A Framework for Community Action on Climate Change

Key Issuesdistilled from the Framework Report (22pp, Dec 2010) and the Summary of Responses (25pp, Feb 2011)

  • Avoiding duplication. Provisions which would answer many of the recommendations regarding support for community action are already in place. The barrier appears to be poor accessibility/coordination.
  • Information. It’s all out there, but navigating it is increasingly a nightmare. A high priority score was given to development of a user-mediated web-based resource to help communities to access the most useful and relevant material.
  • Embedding. Action on climate change (mitigation/adaptation) is part of a wider agenda for community action. Resources given to this element should seek to embed climate action into thesewider efforts, complementingthem.
  • Partnership. The community sector responds best to actions that ‘enable’ rather than ‘enlist’ them, engaging in a spirit of co-operation rather than ‘help’. Good evidence should be used to illustrate the success of this approach.
  • Mutual support. Community groups learn best from each other, rather than being ‘trained’ by other sectors. This may work best at a regional level. Even special expertise is increasingly available from within the sector.
  • Local authorities. Councils have huge potential to enable community action. The good examples illustrate the alarming size of the gap between potential and reality in most of the sector.
  • Policybackground.Reforms of legislation and policy were ascribed the highest priority in the scoring responses. These reforms should acknowledge the important role of the community sector, remove barriers, and improve alignment of government strategies in favour of this sector.
  • Vision. In order to stimulate a coherent national response, it is important to agree a purpose and vision which can be shared by funders, partners and the community sector itself. This should affirm the significance of community action and stimulate collective efforts to enable its growth.
  • A wider context. This framework addresses immediate problems for the community sector. But wider and more ambitious changes are also needed in collaboration between whole sectors, in shiftingScotland’s priorities to enter a new low carbon world.
  • Funding. There is scope for better co-ordination of all funding sources to allow easier access to the range of funds for different stages/purposes, and to assist progress to self-financing. The potential of new mechanisms e.g. revolving funds needs to be explored. Timeframes can also be problematic.
  • Equity. Arrangements are needed to allow communities who have successfully used public funds to develop their own capacity, and who may have access to income/capital generating schemes, to support others in the sector with less opportunities of this kind.
  • Communities of interest. Non-geographic communities of interest – faith groups, sports associations, special interest groups, women’s groups, trade unions, ethnic groups, etc – are a powerful agent in culture change, but they are insufficiently mobilised to play their part in this movement which needs to embrace the whole of society, with consistent and well aligned messages.
  • Measures of success. This is a critical issue. Measures should be both appropriate in the level of detail and avoid duplication (wasting valuable community resource). Events to discuss these issues were scored as a high priority.
  • A community voice. Several ‘umbrella’ bodies have now established the Scottish Community Sector Alliance to present a strong identity and voice for the sector. Its potential capacity and role are matters of interest to all stakeholders.
  • Leadership. Measures to encourage community leadership need to recognise the distinction between the type of subtle leadership practised at a community level, and the more hierarchical approach usually adopted in public and private sectors.
  • Awards. There was strong rejection of a competitive award scheme, but some standards-based arrangement to acknowledge achievement from within the sector might be welcomed.
  • Progress to date. There is considerable progress already underway. These range from formal research projects (SDC, RSE etc); within government; within KSB in relation to the CCF; through the emerging Community Alliance: and elsewhere in the UK (‘Local United’ etc). The development of this Framework must connect with the learning and organisations making good progress. Mapping this progress is a suggested first step.

Simon Pepper and Alan Caldwell

(Chair and facilitator of the ‘Framework Group’)

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