Thank you to all those who responed- it just goes to show how useful the
mailbase can be.  Some people asked if I could post back some results of
what I found out, so i'm duly obliging.

My search through BIDS using 'joined up policy' found one match: Haughton,
G, Jones, M, Peck, J, Tickell, A & While, A (2000) Labour Market Policy as
Flexible Welfare.  Journal of Regional Studies, vol 34(7)pp 669-680.

Only Ruth Lister was able to add to the academic sources on joined up
policy and attributes the invention of the phrase to: Mulgan, Geoff (1998)
Social exclusion: Joined up solutions to joined up problems in Oppenhiem
Ed.  An Inclusive Society. IPPR.

There has been quite a lot of media pundit speculation and a variety of
articles exist.  E.F. Tilly gave a helpful list of Guardian articles going
back to 1997.

Everybody else pointed to the cabinet office and the social exclusion unit
who appear to working on developing the references to joined up policy in
the 1997 white paper: modernising government.

There appears to be mention of joined up policy (or at least words like
integrated, multi-agency and partnership) in a wide variety of areas
including health, employment, social exclusion, etc.

As yet there appears to be no overall definition of joined up policy
although the SEU provides some practical examples of where agents could
work together more than at present.

Reading all the replies suggests a concensus is emerging over what joined
up policy might be.  Everyone believed that joined up policy refers to
various kinds of structural organisation and arrangements whereby social
problems are tackled by more than one agency working in cooperation
together.  Ideas on how to operationalise this remain vaugue.  Even the
SEU, while offering examples of who might work together to achieve what, is
not really backed up with clear examples of how.  The development of 'the
knowledge network'- a project designed to link up communication and
information retrival systems between government departments and the public,
is the closest I have found so far to a clear strategy to achieving some
measure of 'joined-upness'.

For what its worth I am looking at this topic to argue the following
regarding joined up policy.

      1. Joined up policy not only has a structural dimension (as is being
investigated at present) but also a political dimension.

      2.  The political dimension involves the classic policy arguements
from left and right which can be 'joined up' to form the third way.

      3.  From the right is the idea that a policy must be cost-effective
or as I will argue economically and environmentally sustainable.  From the
left is the idea that policy must also be socially transformative.

      4.  The political dimension can become 'joined' if the needs of the
main social actors are inclusively incorporated into policy outcomes rather
than production.

Thanks for you time- Please feel free to continue an open debate on the
subject of what joined up policy is and how we can take advantage of it to
further pursue a more welfare orientated society.

Tim Clark