Partnership and Town Management WORKSHOP   Draft Workshop Session Minute   Present:  Solweig Adolffson, Ian Cameron, Alan Cameron, Andrea Hauxwell, Sture Fredricson, Ian Fowell, Ingella Rossi, Inga-lill Soderberg, Jacqui Christie – facilitator, Lorraine Douglas - Scribe   The Group worked through Theme Leader - Solweig’s power point presentation on Partnership and Town Management, refining and changing to reflect the Group’s views on the work for this theme.  Taking account of Cliff Hague’s views it was agreed the wording of the theme should include ‘A tool to build sustainable towns’.   1.                  ‘Objects’ for the theme were agreed 2.                  ‘Definition of a partnership’ – this was decided to be altered to Definition of the process of partnership.  The final paragraph amended to read ‘ all participants must know the expected output from the partnership.  It is about co-operation and about resolving differences. 3.                  ‘The most common reasons for partnerships to fail’ – it was decided to add ·                    Resources ·                    Decision making a lengthy procedure in large partnerships which leads to frustrations ·                    Wrong type of partnership for the goal ·                    Lack of flexibility 4.                  ‘Success Factors for Partnerships’ was hugely debated among the Group.  It was felt that the list should now read:-   ·                    Common interests and goals ·                    Cooperation and trust ·                    Listen to others ·                    Vision and strategies ·                    Public and private meet ·                    Allow partnership to evolve flexibly, but with regular reviews ·                    Identify the key people and key motivator ·                    All partners taking ownership ·                    Identifying methods of successful engagement ·                    Recognise when the goal is met and close the.partnership   5.                  ‘In which areas can Partnership be a method’ was agreed   6.                  ‘What’s in it for me? Why should I participate in a partnership?’  It was discussed and agreed to add:-   ·                    It should be a two way process – give and take ·                    Making a contribution (altruistically) ·                    Financial Gain ·                    Satisfaction in doing good for your own town/organisation     7.                  ‘What can be done in a Partnership?’  It was discussed and agreed that the points listed should be replaced with   ·                    Anything   8.         ‘Results of Partnership’.  It was discussed and agreed that the heading for this should now read – Suggested Benefits of Partnership.   9.         The remaining slides are the Best Practice Examples of Partnership Working collated by Solweig from the project’s towns.   10.       The example of International Co-operation Partnership – the proposed Coastal Towns Website project was discussed briefly, as some of the Group represented the non-coastal towns.  It was agreed that this project may be possible to expand to all the towns in the future, if successful.   11.       There was a full debate over one of the points brought up by one of the Project Reviewers, Cliff Hague, during his presentation prior to the workshop.  The point was the difference between large town and small town partnerships.    ·                    Shorter ‘distance’ between public sector partners and voluntary partners in a larger town partnership ·                    Easier to see the results in a small town partnership ·                    More work at a strategy level in a larger town partnership   12.       It was discussed and agreed that the examples of best practices already sent to Solweig by the towns should be revisited and condensed into a short, easy to read style with bullet points containing the detail of each project. This was to be done by each town and re-sent to Solweig.   13.       It was agreed that Solweig (as Theme Leader) would use the outcomes from this workshop as part of the information for the SusSET guidance manual.