SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE

Involving Civil Society in the Work of Parliaments

Section 4: Building Social Partnerships

In the majority of the case studies detailed in Section 3, the social partners came together to implement policy. These initiatives, which often centre around the administration of funds and projects at a local level, allow government agencies to include a wide range of groups in service delivery. Alongside these practical projects there is also a growing concern to involve wider social partners within the process of policy deliberation. These institutional arrangements have tended to include only employer and employee organisations of the kind discussed in Section 2 but there are moves to find mechanisms that can widen the influence of social partners in the pre-legislative process

4.1 Mechanisms for including social partners in decision-making

Sectoral Forums

These forums are composed of relevant practitioners, consumer interest representatives, service-providers and employer interests in a particular sector, such as health. They tend to provide a setting where existing arrangements and networks can be formalised and they then feed their expertise and ideas to parliamentary committees. Committees can be involved with the deliberations of sectoral forums and they can invite representatives chosen by the forums to participate in the deliberations of the committees where appropriate. Representatives of the sectoral forums would have no voting rights. All proceedings would be public.

Alan Miller's report on 'Power-Sharing between the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Scottish Executive' recommends that the Parliamentary committees facilitate the development of relevant 'sectoral forums', reflecting the Ministries and areas of responsibility of the committees.

Task Forces

Task forces, like sectoral forums, have been used to bring together a range of interests around a particular policy area but they tend to be more related to the work of the executive than the parliament The current UK Government's Football Task Force established in August 1997 provides a useful example of the workings of this mechanism. The Task Force was established under the initiative of the Minister for Sport. It included all organisations involved in English football: from representatives of the Premier League, the FA and referees to supporters associations, academics and the Commission for Racial Equality. However this large body was found to be rather unwieldy so a smaller 'Core Working Group' was established that would hold consultative meetings, take evidence and draft reports. These reports are then approved, amended or rejected by the whole task force.

The task force was given set criteria from the Minister as to the areas in which they were able to make recommendations. The task force has no legislative power, no power to instruct agencies within the game to act in a particular way and also no guarantee that the Minister involved will be able to ensure the recommendations become law. However, the task force does enable all those concerned with a particular policy area to pool their expertise and experiences and have a direct line into government to make their recommendations. These recommendations, which in this instance have been based on broad regional grass-roots consultations as well as the approval of a range of key actors within football, would presumably hold much more weight than those tendered only by one group with no direct remit from government. The task force has also been particularly novel in that it has sought to include the views of ordinary fans.

if they are to engage in proper consultation exercises and provide fully researched recommendations these initiatives do, however, require funding. In this instance the Football Trust and the DCMS have, to date, had to provide approximately Ł100,000 to support the work of the Task Force.

Civic Forum I Civic Assembly

These initiatives widen the sectoral forum to include a broad range of social partners and concerned citizens into a civic assembly or forum. This body would be capable of addressing cross-cutting issues in a more holistic way than in a sectoral forum. There is generally a fairly open membership and the assembly meets in plenary session once or twice annually. The 'key sectors' of national life - such as health, agriculture, industry, education, environment, transport, culture and housing - are represented by the practitioners and client groups in each area. 'Social interest' organisations can also be included. Assemblies such as these can provide a useful consultative resource for Parliament and can work at a general level to enrich and encourage democratic culture, rather than being a device through which specific policy recommendations are made.

Round Tables

Round tables are a means of bringing together a variety of stakeholders or interest groups to develop a common perspective in relation to a particular policy are One such example is the UK Round Table on Sustainable Development established in 1995 by the DOE in recognition of the need for new institutional measures to aid decision-making on issues relating to sustainable development. The DOE states that the Round Table's purpose is:

... to encourage discussion on major issues of sustainable development between people who approach them from different positions and who have different responsibilities. Members will be able to compare notes on what is being done in different sectors, to develop a better understanding of the problems faced by others, and to see how far a common perspective might be developed on various issues .⁴⁶

Initially, it appeared that the major environmental NGOs were going to boycott the Round Table as they believed it was simply a DOE talking shop. In the end, only Greenpeace failed to attend. Members of the Round Table include representatives from central and local government, the business and industrial sector, voluntary groups and the scientific and academic community. The Round Table has produced a series of reports and recommendations, summarised in its three annual reports 1996, 1997 and 1998. There is a concern, however, as to the role and impact of the Round Table as departments and agencies outside the DOE do not appear to take the partnership initiative very seriously. This may change given that, under the new Labour administration the Department of Environment has been merged into a broader Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and other ministries, including the Foreign Office, have made strong overtures towards the emerging sustainable development agenda.

4.2 Summary of Issues

The vote in favour of a Scottish Parliament reflected expectations as to what the parliament could deliver and research has shown that the majority of people expected clear welfare benefits .⁴⁷ Most major initiatives now suggest that governments are more likely to be able to deliver such benefits through various kinds of social partnership. Agenda 21, for example, sees the involvement of social partners as playing an essential role in the achievement of sustainable development Similarly research by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions suggests that policies for social cohesion at a national and regional level will be more effective if supplemented by policies for social cohesion at a local level. When national and local levels of government combine with a full range of social partners on a particular issue then the most effective forms of legislative intervention are most evident. Social partners can, in this model, be included both in terms of their consultative input into all levels of the legislative process and also directly alongside public agencies as policy implementers and service providers.

In general we would recommend that the following issues are addressed:

Power balance

Partnerships often involve collaboration between unequal partners with widely differing resources, expertise, culture and interests. This is especially difficult when seeking to involve the voluntary and community sectors. if 'tokenism' is to be avoided it is essential to find mechanisms to ensure that all the partners are able to have a meaningful input.

Equal Opportunities

Even within wider social partnerships equality of opportunity can not be assumed. Most local partnerships do not have formal equal opportunities policies. Women, for example, tend to occupy positions within the partnership but are under-represented in management roles. They are more likely to be community representatives or project leaders than representatives of interest groups on management boards.

The Equal Opportunities Commission has identified mainstreaming as a useful tool for identifying suitable partners for various projects. It also sees local authorities as playing a key role in 'transferring good equality practices across the partnership and in the diffusion of good practice beyond this' .⁴⁸

Following a recommendation of the Second Commission on the Status of Women in Ireland. Ireland now has a quota system requiring local partnerships to include at least 40% of each gender among partner representatives and sup-port materials have been developed to encourage awareness of equal opportunities issues.
Glasgow City Council requires its partners and contractors to ensure equality in their internal operation and service delivery.

Compromise and negotiation

Compromise and negotiation are crucial elements of partnership working but they can be time-consuming, costly and difficult to manage.

Incompatible objectives

Public I private sector partnerships particularly face the problem of potentially incompatible objectives being held by the different partners e.g. private companies pursuing profit; voluntary associations pursuing provision of services. These profound conflicts of interest can occur within any partnership arrangement and although the process of partnership can itself help promote consensus it is important that diversity of perspective is respected.

Potential gains and losses in terms of democracy

Increase in democratic legitimacy through civic participation.
Decrease in democratic legitimacy if unelected and unrepresentative partners become excessively powerful (for example, the problems with 'quangos').

Barriers to co-ordination

Presence of vested interests
Structural over-complexity in the partnership arrangements
Divergent professional and organisational cultures
Local political turbulence
Absence of a strong associative tradition
Lack of a collaborative tradition in the public sector

Factors increasing the chances of success

Successful partnership which have been able to find new solutions to problems through pooling complementary skills and powers have tended to display the following characteristics:

inter-organisational homogeneity: structural and functional similarity of the partners with shared values and goals
domain consensus: clear agreement as to areas of responsibility
network awareness - awareness of what can be achieved through partnership
active leadership
co-operation to obtain new resources e.g. attraction of funds from EU
active involvement in shaping and implementation of strategy
strong and dynamic local identity
local collaboration and associations rooted in positive traditions that can bring partners together in a way that results in a mutual transformation of culture and objectives
exchange: there must be incentives for all members of the partnership

The most fertile conditions for the emergence of strong local partnerships are where there is potential for positive collaboration between:

local communities and excluded groups
local public authorities and other local interests including TUs and employers
government and EU programmes

The political will to create meaningful social partnerships in Scotland seems to exist. A strong associative tradition and willingness to come together to consider social and economic issues is evident, for example, through the dense networks of voluntary associations and the establishment of the civic assembly. A meaningful dialogue between social partners and the new Parliament would be enhanced by the introduction of formal mechanisms and requirements for consultation. However it is necessary to consider social partnership in the broadest sense if it is to genuinely include the people of Scotland and not just powerful interest groups.

The Scottish Parliament needs to consider carefully who it wishes to involve, how it wishes to involve them and for what result. It must also recognise that appropriate methods and institutional arrangements will be required by different groups. We would suggest that full research can only be conducted into social partnerships if more specific definitions are sought. This may involve in-depth studies of particular policy arenas, such as youth training or urban regeneration, to determine what specific partners need to be included and what particular institutional arrangements are most appropriate.

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