Written evidence submitted by the Sustainable
Communities Excellence Network
BACKGROUND
— The
Sustainable Communities Excellence Network. (SCEN) is a membership
organisation comprised of the Regional Centres of Excellence for
Sustainable Communities (RCEs) and the Regeneration Centres of
the three devolved Governments.
— The
Regional Centres of Excellence were established in all regions
by the RDAs at the request of CLG.
— The
purpose of the RCEs was:
— the
development of skills, knowledge and capacity at the local level
to raise standards of planning and delivery of integrated regeneration
interventions;
— Leadership
in cross occupational learning and competence; and
— Design
Review and Enabling Services to raise standards of practice across
the board.
— Seven
of the RCEs ran or commissioned a Regional Design Review Service.
— Many
of the RCEs piloted activity on behalf of CLG; eg the Neighbourhood
capacity building.
Respondents have been asked to address these issues:
How effective is the Government's approach to
regeneration likely to be? What benefits is the new approach likely
to bring?
Regeneration is effective where there is scale and
where economic development and social needs form part of a holistic
solution. It is accepted that the solutions need to be built around
people's needs otherwise buildings have no function but to occupy
a site or measures to address peoples' behaviours are meaningless
without support for economic development or buildings that are
fit for purpose. Until the "Big Society" is defined,
it is difficult to identify the benefits.
There is a need to avoid dogma such as "growth
is an essential pre-requisite for regeneration.[42]
Regeneration is about change. The weakness of the last government's
Sustainable Communities Plan was its dependence on poorly evidenced
housing growth targets. In the same way, the appetite of the banks
to invest in new AND EXISTING businesses will play a much bigger
role in regeneration and economic recovery than government interventions,
Business accommodation changes to meet the needs
of the new economy, neighbourhoods change to meet the needs of
society. Cities need to change and adapt to address the physical
restructuring caused through redundant uses for industrial and
commercial buildings in the town/ city centres can not be addressed
by the private sector alone. Eg The local Authorities can use
their CPO powers to assemble sites made up of multiple owners/tenancies
and easements. Partnership working and collaboration between sectors
has in the past been effective in managing these complex arrangements.
This type of expertise will be lost; eg commissioning clients
need to know what they want and how to support and negotiate with
the private or public sector.
Consultation and community empowerment have played
an increasing role in regeneration process since about 1970 and
the benefits are well recognised. Further empowerment as proposed
in the Local Growth White Paper may not have the desired effect.
For example, What the community wants, and what the evidence directs
or concludes may be required may be different.
The SCEN approach has been to support community learning
through best practice that can balance need and want and operates
at a scale the can exchange good practice and innovation in planning
and delivery. Localism can not necessarily address the benchmarking
of good practice as the scale needs to be at the greater spatial
level.
The Community relationships and capacity to act will
need supporting; there is insufficient monies to keep all happy
but there is an expectation that all can benefit, particularly
through the local authority distribution of the Community Infrastructure
Levy.
As a general statement, the local authorities are
competitive seeking to secure development within their boundaries.
This can mitigate against sharing knowledge and expertise. We
are at the very earliest stages in seeing truly effective local
government collaboration, not just across different geographies
but though the "tiers" of government. SCEN aimed to
provide a vehicle that provided a shared resource.
Will it ensure that the progress made by past
regeneration projects is not lost and can, where appropriate,
be built on?
Whilst the "Storyline" of the regeneration
projects can be captured, what is in danger of being lost is the
professional skills that relate to complex integrated regeneration
projects. Skills and knowledge need to be captured, transferred,
refreshed. It is the experience of all professionals involved
in these area regeneration interventions that has enabled a body
of knowledge of what works and what doesn't to develop to inform
their decision making throughout the planning and implementation
process. There is a risk that this will be lost. There is a real
need for excellence to be placed where it can be used by practioners
and the community the paradigm for this to take an example from
the private sector who can demonstrate that where they operate
at scale—nationally of internationally the organisation
manages its knowledge through a KMS framework. It is not clear
how the Growth White Paper plans to address the KM issues.
Will it ensure that sufficient public funds are
made available for future major town and city regeneration projects
as well as for more localised projects?
This is a matter for the government to decide. There
should be an evidence gathering mechanism that demonstrates if
targets are being achieved within the desired timescales.
It is a matter for the Local Authorities to manage
expectations and set out their programme of investment.
It is a matter for the LEPs to influence strategic
investment—if they have any funds.
Some local authorities are taking serious steps in
devolving responsibility for the administration of key funding
sources such as Section 106 to their local communities (such as
Bristol City Council.) SCEN would question whether communities
have the skills to realise these undertakings.
Will the new Government's approach ensure that
the progress made by past regeneration projects is not lost and
can, where appropriate, be built on?
The impact of the closure of the RCEs
— The
closure of the RDAs has effectively terminated the funding to
the RCEs leaving the integrated approach to investing in local
place making by developing the skills and knowledge of the whole
community of practice in doubt.
— SCEN
facilitated RCEs and other membership organisations to exchange
knowledge, specifications for events and other commissioned services.
This brings both business improvement and efficiencies to bear.
— The
RCEs managed a large network of local contacts; This means the
loss of a conduit that reaches from central government to the
local level. SCEN assumes that this local level is vital for engagement
in the Big Society.
— As
a collective of like-minded organisations, the loss of the RCE
equates to a loss of scale and impact where each RCE could have
close dialogue with other Agencies, the LGA Networks and other
third sector and private sector organisations.
— Can
share specifications nationally to avoid reinventing the wheel.
— Integrate
officer/member and practitioner learning into the Design Review
process.
— Similarly
some RCEs link into enabling and Constructing Excellence to provide
up skilling at all stages in the procurement route. This is a
business model that provides efficiencies and a legacy for a wide
community of practice.
— The
RCEs provide a public resource of knowledge and knowledge transfer
that is practitioner focussed. This is different to the
KTP with Universities which focus on research and knowledge acquisition
for the development of their business requirements.
— In
Summary; The loss of the RCEs and
the SCEN means the loss of knowledge which will be archived and
the loss of tacit knowledge which due to the swiftness of the
cuts, the RCEs have not been able to capture. Former personnel
will now drift away.
What lessons should be learnt from past and existing
regeneration projects to apply to the Government's new approach?
Drawing on the SCEN members' experience:
— Sharing
specifications nationally avoids reinventing the wheel and is
cost efficient.
— Integrated
occupational learning generates the ability for practitioners
to collaborate to create effective solutions for complex area
regeneration interventions.
— Sharing
knowledge gained at a larger scale than the local authority level
enabled a strategic response based on the extraction of learning
rather than on one authorities experience.
— In
establishing the RCEs, it was evident that knowledge capture and
the capture of tacit knowledge was limited, especially given the
competitive nature of previous programmes such as City challenge
and the Single Regeneration Budget. Whilst documents may have
been archived they had a general lay narrative, the practitioner
knowledge had not been extracted and the tacit knowledge rested
within individuals that had often moved on into other roles.
The last 10 years has seen more of a focus on evidence
and learning and much has been learned from regeneration programmes
such as the New Deal for Communities and the Market Towns Initiative
which really did explore community engagement in both the rural
and urban context and have much to 'teach' the new localism agenda.
SCEN would support activities that make good practice available
to communities through informal mechanisms. Ie Action learning
and focused seminars rather than academic courses.
How should the success of the Government's approach
be assessed in future?
We need to go much further than just analysing what
money has been spent (down to the nearest £500) and maintain
a proper evidence base about what works and does not work in regeneration.
This MUST be independent of government and other political parties
so that it has credibility with practitioners and local residents
alike.
Our definition of "success" needs to be
defined across the broad range of issues that have already been
identified (by local people) as essential to the creation of great
places in which to live and work. We must avoid a return to the
silos of the past or the government's regeneration agenda will
flounder as, indeed, will the whole localism policy.
The Government needs to think about how to share
knowledge between local authorities or communities in different
local authority areas since reinventing the wheel is both costly
and time consuming. Enabling knowledge for community empowerment
needs to address the issue of who makes the decision, the community
or the professionals?
March 2011
42 Only 10% of RICS members responding to the January
Housing Market Survey felt the government would be successful
in increasing the number of new homes in the market and close
to 40% of respondents believed it would have no effect at all.(dash24.com) Back
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