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Policy in the Labour Party is made through a process called Partnership in Power (PiP) which is designed to involve all party stakeholders, including trade unions, as well as the wider community in shaping party policy and support the relationship between the party in the country and the party in government.
PiP does this through:
- a rolling programme of policy development for the next manifesto
- a year-round dialogue between the party and government.
Annual Conference is the sovereign policy-making body of the Labour Party and the work of the National Policy Forum (NPF) is submitted to conference for agreement. The debates at conference are based around policy commission reports and documents.
In addition, topical issues are debated through contemporary resolutions and cover policy issues not covered by the work of the NPF.
Strategic oversight of policy development is undertaken by the Joint Policy Committee (JPC). Chaired by the Prime Minister, the JPC is made up of members of government, the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the NPF. It provides a link with all sections of the party, steering the NPF’s work and setting priorities and debates.
The NPF is one of the key institutions of the Partnership in Power process. It is made up of 183 representatives from all the major stakeholder groups in the party and is responsible for overseeing the policy development work in the party – drawing together the policy consultation documents and overseeing the consultation process to ensure maximum participation by all stakeholders.
The NPF meets two or three weekends a year to discuss in detail documents produced by the policy commissions. It submits three types of documents to conference: consultative, final policy documents and an annual report on the work of the policy commissions.
Following proposals from the PiP review report to conference, there are now six policy commissions which draw up policy reports for discussion by the JPC and the NPF.
Policy commissions have also been given new responsibilities to ensure engagement on topical issues as well as building and maintaining year-round dialogue with local parties.
The six policy commissions made up of 16-20 members representing the Government, the NEC and the NPF are:
- Britain in the World
- Creating Sustainable Communities
- Crime, Justice, Citizenship and Equalities
- Education and Skills
- Health
- Prosperity and Work
The policy development cycle will now start with policy commissions bringing forward annual work programmes, which will consider issues arising from the implementation of the manifesto, as well as identifying specific topical issues for wider consultation. These work programmes will be made available to all party stakeholders and will provide a focus to engage on these policy issues.
Medium-term policy development is done through the production of policy consultation documents:
‘Big Conversation’ style single document which considers the big challenges that faces the party as it develops policy. This stage has now been completed. To get involved in the process please view the second year documents below.
Click here to view the NPF first year consultation document, "Securing Britain’s future"
These documents will outline the policy choices emerging from the initial discussion. They will consider either specific policy areas, or where appropriate, cross-cutting themes. The total number of documents and the topics they cover will be decided closer to the time.
Click below to view the NPF second year consultation documents
Britain in the world
creating sustainable communities
crime, justice, citizenship and equalities
education and skills
health
prosperity and work
The policy documents will be considered for amendment at a futre NPF meeting. To enable party stakeholders (including affiliate trade unions) to have a say in the final drafting stage of these documents, the ‘final’ draft documents in 2008 will be circulated more widely. Working through their NPF representatives, each party unit will be entitled to submit amendments and have them considered at this of the NPF.
Local policy forums are policy consultation meetings open to all members (and in some cases the wider community). In small discussion groups, the forums analyse a particular policy issue, understanding the nature and scale of the problem and looking at the possible solutions, dealing with conflicting priorities, and at the end, reaching a view to submit to the party’s policy-making process.
Click here to download the Labour Party Campaign Training Workbook entitled, "Putting together a local policy forum", for help and ideas about what steps to take.
Local policy forums can be organised in a number of ways. In the past, some have been organised at branch level, others at constituency meetings which are open to all members, and some at special meetings of cluster constituencies.
This means that a local Labour Party can invite members of the affiliated trade unions to their policy forum meeting to allow trade unionists to participate in the policy process of the Labour Party.
Click here to view the policy making in the Labour Party pages on the Labour Party website.
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