Sunderland City Council has commissioned Professor Tony Chapman to undertake a review of policy and practice in the city – looking at how well relationships work between the public sector and the voluntary sector.  The enquiry will involve analysis of existing data sets, including the Northern Rock Foundation Third Sector Trends study, and a series of interviews and focus groups with key people across the city.

The study builds on recent work in Stockton on Tees, County Durham and Northumberland for the Institute for Local Governance and is helping to develop a clear understanding on how best to broker relationships between sectors with similar interests in addressing social problems but different ways of tackling them.

The study was completed in November 2014.