Basis of Establishment

3.18  In order to identify possible reasons underpinning the proliferation of partnership working in Northern Ireland, template 1 specifically requested information regarding the basis of establishment. In total some 328 responses provided information in this regard. Of these, some 87%, have been established to meet a mandatory or statutory requirement, as outlined in Table 6 below. Government, it would therefore appear, has played a key role in the proliferation of partnerships in Northern Ireland. However, in undertaking this role, responses to the templates provide little evidence or indication of a corporate approach to partnership on the part of NICS. The European dimension has also played an important role in the proliferation of partnerships. The European Commission continues to favour partnership approaches for the delivery of regional/area specific development. In this context, many of the DARD related partnerships emerged largely under the pioneering Rural Development and PEACE Programmes in response to the aim to engage local people in programme and project delivery.

Table 6

*This figure includes a number of partnerships which may be accurately categorised as mandatory or statutory (i.e. 25 Surestart partnerships), but are included in this category in line with responses to the templates.

3.19  To further investigate this issue, EPU went back to departments and requested additional information as to the reason why those partnerships identified in both template 1 and template 2 had been established. To facilitate analysis, and encourage departments to consider issues other than the legal status of the partnership, six options were provided as follows:

•  To meet a mandatory requirement;

•  To meet a statutory requirement;

•  To improve service delivery;

•  Consultation or mechanism to engage key groups;

•  Networking mechanism; and

•  Other

3.20   In response, departments provided additional information in relation to 447 partnerships. As illustrated in Table 7 and figure 3 below, responses indicated that the majority of partnerships had been established to improve service delivery (45%), or to promote consultation, engagement and networking (29%), particularly at district council level.

Table 7

Figure 3:     Reason for Establishment of Partnerships