controlled data fields and free text. The principal outputs from the shared activity are a human readable report (available in paper and electronic form), together with interim management information. In order to maintain the visibility of the partnership and promote close co-operation, the evolving status and output of the shared activity need to be "visible" throughout.

To fulfil this requirement, an XML based integrated approach to information management has been developed, with human readable documentation closely integrated with process management and record keeping. A key advantage of this approach is to make communication between partners as simple as possible to manage, whilst enabling differentiated use of information, and transparency of process. An additional benefit is that the resulting architecture reduces the costs and risks of future changes.

Partnership working between diverse public sector bodies (including central government, various agencies, and local and regional administrations) is increasingly required in response to political or legislative drivers. When partnerships work well, they enable the achievement of "joined-up" working across agencies towards goals such as reducing social exclusion, and also enable improved productivity, reduced costs and/or improved services to the citizen. Successful partnership working requires partners to address a wide range of issues, including:

Alongside these business issues, working in partnership nowadays requires enabling technology, so that partners can exchange information, and manage their joint activities. It is tempting - especially to technology experts - to believe that providing IT support is all there is to enabling partnership working. As in many other areas of work, willing and able people working together can achieve much more with poor technology than a dysfunctional group can achieve with the best technology around. However, good technology support is certainly helpful, and the remainder of this paper concentrates on the enabling technology rather than any other partnership working issues.

Problem-focussed partnerships in the early stages of development normally have a simple business model. Typically, one or more staff belonging to the partnership look after the core business activity of the partnership, using information provided by partners, and providing a limited interface to partners for monitoring progress. Partner organizations undertake actions that are co-ordinated within the core partnership activity.

When the partnership is more mature, experience suggests that its business activities will become more complex and varied, and that the IT support for these activities will become more widely distributed across the partner organizations. Because of this, the architecture of the enabling IT presented in this paper is designed to reduce the risks and costs of high levels of change, and to facilitate integration with existing systems. This leads to greater attention to open standards and interfaces than would otherwise be expected in a relatively small system. The assumed technical context is the UK e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF)[ e-GIF]; the specific aspects of that Framework that are relevant to this paper are the use of Internet technology including a browser-based user interface, and the use of XML for data integration.

The core business activity of the partnership is represented here as a simple linear process with several steps. (A more complex process would be supported in a similar way.) The first two steps require data provided by the partners, and also generate data results; the last step yields a report that is archived as the formal record of the activity.

The structure of the report naturally corresponds to the structure of the business process, and the report is also compiled step by step as the activity progresses. The next figure shows step A broken into several sub-steps, with these reflected in the report. Actions undertaken by partner organizations could be co-ordinated at any step, but are shown here as being part of step C. Step D includes evaluation of these actions in the partnership context; this evaluation is recorded formally in the report.

The final touch to this model is the subdivision of step B to yield results data from several sub-steps, and the co-ordination of steps C and D to show that the evaluation of actions undertaken by partner organizations is reported alongside other information gathered about those actions.

So, where does XML come in? The short answer is everywhere! Within this simple architecture, the versatility of XML enables it to play all the following roles:

Partnership working is increasingly seen as essential for delivering the "softer" goals of public policy, such as urban renewal, educational attainment, social inclusion and reducing criminal activity. Although much more than good IT support is needed to fulfil these aims, the implementation of a resilient, secure IT architecture is a key enabler for effective partnership working.

Newcomers to XML often find the wide range of applications and standards using XML very confusing. Although only a general description has been given in this paper, this architecture hopefully provides a useful framework for understanding how the many different ways of using XML can work together to support real business activities.