Research for stronger communities: the SCARF initiative.

Stuart Hashagen

Director Scotland, Community Development Foundation

Co-director, Scottish Community Development Centre

The Scottish Community Action Research Fund (SCARF) was established in 2002. The fund is provided by Communities Scotland, the national regeneration agency in Scotland, and is managed by Communities Scotland and the Scottish Community Development Centre, in the way described in this paper.

The needs and issues

The need for the initiative was identified in Communities Scotland shortly after it was established in 2001. It was recognised that smaller community organisations faced obstacles to their development and to the achievement of the change they sought because of the poor quality of information and interpretation available to them. Skills and confidence about the best way to use the information that was available were also lacking. There was also felt to be scope to develop and test out more innovative and participative approaches to research, to be more consistent with the needs of community organisations, and a hope that public bodies would be receptive to proposals and arguments based on such research models.

A different issue was the increasing control over funding for investigation and development being exercised by partnerships working to a government agenda. This meant that community organisations were only likely to succeed in having projects funded that were consistent with the established priorities of these partnerships. There were few routes by which communities could be funded to explore their own issues or needs, or to have control and authority over their information and research base.

Key ideas in Scarf

SCARF was thus developed in a way that would address these issues. From the start, it was defined as a community-led research initiative. In essence this meant that it would be available to community groups and organisations that had a clear understanding of the needs and issues they wished to investigate, and who would use the product of the research to inform their development and activity, but who did not have an existing capacity to produce a sound research proposal or to carry out the tasks involved. As such, it was recognised that it was as important to use the Fund to build research skills and understanding in the community sector, as to fund the research itself. As the initiative has evolved the emphasis on building capacity has, if anything, become more significant.

The interplay between building capacity and producing research is reflected in the structure of SCARF. It has two distinct stages, known predictably as ‘Stage 1’ and ‘Stage 2’. Stage 1 is designed to assist community organisations to develop a sound research proposal, while Stage 2 provides funds to allow the research to be carried out. Stage 1 funds allow the organisation to engage a ‘research mentor’ to advise and support them. Organisations that are able to produce a sound research proposal may apply directly to Stage 2.

Although SCARF is designed to have few restrictions on the nature or scope of the work to be done, it does require the research it funds to focus on some aspect of disadvantage or exclusion. This is broadly interpreted, so SCARF funds have been used to investigate issues of health inequality, disability, and race as well as those of poverty, regeneration or community organisation. It also gives priority to proposals that will support the engagement between communities and the policy process, and which will produce lessons or insights that could be applied elsewhere. The key ideas in SCARF are thus capacity, social justice and engagement.

How it works: Stage 1

Stage 1 provides mentor support to community groups and organisations. This part of the programme is managed by Scottish Community Development Centre on behalf of Communities Scotland. Incoming applications for Stage 1 are assessed separately by SCDC staff, who put successful applicants in touch with a selection of up to six mentors from which they can select who they wish. Applications are assessed on the extent to which the intended study is clearly expressed, has evidence of community support and interest, will involve community members and service users in undertaking the study and making use of the findings, and its likely impact on policy, practice and social justice. One dilemma, or perhaps a contradiction in the management of Stage 1 is that applications from groups with limited experience or low levels of literacy may not meet these criteria in their Stage 1 application, yet it may be argued that it is precisely such groups that most clearly would benefit from mentor support. Normally in such cases SCDC will contact the applicant and ask them for further clarification or information prior to reaching a final decision.

There is a pool of 56 research mentors, who may be self-employed, retired, or employed in relevant organisations. Between them, the mentors have experience of the academic / research sector, the public sector and the voluntary / community sector, and can offer detailed understanding of research methods, contexts and issues. They have all been assessed and approved by SCDC, and they offer a range of specialisms, including rural issues, disability, arts and housing. Stage One provides the applicant with support up to the value of £1500, plus approved expenses. Mentors set their own fees, which range from less than £100 per day to £500. Once selected, mentors work with the group to provide support and advice on four main areas:

  • Clarifying issues and research questions: assisting the group to formulate or reformulate its research question and the way in which information and evidence could be obtained
  • Encouraging participative methods: for example story-dialogue, participatory appraisal, visual or photographic techniques or other ways of gathering information with meaning for the participants, and which can be presented as a valid expression of opinion or condition
  • Building skills and capacity: as discussed above, SCARF emphasises the development of community skills and capacity, and the mentor will work with the group to explore ways to plan, manage and support this.
  • Helping prepare a sound / sustainable research proposal for consideration at Stage 2. The assessment panel at stage 2 will only approve proposals that meet the criteria for SCARF, and the mentor supports the group in preparing such a proposal.
How it works: Stage 2

At present, the Stage 1 assessment cycle is six-weekly, while the Stage 2 panel assesses applications six-monthly. The Stage 2 panel is led by staff members of the Knowledge and Intelligence division of Communities Scotland, and includes managers of the Communities Scotland area offices in whose area the applications originate. The assessment criteria are similar to those at Stage 1, but at Stage 2, the assessors are seeking assurance that the research plan is well thought through, achievable, and sustainable. Stage 2 applications may, and usually do, include provision for further mentor support and advice. As at Stage 1, the panel may seek further information or clarification from the applicant. Applications that are approved are then managed by the relevant regional office of Communities Scotland. Normally SCARF funds are to the value of between £6000 and £10,000, plus approved expenses. As noted above, applicants may apply direct to Stage 2, although applications that have had mentor support at Stage 1 are more likely to be funded.

The following table summarises the activity of the programme to October 2004.

The table shows that the number of applications received at Stage 1 halved in the second year. This is primarily because there has been less publicity about the scheme in the second year. It also shows that only five organisations have been through the whole process to the production of a research report. This demonstrates that the process is rather more long-term than originally envisaged: SCARF was designed to be responsive and flexible.

Who applies for what?

The nature of the applications gives some insight into the issues and needs experienced by community organisations in Scotland, and to some of the innovative or challenging ideas that communities have. The majority of SCARF proposals fall into one of six areas.

  • Community and neighbourhood groups approach SCARF for funds to enable them to gauge local needs and opinions, either generally, or in relation to a particular need or proposal. Some of these relate to the community recognising that it needs a good information base to inform its participation in community planning, health improvement or regeneration.
  • Several organisations have approached SCARF to undertake feasibility studies to support the development or continuation of community services and resources based in community buildings. Such buildings include community halls, former town halls, and churches.
  • More established local voluntary organisations with staff approach SCARF for support with user or community need assessments to help the organisation develop its strategy or methods. These applications are scrutinised and rejected if they appear to come from organisations that would seem to have research capacity, which are focusing on business planning rather than practice development, or if they do not involve service users in the proposed study. The numbers of such applications suggest that it is difficult for this type of organisation to get business planning or strategic advice.
  • Several applications came from community organisations that are involved in local development and seek to improve their methods of communicating and networking in order to play a full part in strategic work.
  • Although SCARF is intended primarily as a community research fund, several national organisations have applied, representing communities of interest, for example in equalities issues, disability or health. Sometimes such applications are too large and ambitious to be within the scope of SCARF, but some do propose innovative ways of gauging opinion or influencing policy, and these are normally supported.
  • Applications reflect a wide range of themes and issues. Studies focusing on local environmental issues, the needs of LGBT communities, and mental health seem to predominate.

Within these general patterns, the occasional proposal appears to be truly innovative and distinctive. For example, one group in Inverclyde sought to explore the potential for tourism development involving local groups. Inverclyde was in the 19th century the embarkation point for thousands of Scots families emigrating to Canada or the US, and is now a port of call for cruise ships from those countries. However the visitors go to Edinburgh rather than visit the setting off point of their forbears, and the group wants to change that. A different example is a community health project in Glasgow that works with the black and minority ethnic community. Their study, now completed, brings together community perceptions on the quality and sensitivity of NHS services to the community. The research finding are being drawn on to influence policy locally, and also at the highest levels in the Scottish Executive. A national charity working with sensory impairment has SCARF funds to help develop more effective methods to encourage the participation of sensory-impaired people in public life, while a group rooted in Scots traditional music wants to reach out to other communities to bring together other music traditions and to reshape the definition of Scots music.

Some interim conclusions

An evaluation of SCARF has been commissioned and is now under way. The findings from this will inform the future direction and focus of the fund. Clearly it would be inappropriate to anticipate what the evaluation may conclude. However, the SCDC team will feed in their observations and comments to the process, and these will include the following:

  • That SCARF seems to be primarily a capacity building initiative rather than a research fund. This seems to be its particular value and contribution
  • As such, SCARF Stage 1 could become a route for community organisations to submit strong bids for research funds to a wide range of government and non-government sources, as well as to the SCARF Stage 2 fund.
  • There may be space for an alternative to Stage 1 and Stage 2 funding in the form of a single award that would be sufficient to provide mentor support to clarify proposals and carry them out. This would meet the needs of several organisations with a relatively straightforward study question to get the work done quickly and effectively
  • The range of applications has focused attention on what constitutes a community organisation, and raises questions about whether larger, staffed organisations should be eligible
  • Similarly questions about whether SCARF funding should be used for organisational development and business planning need to be clarified
  • Finally, and very important, the lessons emerging from SCARF need to be captured, reflected on, and perhaps used to develop better understanding of community research. What has been learned about the issues being studied; what has been learned about methods and building capacity; in what way has SCARF reinvigorated organisation that may have lost their way, and in what ways has new understanding contributed to development of public policy and practice?

Although only two years old, SCARF has already demonstrated the need for investment in community led research as an important strand of community development. As more research reports become available, more insight into the value of this approach will be gained. Meanwhile, further information on SCARF can be found at