a) Appraisal on the 17 Thematic Areas b) Framework for operations c) Expected outputs and form of reports d) Discuss sample meetings in groups and report back to plenary e) Terms of Reference for Thematic Committees f) Code of conduct 4.1. Methodology for the Thematic Committee discussions In order to allow for effectiveness, each Thematic area was allocated 25 participants with three of them co-chairing in the usual tripartite arrangement. a) The 25 member group then split into three further groups but maintaining the balance in the political representation. b) Each of the three groups was headed by a one of the co-chairs, with a Rapporteur in each group, but ensuring that no Chair and Rapporteur came from the same political party. c) Each of the three groups worked on one province and one ward per time, and the idea was to ensure that all groups finished a province per day. d) The whole idea was for the teams to score how many times an issue had been raised in each ward. e) The teams were to produce Ward, District and Provincial reports. f) Whilst the original plan was for the Thematic Committee discussions to come up with key concepts, the members tackled every issue and left the determination of what was constitutional to a later stage. During the early stages of the process which started in May 2011, a disagreement arose on the methodology and for four days the parties could not agree on the way forward. The Management Committee was urgently called to deal with the impasse. The disagreement was on how to score, specifically on whether to use the meeting as unit of measurement or the ward. Some had argued that the number of meetings held in the outreach be used, such that if five meetings were held in a ward and an issue was mentioned in all the meetings, the issue had a frequency of five. Because it had been resolved that meetings in urban areas would be one per ward, the methodology appeared to favour areas where more meetings were held per ward. 45 The Constitution Select Committee (COPAC) Report to Parliament, February 2013