Communities First - A Way Forward

Some Proposals for Consideration

1.Introduction

This document builds on the previous “concept paper” “Communities First – A Way Forward”. Some 450 people have been involved in discussions of that paper at consultation events and more recently at a series of regional policy events organised by WCVA in partnership with Community Development Cymru andthe Centre for Regeneration Excellence Wales at which presentations from all three organisations were given. Participants in the meetings and responses received have includedCommunities First Partnership members, practitioners in the field, members of voluntary and third sector organisations, Assembly Members and others.

This report seeks to chart a way forward which builds upon existing successes, overcomes the design flaws inherent in the programme and takes account of the economic and public finance circumstances likely to dominate the life of any successor programme. It seeks to create an achievable vision for the future which is:

  • more effective
  • compatible with planned public expenditure reductions of 10%
  • less bureaucratic

in ways which

  • build social capital
  • enhance community involvement
  • tackle specific determinants of deprivation
  • eliminate duplication

2.The Successes

In all the recent studies and debates about Communities First a common theme has emerged. Success has come where good community development has resulted in communities identifying their own priorities and acting upon them.

Communities succeed when they are in control and not when they feel they are delivering someone else’s agenda or playing to their tune.

Community led achievements, and there are many across the programme, need to be recognised, funded and developed in the future. Feedback from our consultations indicates a strong desire from community members to retain the local development support provided by Communities First teams.

At a grass roots level, the Communities First Trust Fund has provided a simple, quick, well known and appreciated way of backing community initiative. Communities also need access to larger forms of investment and the outcomes fund has the potential to be further developed to fulfil this role.

Yet in spite of numerous positive stories and examples, all too often the initial enthusiasm of local people has been hampered by some of the design flaws in the programme.

3.The Design

  • At its inception the programme hinted at ambitious outcomes. The impression was created that it would solve problems which had eluded policy makers ever since 1920s.
  • The original 2002 Guidance described the programme as being “a long term strategy for improving the living conditions and prospects for people living in the most disadvantaged communities in Wales”. The 2007 Guidance retained this phrase and added the concept that the programme would “enable and empower people living in a Communities First area to decide what is needed for their area’s regeneration and then help them realise their ambitions”
  • However, the programme lacked any clear strategy for how these aims were to be achieved and it is only fairly recently that an “outcome focus” has been introduced along with a complex system of planning and monitoring.
  • In this contextand lacking significant regeneration resources of their own, Communities First partnerships and their staff have developed methodologies centred on co-ordination, partnership, confidence building and small scale development work. This process has been extensively evaluated but less attention has been given to what outcomes could reasonably have been expected after ten years, and whether the methodology had any chance of delivering them. Existing research has tended to focus on process not impact.
  • By creating an expectation that the programme would dramatically alter the relative deprivation of the areas, the programme was likely to fail in its grand ambition, notwithstanding the fact that there have been beneficial changes in many of the areas and a greater perception of wellbeing and in the lived experience of poverty.
  • The design of central government to local community has created confusion and sometimes tension with local authorities and other statutory agencies. Local communities were seen as central to the partnerships but little thought seems to have been given to how good working relationships were to be built with the community beyond the idea of the “three thirds principle”. While good partnership working has been developed in some areas, in others community and local authority remain at loggerheads. In some cases the local authority has remained uncommitted; in others they have seen Communities First as a mechanism for driving through their own agenda.Did the design imply that local authorities were as much a part of the problem as the solution, and has this ambiguity affected their commitment to the programme?
  • In addition, the role of the elected representative within or outside the partnerships has caused tension, where the model of community development and participative empowerment of communities through Communities First has been seen to cut across their representative role.
  • There has also sometimes been a conceptual confusion between a “partnership” which is an inter-agency forum with core individual community members and/or community organisations represented and an independent community organisation. This is like thinking that a Local Service Board and a County Voluntary Council are one and the same as distinct from a CVC being a component of a wider partnership.
  • Equally, local communities have often been confused as to whether this is a “top down” programme - in which they are still the servants and not the masters - or a genuine attempt to include communities in the process of prioritising and delivering services and activities that meet local needs as equal and valued partners. Ironically, despite its value in bringing clarity the “outcome focus” has exacerbated this problem. Local residents, acting on a voluntary basis, are less likely to make a long term commitment if they feel local priorities are not central to the activities of the programme whose outcomes are determined from the centre.
  • At inception the implementation of the programme ignored workforce issues. In the early days there were insufficient practitioners in Wales with the skills and experience in either community development or the sort of integrated planning that was necessary to understand, let alone achieveprogramme goals and later anticipated outcomes. In the early days littleremedial action was taken. Since then greater effort has been put into building capacity and providing staff with the skills they need and some have taken their own initiatives to acquire qualifications. The passage of time has also meant that experience has increased. However, many co-ordinators and development workers still struggle with the complexity of the tasks they face and workforce development will remain a key priority for the future, and has been rightly acknowledged by the Welsh Assembly Government in their Communities Development Workforce Action Plan for Wales published in September 2010.

In short the original design of the programme was flawed in that it did not have clear aims but, nevertheless, created over ambitious expectations which a poorly qualified workforce could never realistically have been expected to achieve. The programme design also confused ownership between the local community, local authority and central governmentdiluting energy and effectiveness, in some cases exacerbating or creating tensions between stakeholders, and diminishing programme impact further.

4.Ways Forward

Our consultation process found a strong consensus in favour of a locally based social inclusion programme as a vital element of any national strategy for social justice. There was also consensus that efforts to achieve a more “joined up” approach to government at Assembly level and the work of Local Service Boards needs to be complemented by a community level approach which can help to implement strategy in a way appropriate to our most deprived communities and inform strategy on an ongoing basis – particularly in relation to the changing needs of these communities and the untapped potential that can be mobilised.

In an economic and public finance climate where growth is unlikely to offer ways out of deprivation and where the role of the state may well be significantly constrained, any successor local programme needs to pay attention to the sustainability and robustness of communities (what is sometimes called building social capital) as well as the provision of state services in the most effective way.

The delivery of services at the level of Local Service Boards needs to be integrated with and mutually supportive of initiatives to develop, engage and empower local communities if a national strategy for social justice is to be effectively implemented and achieved.

The Communities First programme has been a valuable step in this direction but it has clearly faced problems and these need to be addressed for the future if we are to maximise the impact of reduced resources. Some suggestions follow:

  • Local staff teams embedded in the communitiesthey serve will continue to be essential in ensuring a continued focus on promoting and supporting local activity and tackling deprivation. Community development staff need the flexibility to respond to community need and aspiration; existing employment arrangements have not always allowed for this. Workforce development needs to continue and accelerate with increased access to relevant and appropriate training opportunities so that such work becomes a valued career option for professionals and for experienced community activists
  • There has often been a lack of clarity over how to make partnership work in practice. There needs to be a distinction between the taskof developing sustainable and robust communities and the taskof co-ordinating the work of statutory agencies with the contribution of local communities and voluntary organisations.The difference between the two is illustrated in the diagramin the Appendix. Effective partnership working has been hampered by a failure to recognise these different, but interconnected activities.
  • Communities need to come to the partnership table as equal partners, as experts about their own communities, and statutory agencies need to make a serious commitment to addressing the problems of their most deprived areas. While this often exists at the level of individual officers, significant change has been rare. The Assembly government should consider the most effective ways it can encourage statutory bodies to do this. The Outcomes Fund attempted to do this but it has not, on the whole, been successful. Efforts need to be made to inculcate a culture of work in statutory bodies that understands and is responsive to social deprivation.
  • The planning and monitoring system introduced in 2007 is now better understoodand is producing useful information about achievements and a greater clarity of purpose. However it has not yet produced the sort of locally responsive integration of planning mentioned above and it is criticised by co-ordinators and partnership members for being inconsistently applied. It also appears to be onerous for the Welsh Assembly Government given, for instance, the delays involved in giving partnerships feed back on their Annual Monitoring Reports.Radical simplification of the monitoring and reporting processes and requirements is therefore needed.

5.Proposals

Any set of proposals needs to take into account, and learn from, two factors which both limit but also set the direction for change to take place. These are:

  • the wide variation in historical and geographical circumstances of the present Communities First areas and in the degree of progress that has been made under the present programme
  • the need to avoid wasting the investment that has already been made and the working relationships, community commitment and professional expertise that havebeen built.

The following proposals therefore attempt to build on the strengths of the existing programme and tackle the problems identified above.

5.1. Building Social Capital and Delivering Community Based and Led Servicesin our Poorest Communities

Experience suggests that success in Communities First areas has been achieved when good community development has resulted in communities identifying their own priorities and acting upon them. Linked to this is the genuine sense of empowerment and control that these communities feel they have.

Our view is that any successor programme to Communities First must therefore make the growth of social capital and community involvement in co-designing and co-deliveringlocal services central, and be committed to a programme led by the communities it is designed to empower and help.

Two things follow. Not only should the voluntary and community commitment that is so necessary to success continue to be supported, the confusion of functions that has sometimes surrounded the all-purpose Communities First Partnerships needs addressing.

We therefore propose separation between the function of partnership working and that of building social capital. Partnership working remains vital and will be discussed below, but any successor programme to Communities First needs to create the conditions to migrate from a top down government programme into a community led strategy for tackling deprivation and promoting social justice.

Central to achieving this will be a commitment to developing a network of independent community organisations – community hubs - which will provide the basis to tackle social injustice directly and supporting communities to engage effectively and as equally as possible with statutory agencies and others.

In essence, this means an organisation at a community level which would be a:

  • vehicle for services and activities meeting local need;
  • vehicle for local voices to be heard, needs to be identified and for local leadersand community groups to be supported;
  • platform for community development, promoting cohesion while respecting diversity;
  • home for the community sector which is supportive of the growth and development of community groups ideally providing access to physical space & managing assets;
  • means of promoting community led enterprise, generating independent income while having a social, economic and environmental impact;
  • forum for dialogue within communities, creating community led solutions;
  • bridge between communities and the state which promotes and brings about social change;

Many Communities First areas have already seen the value of this sort of organisation and have reached various stages in moving towards it. By and large they can be categorised as follows:

  • In some areas there is already an existing organisation (either pre-dating Communities First or developed through the programme) that operates as a community hub.
  • In other areas there may be no existing organisation, but a flourishing partnership could develop into such an organisation and operate as a community hub.
  • In some areas there are embryonic or emerging organisations, often supported by Communities First teams, which have the potential to become community hubs. In such cases either transitional arrangements in the new programme, or CVCs or other development organisations would provide help to develop them into fully fledged hubs.
  • There will remain areas where the partnership has failed or is ineffective and where there are no organisations with the current potential to become hubs. In this case, either no action is taken, or, particularly in those areas where social exclusion is greatest,a decision is taken to ‘start again’ with Community Voluntary Councils, Community Councils or Local Authorities or other bodies employing community workers to support the community to rebuild and begin to create its own initiatives.

Although problems at Plas Madoc Communities First have proved to be an aberration and intensive audits of other partnerships have revealed only the most minor procedural concerns it is clear that community hubs would have to reach the highest standards of handling public money and probity generally.

These would need to be carefully defined but could include:

  • Sound and democratic governance
  • Ability to generate other resources or assets.
  • Ability to strategically plan in the short, medium and long term.
  • Ability to manage and employ staff and offer appropriate training
  • Successful track record in community development and regeneration.
  • A track record in partnership working and collaboration.

In some areas organisations would be able to move to hub status immediately but in most some period of transition and a form of intermediate status would be needed as organisations built capacity, expertise, income sources and assets, and processes whilst working towards the above qualities.

Once an organisation in any of the first three situations listed above believed it had reached or was near to reaching the capacity and standards mentioned it would then negotiate directly with the Assembly Governmentto establish “hub status” and then to determine and finance a series of outcome based initiatives which it felt could be achieved and would lead to demonstrable change in some respect of deprivation. These initiatives could be streamlined to tackling just two or three of the most pressing local issues, linked to the national outcomes discussed above. In this way ownership of outcomes would be mutually shared and developed in accordance with local needs and priorities but in the context of an overarching national strategy for social justice.

Community hubs would also be expected to put forward proposals for additional funding to government and other funders to tackle one or more of the determinants of deprivation. Proposals would need to be outcome based, realistic and achievable. They would need to establish a baseline; use a proven methodology and have a clear evidenced target (for example, increase in school attendance, reduced crime rate).

As hubs became established they would also be in a position to take on employer responsibilities and grant recipient status.

Local and national agencies would need to make a commitment to recognising and working with the hub organisation with a commitment of time, access to decision makers and resources;equally, community hubs would need to work closely, particularly with Community Voluntary Councils, to ensure their views are fed into broader partnerships like the Local Service Boards. Crucially, huborganisations would be expected to work with local community groups and organisations to develop a broad range of activities and serviceswhich enhance the overall wellbeing and social capital of the community. They might establish sub-groups or task groups to work on specific issues and draw in new people with a particular interest in those issues.