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This research, by Kelvin MacDonald of ROOM@RTPI, and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, reviews ways in which renewal partnerships gain information, training and support and recommends how the process can be improved. 

Title: Methods of learning and development in regeneration partnerships
Author: Kelvin Mcdonald
Series: JRF Findings 743
Number of pages: 48
Date published: July 2003

Findings

• People in regeneration partnerships are eager to learn. Any lack of activity does not derive from a lack of desire to engage in learning and development or from any lack of awareness about the potential value of doing so. 

• Poor resourcing (time, financial, staffing, information) is a key difficulty in obtaining adequate training and support.

• There is little clarity of what skills are needed by people working in, or managing, regeneration. 

• The allocation of responsibilities for regeneration, partnerships and resources amongst national and regional government departments tends to be confusing and unnecessarily compartmentalised. It takes little account of the training and support needs of practitioners and Board members.

• The researcher concludes that the following could improve practice: partnerships could have a clear 'menu' of the range of skills and knowledge they wish to develop; the allocation of funding under emerging programmes could rely on recipients having a clear strategy for training and support; and responsible bodies might set up pilot schemes to test new regimes for funding partnerships in which the onus is on encouraging effective practice.

Key themes
The importance of differences in the size and type of partnership
The study found that the approaches taken to learning and networking and the need for support are conditioned by the size and type of partnership involved. The range of staffing of partnerships interviewed included one person working 26 days a year, to between some 16 and 20 core staff. 

Innovative partnerships
Partnerships that had tried to improve practice through innovative work saw themselves, willingly or unwillingly, in the role of imparters, rather than gainers, of knowledge. 

Sources of information
Partnerships use a wide variety of sources of information. These include websites, exchange visits, personal contact, events and networks. 

Recommendations
The report contains 33 recommendations as an aid to more effective practice. The following steps could significantly improve practice.

• Partnerships could encourage projects to be set up which specifically address the training and capacity-building needs of people involved directly in a partnership. 

• Partnerships could establish clear procedures for the training needs of staff and of Board members.

• Universities could work with partnerships to develop an outreach strategy and to undertake an active outreach programme to engage with local partnerships in a variety of ways (according to local and regional needs), including research, secondment, in-house and modular training, management support, evaluation and appraisal services.

Download "Methods of learning and development in regeneration partnerships" from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website PDF 109kb