At present inclusiveness in partnership arrangements is most valued at the (pre-negotiation) program development stage. Often what is required at this stage is extensive consultation rather than a more formal arrangement. Once this program development stage is over the extent of partnership involvement diminishes.

It is already becoming commonplace for there to be a broader involvement of partners not only at the programming stage but also at subsequent stages in the program. The risk of a strategy which is entirely focused on inclusion at the pre-negotiation stage is that people will feel excluded and insufficiently involved in decision-making.

Partnership membership can place a considerable, and sometimes unwelcome, burden of participation on certain classes of partners such as Social Partners. This is a particular problem in smaller and less strategic programs where the relationship between input and return is weak.

The strategies that have been used to overcome the burden on social partners of their greater involvement in partnerships include:

• Minimizing the technical content by transferring this function to technical committees.

• Minimizing the burden of paperwork.

• Sending out paperwork in good time.

• Rotating the responsibility for participation among social partners in an agreed time frame.

• Paying social partners from the technical assistance budget in accordance with pre-established procedures which prevent exploitation and conflicts of interest.

The degree of partnership inclusivity changes according to the stage of the policy cycle in question. There are also open or closed partnerships (although this is a dimension rather than a simple distinction). Thus an open partnership is not only inclusive in terms of the composition of its membership but also encouraged communication/access with a wide spectrum of social actors.

A more explicit understanding of the appropriateness of involving particular partners at particular stages in the policy cycle should be encouraged. Much can be achieved by supporting an open and communicative orientation to non partners. In some instances this may be a preferable alternative to a substantial expansion in the size of the partnership.

Some partnership functions can be specialized reflecting the specialization of different socioeconomic actors in the partnership. In a few instances expert advisers are inappropriately involved as partners rather than in their

Specialization is a useful effectiveness strategy and signifies partnership maturity. Need to ensure this approach is not over used resulting in partnerships being distanced from stakeholders. Ideally experts should be advisors rather than constitute the partnership itself.

National institutional traditions appear to be an important determinant of the degree of inclusivity of partnership. Thus countries such as Austria, Germany, Denmark, Finland and to a lesser extent Sweden and Ireland, are more likely to involve local/regional stakeholders and other end users than Greece, Portugal, France, Italy and Spain.

Where local/regional stakeholders, and other end users, are involved there is likely to be better adaptation of programs to user needs and a higher level of democratic involvement, transparency and acceptability.