The consortium approach
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In his report on the 10 years of learning from the Creative People and Places programme, Mark Robinson reflects on the consortium approach and the role it plays in the programme. Here, you can find practical guidance and further resources on the topic, so that you can apply it to your own work.
How to: core approaches
- Recognise that the consortium working will be critical to the success or failure of the project. Be clear on commitments without return and practice ‘active generosity’. Be clear cutting corners or paying lip service to consortium working is a big risk.
- The set-up phase is crucial, moving from bid to business plan. This phase needs adequate time and resource. Areas to cover include any potential conflicts of interest (or the likely perception of such conflicts), roles and responsibilities, ambitions, programme design, delivery roles for members where appropriate and relationships with other deliverers, and the lead body and its responsibilities. Clear, honest communication, and tackling any issues early, make progress possible.
- The most important factor to constructive consortium working has been managing conflicts of interests well. Have frank and open discussions about how you will do this, how you will flag any concerns, and how they will be resolved with your context.
- Having an independent chair is recommended as a good way of maintaining separation between lead body and consortium.
- Lead organisations need to consider carefully the financial and legal implications of their role, and involve their trustees
- During the delivery phase, ensuring a distinction between the governance of the programme via the core consortium and the delivery team who will be line managed within the lead body but accountable to the core consortium. Build this into agreements, terms of reference and how agendas and meetings are designed.
- Think in cycles of change and about legacy, while also maintaining attention on what is being delivered.
- See ‘failure’ as an opportunity for learning – put time aside for regular review and reflection, involving a Critical Friend if you have one. Consortia that have been able to really adopt an action research mindset have been able to identify learning, routes to improvement and the next set of challenges most effectively.
Dig Deeper
- Positive Interdependence: A 2020 review of the successes and challenges of consortia governance in delivering the Creative People and Places Programme by Alchemy
- Place Governance and Partnerships: Ecorys case study of Left Coast, exploring how Left Coast began to evolve from a consortium with a housing sector lead body into an independent delivery organisation
- Governance and Consortium Working by Tom Fleming and Catherine Bunting covers early phases of the programme
