This is a theoretical paper. There is an increasing trend for collaboration and partnership in education. Joined-up policy-making is prompting joined-up policy implementation. In the UK, the vocabulary of public services is becoming infused with the prefixes 'inter'-, 'multi-' and 'co-'. Public-sector agencies are being encouraged to adopt 'multi'- or 'inter-agency' configurations; 'workforce reform' seeks to dissolve once-impermeable professional boundaries; leadership is to be 'distributed'. More generally, networks of affiliation abound. I refer to this tendency as the 'inter'-regnum in education policy. (This does not mean that we are not dealing with an 'interregnum' in the sense that we are somehow between modes of governance.) I use the term 'regnum' to underline that this propensity for the 'inter' is asserting itself as a fashion, a new 'reigning philosophy' (Tyack and Hansot, 1982:158). The purpose here is twofold. First, I present examples of the 'inter'-regnum from the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit (2006), and I locate this conceptually within Thompson's (2003) analysis of hierarchies, markets and networks. Second, I shall consider the cultural, intellectual and economic contexts which allow for the 'inter'-regnum to emerge as both policy and practice.The 'inter'-regnum comprises an emerging discourse within the mode of public services 'delivery'. It draws its legitimacy from a number of sources. First, it accords with the culture of consumerism. This is so because recent marketing theory sets great store by personalising products and services. This is marketing. It takes further that earlier market-based regime of governance which was associated with the new public management. Second, it is functional for the 'new capitalism' as a new work order of affinity- and solution-spaces. Third, it has important intellectual supports: that is, in addition to its association with recent marketing theory, it can appeal to emerging theory and research in organisational learning.Prime Minister's Strategy Unit (2006) The UK Government's Approach to Public Service Reform (Working Document): Chart A: The UK government's model of public service reform: a self-improving system., p.6. (London: Cabinet Office).Thompson, G. F. (2003) Between Herarchies and Markets: the logic and limits of network forms of organisation (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Tyack, D. and Hansot, E. (1982) Managers of Virtue (New York: Basic Books )