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What have we discovered about this theme? |
General Findings
Small towns are often suitable in size for having their own ‘Town Partnership’ or forms of local governance delivered through partnerships. These can take the form of ‘Town Strategy Steering Groups’, ‘Task Force/Action Groups’, ‘Development Trusts’ or ‘Umbrella Forums’. Depending upon the nature of the town, these partnerships should include representation from different sectors such as private and voluntary. The structures for these partnerships can vary between the informal to formal, but they should be firm enough to give a reason for existence, a framework of reference, a sense of direction, a mechanism for delivery and a means of accountability.
A partnership can fail for any number of reasons: it could have been set up at the wrong time; involved the wrong people; not had enough resources; not had enough time; been working towards the wrong goal; been working towards a goal that was not reasonably achievable.
In establishing new partnerships, as well as identifying a manageable number of key participants from existing organisations or groups, it is important to decide the management process at the earliest possible stage. This allows each partner the chance to understand expected roles and timescales. It also gives a platform for leadership to emerge at all levels and increases the chances of quality personnel in key positions.
The process is made easier if there is an established community dialogue and active community network (see ‘Network and Connections’ component). This will allow partners to clearly understand how project goals will ‘fit’ in with the existing community vision. It is also important to ensure transparency within the partnership process so that anyone affected by the project can understand what is happening, why change is taking place and when to expect changes happening.
Since many partnerships involve local volunteers, it is important that these people are not overloaded and experience ‘burn out’. It is also important that partnerships do not rely too much on particular individuals and have strategies in place to ensure that, where required, successors can come forward.
Some partnerships have a natural life and will end at a certain point, e.g. Project Partnerships. Other partnerships, such as Umbrella Forums, need to be sustained and therefore need to have regular review and evaluation systems in place. Most partnerships benefit from co-ordination of effort and some partnerships appoint dedicated people to this task with varying degrees of success.
Essential Aspects
Accordingly, the most essential aspects of building partnership are communication, negotiation, flexibility and trust. Communication allows every partner to clearly understand the overall project goal - and to also establish their individual goals and priorities from the outset (see ‘Community Dialogue and Engagement’ component). This helps to avoid confusion later on and holds partners accountable if priorities change during the project. Negotiation is the means by which tension created by opposing or mismatched priorities is eased. Opposition within the partnership is incredibly destructive and can quickly eat away at the projects time scale and financial resources.
Partners must be prepared to share power and responsibility and contribute to agreed outcomes or results. All partners must be valued and all must give as well as take. Tension is sometimes experienced between the representational democracy of government (through votes) and participatory democracy of partnership governance (through consensus). Tension is also sometimes experienced between professional ‘experts’ and local users. It is important to negotiate through all problems as soon as they arise. Partnerships need co-operation and differences and conflicts must be accepted yet resolved. Flexibility is a fallback should any change arise during the project – which is quite often the case. Partners should clearly identify how they can be flexible with time, money, priorities or other resources at the beginning of a project. If this information is known then adapting to change can happen faster and use fewer resources in the long term. Finally, trust is critical if a partnership is to survive. This requires partners to respect each other, listen to one another, and be prepared to both give and take. This remains true even when a town is working in co-operation with its hinterland communities, or a neighbouring town(s).
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