Diverse patterns of organization exist across the English post-16 education and training (ET) system. Direct consequences of national policy drivers and the shift to a single mechanism for all publicly funded non-higher education (HE) post-16 provision are strong imperatives toward collaboration between providers, planned provision across an area, and cohesion across the phases of school, further education, and HE. A theoretical study of models of organization shows ways in which structure can relate to strategic intent. At the institutional level, current ET arrangements can be analyzed across a simple axis from broad-based to specialized. When looking at overall provision in an area, this needs supplementing with an axis expressing the degree of formality of any collaborative arrangement (tight to loose). The resulting typological analysis, giving four broad categories, is significant in the context of government drives to institutional specialization. Case studies of patterns of collaboration and reference to earlier studies enables identification of likely conditions of success for each broad category. Potential enablers of, or obstacles to, collaboration include legislative, ideological, funding, and human resource matters; questions of local culture, pride, competition, and trust; and individual and institutional incentives. Factors determining the pattern of post-16 provision in a particular area arise from national policy, regional and local strategies; and numerous historical local factors. Relations between academic and vocational provision in other countries and classic work on models of organizational structure are helpful. (Contains 19 references) (YLB)