Round Table Discussion on engagement and support for the third sector on climate change: 27 November 2012

Attendees

Sue Jay / WRAP
Simone Lowthe Thomas / SWEA
Dan McCallum / Awel Aman Tawe
Paul Swann / Disability Wales
Ken Moon / Interlink
Barbara Castle / Bronafon Community Housing
Sally Carr / CAT
Mike Batt / The Carbon Trust
Calum MacIntosh / TCV Cyrus and WEL
Alun Jones / CIF
Claire Morgan / Age Cymru
Jennifer Pride / WG
Richard Thomas / Cylch
Michelle O'Neill / Environment Wales
Helen Nelson / Cynnal Cymru
Margaret Minhinnick / Sustainable Wales
Simon Harris / BiTC
Peter Jones / WEL
Duncan McCombie / EST
Minkesh Sood / Displaced People in Action
Georgina Harper / Sustrans

James HarperCynnal Cyrmu

Vicky RedmondWelsh Government

Jake HollyfieldEco Centre Wales

Martin FittonContin You Cymru

Jessica McQuadeWCVA

Graham BenfieldWCVA

Aims of discussion

Wales Council for Voluntary Action has been working with a range of third sector organisations to engage and support action on climate change. Through this process, areas of need and barriers to taking action have been identified. WCVA wants to explore these issues with agencies and organisations working in this area to:

  • build a clear and shared understanding of the need for thirdsector engagement and support on climate change for both ‘place’ and ‘sector interest -based’ initiatives and organisations
  • develop a clear map of what support is available
  • identifygaps in support and consider how we can take this forward

The discussion would also provide issues to feed into the Climate Change Commission 2nd Annual Report on which WCVA provides representation for the non environmental third sector.

Key points discussed

  1. Access to support
  • Most felt that it was difficult for organisations to access information and support on climate change and most found the process daunting.A keyneed is to make this process easily accessible.
  • There was a discussion over the best approach to provision of information on support for the thirdsector, whether it was a one stop shop or information share amongst all the different specialist and generalist providers. People agreed that the difficulty with one stop shops is there is a proliferation of them so it becomes a contradiction.
  • Most agreed there needs to be information share amongst statutory and third sector support providers to develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of what information and support is available. This should be shared across providers so it is accessible from the preferred point of entry for the user. This could be a local or national specialist support provider or a generalist third sector.
  • One of the key message from the discussion is there is no clarity on the type of support that is available and who this is available for. A key need is to map what support is available and for whom.
  1. Support needed
  • There is a need to identify the key interventions of support that work for both communities of interest and geographical communities. This includes:
  • What enabling services the sector needed
  • What training and development packages are needed
  • How could trustees incorporate climate change into the governance of their organisations?
  • The Pathfinders research will hopefully identify key interventions of support for the geographical communities.
  • There was some concern that there was a similar discussion a number of years back and it feels like there have not been lessons learned or progress from Welsh Government in the area of community engagement and support. Grass routes practioners hold much expertise in how to engage and enabledirect action within communities, which is something very different to strategy on behaviour change engagement. The experience of grass route practioners should be supported and developed rather than complicated strategy and the language of carbon.
  • Disability Wales stated that climate change was one issue too many for most disabled people to think about – bigger issues included welfare reformand transport. Stressed that the views of disabled people should be heard in the climate change debate and it was important to find a way to incorporate climate change issues into the work they are already doing to enable them to take action.
  • A non environmental organisation who had integrated climate change into its organisation was now at the stage where it had an identified need and project for its beneficiaries – training refugee and asylum seeker activists in the community to go to others houses to train them on energy use in the home and recycling etc. They however have no idea where to go to get support to develop this project or where there is funding available.
  • Umbrella organisations who are non environmental and want to integrate climate change agreed that they need information and advice on climate change and what it means for their organisation and work. For example how it links to their core aims; what is means for their organisational business and management; integration into their advocacy and campaign work; funding opportunities; how they can share this through their network to local organisations. They also wanted advice on where they should start as an organisation mainstreaming climate change into their work. They felt quick wins were important when starting this process to get buy in.
  • There are currently more examples of action on climate change for geographical communities than communities of interest. There is a need to identify and promote good practice for this part of the sector.
  • Sustainable Wales had funding a few years ago to work with non environmental organisations looking atcarbon audit/staff training package. This worked well and could be something to be further explored as a routine way to embed the climate change/carbon agenda into the bigger community sector organisations.
  • Buildingcapacity and capability in the thirdsectoris vital to tackle climate change as organisations and communities. Training and development is needed to get organisations climate change ready so they can take action. Where this does not exist support is needed to facilitate this.
  • Smaller community groups need to be supported to access larger funding opportunities. For example not much take up of Community Scale Renewable in Wales but there was in Scotland where NCVO applied for community groups.
  • There was agreement that there was a lack of support for micro community energy. There were currently not effective support and structures available for this and strong political leadership was needed to drive this forward.
  • The Government have a role in enabling action on climate change as outlined in their Climate Change Strategy. It is however unclear of the status of the government’s work on supporting the third sector, including the progress of actions within the Engagement Strategy. It was agreed that a number of the needs identified in the discussion were not addressed by this strategy and there was a need to review and update the Climate Change Engagement Strategy.
  1. Engagement
  • Groups maybe tackling climate change issues but didn’t recognise them or use the languageof climatechange as they approach it from the area of interest for them, for examplefuel poverty or improving their community hall. It’simportant to recognise and understand this and consider how we can measure these impacts.
  • Complicated and unfamiliar language of climate change was often a barrier. It needs to be meaningful to the community, whether local community issues or relevant to communities of interest. It was agreed that there needs to work directly with these communities to use language that resonates with their core aims and audiences.
  • There was no agreement on what ‘climate change’ language should be used and whether climate change needed to be included in the discourse of why we need to do things differently. The Welsh Government’s narratives research into this area will be published shortly.
  • The third sector needs to be engaged through issues that interest them. For example, people see the changes & benefits happening in their community buildings and then are motivated to make changes in their homes. Older people’s organisations will be motivated by the impacts that climate change will have on their welfare.
  • A number of people suggested that third sector umbrella and infrastructure organisations have the potential to frame these issues in a way that was accessible and meaningful to theirmembers. A sectoral interest approach is a key way to do this.
  • It was suggested that environmental and non environmentalumbrellaorganisationscould develop partnership to explore engagement techniques and share learning.
  • Co production was highlighted as a key area which has connections to climate change and sustainable living. It offers a participatory method of engagement and involvement in decision making for issues that matter to people and also the opportunity to delivery these services and infrastructure that compliments and enables sustainable living and addresses climate change. It provides an integrated approach to addressing key issues, linking communities, third sector, and statutory service providers.
  • Some people felt that Welsh Government was not very good at communicating issues down to people working at community level.
  • It was felt therewas nolinks with the climate change engagement programme and the sustainable communities/ Pathfinders work within the Welsh Government.
  1. Models of engagement and support
  • Barbara Castle, Bron Afon Housing Association talked about the work of her organisation and how it had engaged its residents in sustainable living; integrated climate change and sustainable development into its organisation and worked with partners, both statutory agencies and third sector to make this happen.
  • Cynnal has been using a method for engagement and support which identifies key umbrella organisations and then designingand planning a programme with them. This is support intensive but does provide meaningful engagement. This approach could offer amethod to go forward. Crucial aspects of this approach include
  • Network organisations need to be involved in the programme design and drive the messages. As a trusted intermediary they are the bestvehicle to communicate issue to their members
  • Experts support on climate change to help network organisation to develop a meaningful programme

How behaviour change can be integrated into this approach is being explored by Cynnal and the umbrella organisations it works with through the Supporting SustainableLiving Grant. There has been a long project lead in to this and it is a developing and complex fund to match against.

  • WCVA’s work with the Climate Change Leadership Group has provided examples of engagement with non environmental organisations and their networks. Through this work it had developed a paper for the Climate Change Commission outlining areas of need and models of engagement and support for communities of interest. The work with TSPC members over the next year should help develop a specificprogramme of support for this constituency.
  • The Carbon Trust has pockets of work with the third sector. It’s suggested exploring a sectoral regional approach to expanding and scaling up this support.

Next Steps

  • There is a need to recognise both ‘communities of interest’ and ‘communities of place’ when looking at engagement and action. There are similarities and difference between the methodology for these which need to be considered when developing engagement strategies and support resources.As well as geographical community programmes there also needs to be a support programme for a communities of interest or sectoral approach.
  • The Pathfinders research will be essential to identifying the ‘place based’ interventions and support that is needed.This evidenceshould be used alongside re-visiting the learning that the grass-roots practitioners already have and existing good practice, such as Environment Wales, and feed this into the developing Welsh Government’s urban communities work.
  • The ongoing work of WCVA and Cynnal Cymru will help to identify the interventions and support that is needed for communities of interest.
  • The Welsh Government needs to developa comprehensive map of what support is available for third sector in Wales, including the support offered through its procurementcontract and statutoryproviders.
  • The map of support should be sharedacross providers so it is accessible from the preferred point of entry for the user. This could be a local or national specialist support provider or a generalist third sector.
  • The discussionheld very much reflects the findings of WCVA’s work with members over the last few years. It is therefore legitimate to say there is a consensuswithin the third sector on the key issues and needs on engagement and support for action on climate change. The Climate Change Engagement Strategy should be reviewed against the identified needs explored in the discussion and the findings of the ongoing WCVA/Cynnal work and the Pathfinders research.
  • There is strong agreement that partnership is an effective way forward in engagement and action. Co-production has the potential to be model for this and should be an area of further investigation with Welsh Government working closely with the third sector to develop understanding and models.

J McQuade

December 2012

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