The Regional Training Partnerships were set up in 2003 as a result of the Hind Report on the Structure and Funding of ordination training. The group produced a report entitled ‘Formation for Ministry within a Learning Church’ which can be viewed here.

Briefly, it made a number of recommendations:

• To take more seriously the prior experience of people entering training

• To see training as an integrated seven years (a maximum of three in college or course, and four in curacy), and whilst raising more questions than answers this recommendation has led us now to talk about Initial Ministerial Training (IME) 1-7.

• To establish regions, and Regional Training Partnerships (RTPs), in order to encourage all training institutions and dioceses to co-operate or merge to provide more robust financial and educational communities.

There are now eleven such Partnerships:

The Lancashire and Cumbria Regional Training Partnership
The Southern North West Partnership
The South Central Regional Training Partnership
The South West Regional Training Partnership
The Eastern Region Training Partnership
The Thames North Regional Training Partnership
The Yorkshire Regional Training Partnership
The North East Regional Training Partnershi
The West Midlands Regional Training Partnershi
The South East Regional Training Partnership
The East Midlands Regional Training Partnership