ABSTRACT
The main new initiative announced in the Inner City White Paper (1977) was the creation of partnership arrangements between central and local government for certain cities with particularly severe problems. The criteria for selection were discussed in the White Paper (pp. 16-9), and the Government offered partnership first to five areas: Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester/Salford, Lambeth and London Docklands. Subsequently, after other authorities had submitted proposals to be included, a further two partnerships were created, in Hackney/Islington and Newcastle/Gateshead. The geographical areas within which these partnerships would operate were sometimes all, sometimes part, of a local authority's area and sometimes were shared between two adjacent districts, and, in the case of London Docklands, included parts of several London Boroughs, co-ordinated through the Docklands Joint Committee. The three guiding ideas behind the partnerships were to concentrate limited resources in some of the worst problem areas, to co-ordinate action for dealing with the complex and inter-related problems faced by those areas and to tailor policies and action to local needs.
