Author: Hazel Blears

Making local petitions more effective
Hazel Blears

A speech by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears to the Development Trusts Association annual conference this week, as well as covering community asset transfer and participatory budgeting (as pioneered in Brazil), went into more detail on government plans on “how we can make petitions a more effective tool in enabling communities to raise issues with local councils”. There’s also brief mentions of community land trusts and ‘community anchors’, those organisations which give “a home and support to a whole range of people and groups”.

Speech at http://www.communities.gov.uk/speeches/corporate/confidentcommunities.

Author: NAVCA

Sustaining Grants
NAVCA
14.09.07

This pamphlet argues that grant aid is an essential part of the local funding mix for community organisations and remains essential for thriving local communities. We hope that this pamphlet will be used by local community groups, councillors, grants officers and others to:

Promote the benefits of an active community and voluntary sector
Inform discussions about how to support community initiatives and social cohesion
Maintain or increase grant funding
Deliver improved outcomes in a local area in line with their priorities and aspirations

This publication is available in a variety of formats, including a partially editable word version. The case study sections of this version can be edited to add local examples to make this more relevant to a local audience

See http://www.navca.org.uk/publications/sustaininggrants/ for details

Author: Senscot

Sport Relief Awards

30.08.07

Scotland Unltd has launched its Sport Relief programme

Sport Relief is aimed specifically at young people aged 11 – 21 who are setting up projects in their communities to address and resolve conflict (racism, sectarianism, territorialism, discrimination on the basis of sexuality etc …..) and promote community cohesion through participation in sport or other physical activity (‘sport’ is a broad term and can include activities like yoga, dance, break-dancing, skateboarding, snowboarding etc …).

The awards consist of finance – up to £500 for 11 – 16 year olds and up to £5,000 for 16 – 21 year olds; and support to develop and deliver the project.  As part of the scheme we’re also recruiting for a Youth Panel.   Members of the Youth Panel will eventually assess and make decisions on the awards applications and I’ve attached a person spec for anyone interested in getting involved at this level.

We’re specifically seeking young people who will apply for these awards themselves – not the youth organisations who they may be involved with – although a youth worker will have to apply on behalf of anyone aged 11-16 and will be expected to manage the money on their behalf.

For further information about the programme please call us on 0141 221 2322 (West of Scotland) or 0131 221 2322 (East of Scotland)or visit our website at www.unltd.org.uk

Author: Simon Jenkins

The state has only aided our seasonal spates of thuggery

(excerpt)

Simon Jenkins
The Guardian
22.08.07

My favourite culprit for the apparent rise in social anarchy is the stripping out of familiar leadership from communities. When a place is caught up in some catastrophe, no elected leader appears to speak for it. In France, Germany or the US, the mayor is first on the scene and first on the screen. In Britain the best on offer is a chief constable, a vicar or a headteacher. It is rarely someone known to the community, let alone accountable to it.

Britain has achieved precisely the state against which de Tocqueville warned, of democracy degenerating into an atomised society devoid of local bonds, where everyone hides behind the walls of house and family and senses no responsibility for communal wellbeing. There are no municipal mayors, block associations and village elders with money and power at their disposal to whom communities have customarily turned in time of trouble. Britons leave it to heroes to “have a go”, in every sense of the phrase. More formally they expect central government to “do something” about everything, however trivial.

This is fool’s gold. Governments have dismantled the conduits of leadership and thus of control that offered a framework of local discipline in British communities, as they do abroad. We can bemoan the resulting loss of authority among the young, but we can hardly be surprised. It is government policy.

The full article is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2153466,00.html

Author: David Cameron

A radical passion

Communities, rather than the state, are best equipped to effectively tackle social deprivation

David Cameron

The Guardian

07.08.07

The last generation has seen a steady rise in living standards for the many and a relative fall in living standards for the few. Helping these “few” to catch up with the rest of society should be the most urgent political priority for the British government.

These are the people Ann Widdecombe once memorably called “the forgotten decent” – trapped in deprivation through no immediate fault of their own, unable to climb into the middle classes because of a series of barriers that completely block the route.

How do we dismantle these barriers? There are three important insights that should guide us. The first is that addiction, generational welfare dependency, debt, educational failure and family breakdown are strongly concentrated in very small neighbourhoods. Too often we in Westminster look at the country in terms of local authority areas. But these are too large to get an accurate picture of what is going on. There are parts of affluent Oxford, for instance, which rival parts of Liverpool in terms of deprivation.

We need a more fine-grained approach to tackle multiple deprivation at the micro-level.

The second important insight is that these are social problems – and they require social as well as statutory solutions. This is something Tony Blair appeared to concede in a remark about the Sure Start system for children’s services last year: “The hard-to-reach families, the ones who are shut out of the system … they are not going to come to places like Sure Start.” This is a feature of almost all large central government programmes. They lack the flexibility, the combination of moral toughness and sensitivity to people’s personal circumstances, that is necessary to reach the most difficult cases.

The answer lies in communities themselves, not in well-meaning schemes directed from Whitehall. Social enterprises in particular represent a huge potential resource for our most hard-pressed communities. These are not – as many on the left claim – cut-price welfare organisations, commercial wolves dressed in the sheep’s clothing of charity. They are fired by the same passion for public service that drives the statutory sector, but they deliver it in a way that is often more effective than the large and lumbering agencies of government.

The social enterprise is the great institutional innovation of our times. At the moment, however, we are not making nearly enough use of the potential of the voluntary sector. Only about 5% of public services are provided by independent operators, who report a range of financial and bureaucratic obstacles to effective contracting with government.

The third insight to guide us is that the smaller, locally based voluntary organisations, which are often the most effective at combating entrenched deprivation, are losing out to the large national operations. The government is funnelling the majority of its third sector funding to the big players, which in turn allows them to generate the publicity which ensures they also receive the lion’s share of voluntary giving as well.

Today we are publishing a report on what I call social enterprise zones (SEZs). It develops these three insights into policy. Modelled on the enterprise zones that helped revive the economies of our inner cities in the 1980s, SEZs will give councils the power to create a radically deregulated environment for social enterprises and voluntary bodies.

The report proposes tax relief in SEZs and the creation of a community bank, a sort of central bank for the social enterprise sector. These are the types of idea which could help ensure that, in the next generation, we will see rising living standards for all.

· David Cameron is the leader of the Conservative party camerond@parliament.co.uk

Author: Senscot

Scottish Executive Third Sector Team reconfiguration

08.08.07

A reconfiguration of the Scottish civil service as it relates to the Third Sector is taking place – it’s clear that the dust hasn’t settled yet. As far as we can gather there is now a Scottish Executive Third Sector Team split into two sections:

Relations with the Third Sector; Volunteering; Project Scotland

– Geoff Pearson
– Luska Jerdin
– Mark Meiklejohn
– Ross Lindsay
– Shona Montgomery
– Susan Edington
– Derek Cranston
– Callum Hendry

Social Enterprise Strategy; Funding & Investment/Futurebuilders; Sector support initiatives

– Roddy Macdonald
– Geoff Pope
– Stuart McKay
– Laura Halliday
– Guthrie Handley
– John Langlands
– Carol Anne Hackland
– Margaret Smith
– Kerry Edwards

2-F South, Victoria Quay, Leith, EH6 6QQ – 0131 244 3540

Highlander House, 58 Waterloo Street, Glasgow, G2 7DA – 0141 305 4139

Author: Cabinet office and UK Treasury

Third sector review final report

Cabinet office and UK Treasury

July 2007

(excerpt from the introduction)

The Government’s final report of its review of the third sector sets out a strategy to work with third sector organisations over the next ten years to promote social and economic regeneration.

The review was carried out by the Office of the Third Sector and HM Treasury’s Charity and Third Sector Finance Unit. It followed the Government’s largest ever consultation with the third sector and built on previous investments in third sector organisations.

The report sets out plans to promote the partnership between the Government and the third sector. Most of the measures will be led by the Office of the Third Sector, which will invest more than £515 million in third sector programmes to support thousands of community organisations across the country.

The main aims outlined in the report are to help give third sector organisations a greater voice and to work with the sector to strengthen communities, transform public services, encourage social enterprise and support the conditions for the sector to thrive.

Helping to give third sector organisations a voice

The Government will give third sector organisations more of a voice and ensure that third sector organisations are able to speak out and represent their communities.

The Government will develop innovative approaches to consultation, work to protect the rights of organisations to campaign and mechanisms to ensure ministers hear the views of third sector organisations on policy.

Strengthening communities

The Government will also work with third sector organisations to bring people from different backgrounds together to improve life in their communities.

The Government will invest £50 million in endowments for community foundations to make sure they can provide grants in the future for community groups, and at least £10 million of new investment in community anchor organisations and community asset and enterprise development. In addition, the Government will provide £117 million of new resources for youth volunteering.

Transforming public services

The report recognises the vital role of some organisations in helping to deliver public services, and contains a commitment to improve public services by fully drawing on the understanding and experience of the sector in designing, developing and delivering services.

The Government will build the capacity of third sector organisations to improve public services, though the Futurebuilders Fund, which provides loans and grants to organisations looking to deliver public services, training for public sector commissioners and work to build the evidence on opportunities for the third sector.

Encouraging social enterprise

The Government will also encourage ‘social enterprises’ – businesses with social and environmental aims.

The Government will promote awareness of the social enterprise business model, and support its departments to investigate areas for social enterprise delivery, including getting social enterprise into the Key Stage 3 and 4 of the curriculum framework from 2008.

Supporting the conditions for a thriving third sector

Finally, the Government wants to improve the environment in which all third sector organisations work.

The Government will improve funding arrangements for the third sector, and make three–year funding the norm, rather than the exception; create a new national research centre as part of a programme to build the third sector evidence base; and implement a new third sector skills strategy.

The full document can be downloaded here: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third%5Fsector/third%5Fsector%5Freview/

Author: Senscot

Tide changes for community anchor organisations?

26.07.07 

For a couple of years, Senscot has been trying to promote the term ‘community anchor organisations’ – to denote those strong locally controlled organisations which provide leadership in many of our communities. We adopted the term from the much undervalued Home Office report, ‘Firm Foundations’ (2004), and it is significant that this week’s Treasury Review also adopts this term – and cites the same source. The problem is that the Treasury Review significantly dilutes ‘locally controlled’ to ‘locally based’ – we have reproduced both definitions below.

From Firm Foundations (2004)

Community anchor organisations

Strong, sustainable community-based organisations can provide a crucial focus and support for community development and change in their neighbourhood or community. We are calling them ‘community anchor organisations’ because of the solid foundation they give to a wide variety of self-help and capacity building activities in local communities, and because of their roots within their communities. We need to target our efforts better to enable more organisations to develop into the role of community ‘anchor’, and to promote a common understanding of what distinguishes the many thousands of groups and organisations operating at community level from those which can be said to play an anchor role in the way described here.

Community anchor organisations take many forms, but have at least four common features:

• 
  
  they are controlled by local residents and/or representatives of local groups


• 
  
  they address the needs of their area in a multi-purpose, holistic way


• 
  
  they are committed to the involvement of all sections of their community, including marginalised groups


• 
  
  they facilitate the development of the communities in their area.

Bringing about change

Community anchor organisations might develop from a variety of different kinds of organisations. These might include development trusts or settlements, tenant management organisations or well-established residents associations, community associations or other neighbourhood level federations or networks, village halls, church or other faith-based organisations, schools or possibly organisations with a cultural or sports focus. New Deal for Communities partnerships may play this role, and the successor bodies to some Single Regeneration Budget programme boards.

Some neighbourhood watch groups may also have expanded their role to operate in this way. On the other hand, many of these organisations may not include all the elements or have the capacity to play the role demanded of a community anchor organisation, without additional support and investment.

Community anchor organisations may have a range of specific purposes, which will be determined by the needs of their particular area:

• 
  
  They may be involved in providing local services, such as managing a housing estate, running Surestart provision for under 5s, or offering advice.


• 
  
  They may be directly involved in regeneration programmes, or have grown out of a regeneration programme, after the initial funding has finished.


• 
  
  They may offer support both to active individuals and to smaller groups pursuing a more limited purpose, in the ways described in section 2: by providing a physical hub or meeting place, by being a source of small grants (generated from their own activities, or distributed on behalf of other funders), community development workers might be based there, and they may offer a venue for learning opportunities or a place to go for advice on what is available.


• 
  
  In some cases a community anchor organisation may be structured so that it can represent the views of local people to public bodies. In others, its role may be to facilitate the creation of a local forum.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/533/FirmFoundationsTheGovernmentsFrameworkforCommunityCapacityBuilding _id1502533.pdf

from The future role of the third sector in social and economic regeneration: final report (2007)

Investment in community anchors

3.24 Community anchors are large neighbourhood organisations playing a vital role in generating wealth for communities and in supporting other community sector organisations. They are often social enterprises, able to generate income through trading and contracting, often through ownership or management of an asset base. They play a unique role, recognised within communities and by external agencies and able to act as an intermediate between these agencies and grass roots activity. They can deliver services beyond the capacity of smaller groups, operate as a platform for community activity, facilitate wider community forums and networks and can negotiate on behalf of the local community sector. They also contribute to wealth creation in an area, by investing in the personal development of individuals, which can connect people to the labour market and by improving benefit take-up and reducing out-goings through advocacy and advice. In addition, they contribute to the wealth of the community by providing services that reduce the transaction costs of the public sector and by generating their own income by a variety of methods they ensure that wealth is retained in an area.

 3.25 The thematic roundtable discussion on strengthening communities highlighted that the provision of small grants to the community sector needed to go band in hand with the development of community anchors to build strong and sustainable communities. The roundtable discussion of five key priorities for community anchor organisations as providing a place to meet and for community activities to take place, to support and promote the growth of the wider community sector, to provide services, to provide advocacy and voice for the community and to stimulate community involvement and activity.

3.26 Firm Foundations which sets out the Government’s framework for community capacity building, includes the development and support of community anchor organisations as a by driver of community building. Government support for this activity has included funding for the community Alliance otganisationsl4 to develop the Community anchor approach and investment in the Adventure Capital Fund (ACF) as a source of funds for social enterprise based community anchor organisations. More recently the Big Lottery Fund infrastructure programme, BASIS has announced investment of £3.1 million for the Community Alliance for a five-year regional programme to enable the Alliance to provide a single point of contact in the regions for community groups to access information and services to improve their governance and strategic planning and to become more sustainable and effective.

3.27 The Adventure Capital Fund has been successful in investing over £5 million in patient capital in community based organisations since its inception in 2002. Evaluation of round one of the ACF bas indicated that there is a significant level of demand for this type of funding, with round one funding oversubscribed fivefold on the patient capital side. In addition, the selection process precipitated organisational and cultural change within the organisations involved, particularly around moving away from grant funding reliance to developing independence and sustainability through enterprise. Round Two evaluation confirmed the demand for long-term loan finance fur community-based organisations developing revenue earning enterprise initiatives. However, it is also dear that organisations require support (which the ACF provides through its supporters network) to build capacity. The evaluation found that patient capital investment of this type is particularly relevant for organisations with a turnover between £100,000 and £1million, with few significant capital assets or revenue surpluses and organisations with turnovers in excess of £1 million but with low trading surpluses and a need for asset development.

Assets 3.28 Government investment in asset development, as set out in paragraphs 3.4-3.5 also plays a vital role in building the sustainability of community anchor organisation. Following on from the recommendations and findings of the Quirk Review of community management and ownership of assets the Government has committed to implement the proposals in full. The Government will work with third sector partners to raise awareness of the Review’s findings: to demonstrate how asset transfer can be done; to strengthen community capacity to use powers available to them to create pressure for asset transfer; to develop resources to support asset development; and to promote the benefits of community ownership or ownership of assets. In July 2007 20 Local Authorities were selected to be involved in the Advancing Assets for

Communities programme, funded by CLG, which will demonstrate  how Local

Authorities and community organisations can be supported to develop joint plans for asset transfer inline with the recommendations of the Quirk Review.

Author: Peter Hall

Give locals control of council cash

Sir Peter Hall

Regeneration & Renewal

13.07.70

Porto Alegre, a city in the deep south of Brazil, isn’t an obvious point of pilgrimage for British urban regenerators. If they ever get that far, they’re more likely to head for Curitiba, legendary home of busways, recycling schemes, glass opera houses and open universities in old quarries. But Porto Alegre has long merited a detour. For here, in 1989, it invented an idea that has spread like wildfire through urban Latin America: community budgeting.

Now, however, potential pilgrims will be saved a trip. Last week, communities secretary Hazel Blears announced that Port Alegre will soon be coming to a city near you. As part of Gordon Brown’s long march through the English institutions, ten cities – including Birmingham, Salford, Newcastle and Southampton – will go Brazilian, piloting a revolution in the way local funds are allocated. And that’s just for starters. Within five years, Blears wants every neighbourhood in the country to have control over some council cash.

Clearly, this is a response to the dismal recent record of apathy in local government elections. It fits with Brown’s mission to revive democracy where it’s evidently spluttering. Moreover, by handing control to neighbourhoods it meets the call – voiced by the late Michael Young and other supporters of Charter 88, which Brown has long backed – for effective parish councils with fiscal teeth.

But will it work? The evidence suggests it can. In Port Alegre there are budget councils for each neighbourhood and for the whole city; at both levels, delegates are elected in open assemblies. The initial worry was whether ordinary people, often poor, could cope. No problem: aided by an educational programme, participants have rapidly become sophisticated, playing progressively bigger roles in negotiating objectives and fine-tuning details.

Most interestingly, the system reconciles local and city-wide needs. District (neighbourhood) councils are charged both with formulating local demands and establishing city-wide lists of local demands. Then, through a complex formula allowing for local disparities, these lists are aggregated into the city-wide budget. In parallel, sectoral forums – for instance on education – ensure that particular policy areas aren’t ignored.

The Porto Alegre experiment has been exhaustively analysed by scores of international experts. They agree it has worked, giving the city the best UN quality of life index in Brazil. Bringing it to the UK is a bold step. But there’s every reason to believe that here as there, it should bring about a step change in reviving civic democracy. Let’s hope so.

– Sir Peter Hall is (Bartlett) Professor of Planning and Regeneration, University College London. Email: sir.peter.hall@haymarket.com.

Author: Herpreet Kaur Grewal

Residents to get say in spending decisions

Herpreet Kaur Grewal

Regeneration & Renewal

13.07.07

Local areas across England are to be given a “community kitty” so that residents can control how millions of pounds are spent on regenerating their neighbourhoods, according to the new communities secretary.

In her first major speech since taking up the post last month, Hazel Blears told delegates at the Local Government Association’s annual conference that she wants to ensure that within five years every neighbourhood has a pot of money that the community could decide how to spend.

The method, called participatory budgeting, has been used on a small scale by some councils. But Blears said there is “considerable scope to extend it to major parts” of council services – such as parks, leisure, transport, youth services and key infrastructure projects – by providing more funding.

Under the plans, councils would decide whether to hand over a slice of their budget – which could reach around £20 million – for allocation by local people. Residents and community groups would decide which local issues – such as schemes to tackle anti-social behaviour and drug dealing or the need for new community facilities – should be awarded funding.

Blears said pilots will run for a year in ten areas: Salford, Lewisham, Bradford, Newcastle (see below), St Helens and Birmingham council areas, along with Sunderland’s New Deal for Communities area (see below), Southampton Primary Care Trust area, Mersey Waterfront regeneration partnership area and Manton neighbourhood management area in Nottinghamshire.

The Department for Communities and Local Government will then decide which to use as models for a national roll-out.

The Government said participatory budgeting gives local people the ability to “take control of budgets through community-led debates, neighbourhood votes and public meetings”. The model also focuses on training local people on how local council budgets work and how priorities are set.

Blears said: “We’ve been debating localism for many years now. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of talking about it. I want us to get on with it. I want to set out my views on how we can put flesh on the bones of the Local Government White Paper.”

Toby Blume, chief executive of third sector umbrella group Urban Forum, said he welcomed the proposals, but warned that councillors may see it as a threat. “Participative democracy should not usurp representative democracy, but enhance it,” he said. “Councillors should not fear this change, but embrace it.”

However, East Lindsey District Council deputy leader Jeremy Webb said: “I am quite cynical about it, to be frank. (Participatory budgeting) has worked in some areas, but replicating that will be a challenge.”