Dr Chris Gibson, Chairman of the Civic Forum

The Good Friday Agreement provides for the establishment of a consultative Civic Forum whose statutory purpose is to give the First and Deputy First Ministers their "views on social, economic and cultural matters". The Agreement states it should "comprise representatives of the business, trades unions and voluntary sectors, and such other sectors as agreed by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister".

It is the responsibility of the First and Deputy First Ministers to nominate the areas of civil society to be represented on the 60-member forum. They decided that there should be 18 from the voluntary/community sector, seven people from business, seven from trade unions, five from churches, four from culture, four from arts and sports, three from agriculture/fisheries, two representing victims, two from community relations, two from education and six appointed by the First and Deputy First Ministers. The Forum members must be representative of the Northern Ireland population in terms of gender, community background, geography and age.

The Civic Forum does not have the power to make decisions but it will enable civil society to have a more participative role in decision making by reacting to legislative business that is before the Assembly. The Forum can scrutinise legislation, commission research, produce reports, hold hearings and discuss broad themes. Its reflections will then be passed on to the Assembly to inform debate on specific legislative issues.