§ This report sets out the results of an evaluation into the Inter-Isle Forum for Political Youth Wings organised by St. Columb’s Park House. The objectives of the programme are: To promote the values and practice of democratic pluralism; To develop a sustainable process that will broaden the world-view of the delegates at an early stage in their political career; To create an inter-party network; To explore issues of common concern, and empower young party members to contribute to policy development within their own parties at a local, regional and inter-regional level; and To facilitate the development of future political leaders who are comfortable with the dynamics of inter-regional politics and policy formulation.

§ The politics of Northern Ireland have clearly shifted to the extremes in the last election, which provides an important context for the delivery of this initiative. The grant to the programme was £120,900 of which £100,000 was funded by Atlantic Philanthropies and £9,000 from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

§ The project involved 6 Inter Isle Forums and 6 North South Forums to discuss themes issues including regional development, poverty, European politics, racism, international terror, the Good Friday Agreement, climate change, drug and alcohol policy and fair trade. The Forums were held in the 5 countries, involved 23 political parties and organisations, 241 participant attendances, 37 speakers and 30 workshops.

§ The sessions provided an opportunity for respectful engagement of young political activists and developed competencies in listening, argumentation and presenting political cases in a discursive setting. The Forum meetings provided an opportunity for participants to prepare position papers on multiple issues, not just the traditional constitutional future of Northern Ireland. The Forum has benefited from the excellent work and dedication of the coordinator, who has maintained and built a delicate network over the life of the programme.

§ The survey with participants showed that it has increased their understanding of other political parties, built their own substantive knowledge of policy issues and created new political alliances and networks independent of the Forum. An illustration of this was the Young Women Talk: Participation and Power Conference held in October 2004. The survey also showed that the sessions were well organised and stimulating, the speakers were excellent and the visits high quality in the attainment of the programme objectives.

§ The Mid-Term review found that DUP and Sinn Fein were underrepresented in the Forums and tended to concentrate on Inter Isles and North South events respectively. Some of the Forums were repetitive, with a particular focus on poverty and anti-poverty strategies. However, the staff worked effectively to increase the representation of both parties, broaden the range of issues that were addressed by the Forum meetings and improve the quality of the position papers for each session.

§ The evaluation showed that the project had achieved the objectives set for it and that this created new and challenging political discourses, which is especially relevant to the emerging political landscape in Northern Ireland. It has produced new relationships, built tentative trust and understanding, broken down misunderstandings and created firm political alliances beyond the work of the Forum. However, without this formal support, the tentative network that has emerged will be difficult to sustain. The project needs further support but the model of delivery may be rethought by the organisers and participants. A more task based approach to specific policy issues, with a firm output in mind, might provide a more meaningful and directive approach to the development of the concept, especially in improving the quality and impact of youth wings in Northern Ireland, in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland.

1. Introduction

Purpose of the Ex-Post evaluation

1. In August 2004 we set out the Mid-Term evaluation (MTE) of the Inter-Isle Forum for Political Youth Wings organised by St. Columb’s Park House. In this report we follow the same methodological and conceptual approach but frame the research as a formative evaluation in contrast to the summative orientation of the Mid-Term. In other words, here we are primarily concerned with the Ex-Post Evaluation the final outcome of the project and its legacy for political development and networking within and between Ireland and Great Britain. Where there are difference between the Mid-Term and the Ex-post analysis these are identified, especially where there are areas identified for change or improvement in the August review.

2. The proposal for funding for the Inter-Isle Forum explained that the central objective is “to explore areas of common concern, and to enhance the contribution of participants to policy formulation in their own parties”. The Forum is designed to meet in each of the five jurisdictions and all parties with elected members and who are committed to democratic pluralism were invited to participate in the programme. Each party appointed two members to the Forum, but to ensure that there is continuity in delivery each party was asked to assemble a panel of four named substitutes (the panels were encouraged to reflect gender and ethnic balance, as far as this is practicable).

Objectives of the Inter-Isle Forum

3. St. Columb’s Park House points out that inter-regional dialogue and co-operation is integral to the current peace process.

Young party members as potential future leaders are a critical peace-building constituency, and should be afforded similar opportunities for inter-regional engagement as their senior party colleagues (St. Columb’s Park House, Proposal, p. 2).

4. The objectives of the programme are:

§ To promote the values and practice of democratic pluralism;

§ To develop a sustainable process that will broaden the world-view of the delegates at an early stage in their political career;

§ To create an inter-party network;

§ To explore issues of common concern, and empower young party members to contribute to policy development within their own parties at a local, regional and inter-regional level; and

§ To facilitate the development of future political leaders who are comfortable with the dynamics of inter-regional politics and policy formulation.

5. The detail of the programme of events is described later in the report but the idea was to conduct six Inter-Isle Forum (IIF) meetings and six North-South Forums (NSF) held in the different jurisdictions over a two-year time period. (This evaluation reports on the first 11 events). The programme is managed by a Programme Development Worker at St. Columb’s Park House under the overall accountability framework of the Board of Trustees.

Evaluation methodology

6. The MTE follows standard evaluation guidance, and in particular, Civil Service Evaluation Guidance prepared by the Department of Finance and Personnel. The EPE also follows the same broad format, which consists of identifying the following components:

Inputs: which are primarily measured in terms of financial and human resources.

Activities: in terms of what the programme was actually involved in.

Outputs: which involves an assessment of the specific contributions that the programme makes, against the objectives set for it.

Processes: which looks at how the programme engaged participants and how they worked together to develop learning and competencies on key policy issues.

Outcomes: measures the overall value added of the programme to political co-operation, progress and leadership, especially within Northern Ireland.

7. A range of research instruments were used to help populate the model with both quantitative and qualitative data. These included:

§ Secondary analysis of statistics on the operation of the programme.

§ Interrogation of documents and papers linked to the delivery of individual sessions.

§ Observation of working of a sample of the Forum meetings especially on the quality of interactions between participants.

§ A formal questionnaire survey of participants at mid-term and near the completion of the programme.

Format of this report

8. The report follows the broad structure of the evaluation model. Section 2 looks at baseline conditions, inputs and activities and section 3 at outputs, especially in terms of the performance of the Forum meetings. Section 4 looks at processes and in particular at the quality and strength of debate at the sessions and the impact on the work of the main Northern Ireland political parties. Section 5 attempts to summarise the key outcomes primarily using the results of the quantitative survey with participants. The final section (6) summarises the main results and implications for the future development of the initiative.

2. Baseline, Inputs and Activities

9. This section sets out the context for the project, especially given the changing nature of political voting and representation in Northern Ireland. A programme designed to create political dialogue, at a time when politics in Northern Ireland is shifting to the extremes, is an important context for the analysis of outputs and outcomes. This section then looks at financial and human resource inputs and what the initiative actually delivered in terms of activities.

Baseline and the changing political context

10. The table below shows that there has been significant political shifts in Northern Ireland, which has presented more significant challenges to the programme, especially given political polarisation and growing (intra and inter) mistrust between the Parties.

Table 1 Political voting in Northern Ireland 2001 and 2005[1]

Party	Votes 2001	Votes 2005	Votes Lost/ Gained	% Change in Votes	% Share 2001 and 2005
Ulster Unionist Party	216839	127314	-89525	-41.2%	26.7-17.7
Democratic Unionist Party	181999	241856	+59857	+32.8%	22.4-33.7
Sinn Féin	175932	174530	-1402	-0.79	21.7-24.3
Social Democratic and Labour Party	169873	125626	-44247	-26.0%	20.9-17.5

11. The key themes emerging from this analysis:

· After considering the smaller electorate in the 2005 Westminster election it is estimated that, in real terms, 51665 fewer people voted. Something equivalent to the population of the Derry Urban Area and it would appear that most of these persons were middle class unionists and nationalists. Unlike most western European countries Northern Ireland draws a significant share of its vote from among the working class population.

· The DUP were the only main party whose number of votes increased and the increase in the numbers voting for them was one-third.

· Since 1997 the DUP’s Westminster vote has increased by 125% and this in unparalleled in election history.

· The UUP lost 41% of all the Westminster voters it had in 2001. This was equivalent to nearly 90000 people and overall, they have lost 50.7% of their voters since 1997.

· The DUP gained around 60000 additional voters between 2001 and 2005. It could be estimated that somewhere between a half and two-thirds of those who voted for the UUP in 2001 went to the DUP.

· The DUP’s vote has grown from 13.7% in 1997 to 33.7% in 2005.

· Sinn Fein’s share of the vote grew by 2.6% but there were 1402 fewer voters for them. However, since 1997 it’s number of voters has grown by 37.5%.

· The SDLP lost a quarter of their voters between 2001 and 2005. Since 1997 they have lost 34.1%. However, it would appear that few who did not vote for the SDLP this time transferred to SF.

· The SDLP and the UUP lost 133772 voters between 2001 and 2005. More voters than either party received in the Westminster 2005 election.

· The Big 4 parties increased their share of the overall vote from 91.7% to 93.2% between 2001 and 2005.

Inputs

12. The key inputs to the evaluation were financial and human resource based and the financial inputs to the programme are set out in the table below. The initiative was funded by Atlantic Philanthropies (£100,000) and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (£9,000).

Table 2 Financial profile of the programme

Component

Inter Isle Forum accommodation

Inter Isle Forum travel costs

Inter Isle Forum facilitation

Northern Ireland services

Salary costs

Administrative costs

I.T. support

External evaluation

20,250

29,700

4,800

9,000

41,450

8,400

1,300

6,000

Total

£120,900

13. Nearly half of the total, £54,750 (45%), was allocated to the actual delivery of the programme and salary costs accounted for a further 34% (£41,450) of the total budget. The efficient management of the programme therefore relies primarily on the skills and capabilities of the Manager, who has to engage in a range of complex tasks which, inter alia, include:

§ Organising the inputs of 23 political parties over 12 events in different countries.

§ The organisation of the individual seminars including venues, accommodation and travel support arrangements.

§ The management of the substantive programmes including speakers and site visits in each of the 12 sessions.

§ The preparation of reports on each of the sessions to be circulated among each of the participants.

§ The organisation of the formative evaluation exercise in each session.

§ Continuous liaison with the Parties to ensure participation and attendance at each of the sessions.

§ Management of financial and administrative aspects of the programme.

14. The table below shows that half the time is spent by the Manager on establishing the seminars (50%) and a further 10% on organising speakers and site visits. The analysis also shows that a considerable amount of time is spent on day-to-day routine administration of the initiative.

Table 3Time management of the programme administrator

Task	Percentage of time taken
Consulting with participants over phone and email and in person, finding new participants to be involved in the project and researching political parties	20%
Researching themes, identifying key organisations and speakers, etc. (this includes drawing up position paper guidelines, sourcing reading material, writing briefing papers	25%
Researching venues, travel, accommodation, etc. using the internet and making site visits.	5%
Organising speakers and site visits (writing letters, emails and making telephone calls)	10%
Attending events	6%
Preparing conference and other reports	5%
Preparing budgets, expenses claims, etc.	3%
Liasing and networking with other agencies	10%
Internal monitoring and assisting with external evaluation	3%
Reporting to funders and identifying and researching further funding sources.	3%
Other (including managing interns and volunteers, administrative work, designing publicity and writing press releases	10%

15. It should also be noted that the programme has been able to rely on the expertise and experience of the staff, especially in terms of cross-community and mediation work with political and ethnic-religious interests. St. Columb’s Park House also provides the management structures, systems and governance accountability to ensure that the programme operates effectively. The location of the project in St. Columbs Park House has given the programme credibility with funders, governments and crucially participating parties. It will be seen later that the Programme was able to attract high calibre practitioners, politicians and academics and this in part, has been facilitated by the reputation of St. Columb’s Park House with key stakeholders.

Activity

16. The programme involved 23 political parties and organisations. The table below also shows the overall profile of activity for the seminars and their phasing between 2003 and 2005. The content of these have changed over time as the Mid-Term review was critical of the emphasis on poverty and social exclusion in the early sessions. It is shown in the table that the scope of the sessions were broadened to include trade, the environment and public health.

Table 4 A summary of the Inter Isles Forum and the North South Forum

No	Type	Date	Place	Theme
1	IIF 1	February 2003	Belfast	Interregional co-operation
2	NSF 1	May 2003	Galway	Poverty in Ireland
3	IIF 2	August 2003	Glasgow	Regeneration and Poverty
4	NSF 2	September 2003	Derry/ Londonderry	Anti-poverty strategies
5	IIF 3	February 2004	Dublin	The future of Europe
6	NSF 3	March 2004	Dublin	Racism
7	IIF 4	June 2004	Liverpool	War on terror
8	NSF 4	September 2004	Belfast	Good Friday Agreement
9	IIF 5	November 2004	Cardiff	Climate change
10	NSF 5	February 2005	Kilkenny	Drug and alcohol policy
11	IIF 6	April 2005	Derry/Londonderry	Fair and free trade

17. The table below summarises participation by political Party across the Forum meetings held to date (for the purposes of clarity it separates IIF and NSF sessions) across the participating Parties. The table shows that there were 154 attendances at the Inter Isles Forum at 87 and the North South Forum, resulting in a total attendance of 241 for the first 11 sessions (excluding the Women’s Forum meeting). Looking at the North South Forum first, 62% (54) of attendees came from Northern Ireland, whilst 38% (33) came from the Republic of Ireland. In the Inter Isle Forum, 37% (57) came from Northern Ireland, 29% (45) from the Republic, 18% (27) from England and Wales and 16% (25) from Scotland. This shows that there has been a comparatively consistent representation from political parties across the jurisdictions.

Table 5 Participant profile by session type

SESSION	IIF		NSF		ALL
PARTY	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
N. IRELAND
DUP	3	2	1	1	4	2
Sinn Fein	1	1	9	10	10	4
Ulster Unionist	9	6