Regeneration - Communities and Local Government Committee Contents


Written evidence submitted by Voluntary Sector North West

SUBMISSION

1.0  Our experience of community-led approaches to regeneration

Over the past three years Voluntary Sector North West (VSNW) has consulted the voluntary, community, and faith sector including social enterprises (VCS) about how to develop an effective community-led strand of a coherent approach to regeneration in the North West.

This extensive consultation exercise resulted in strand 3 of Future North West (fully outlined in the appendix:

http://www.nwda.co.uk/media-library/publications/strategy/future-north-west-interim.aspx) and drew on three main phases of consultation:

—  Between June 2008 and September 2008, consulted on and explored the evidence base concerning VCS capacity to regenerate communities in the North West.

—  Between 12 February 2009 and 23 April 2009, VSNW held seven consultation events involving 196 participants from 153 VCS organisations in the North West.

—  During February 2010, VSNW held or supported a further 13 consultation events (7 BME VCS events with the regional BME Network 1NW, one event with the North West Environment Link) involving over 250 participants from 200 VCS organisations in the North West.

2.0  Key qualities of an effective approach to regeneration

The government paper on community-led regeneration provides a broad and extensive list of initiatives. While the "Conclusion" emphasises (i) the need for coherence, (ii) interlinked spatial activity and (iii) local decision-making (all essential qualities), it is difficult to estimate how these qualities will be enacted. Nevertheless, these qualities are essential in order to estimate the effectiveness of the Government's approach to regeneration.

For example, if LEPs are the driving vehicle… (a) How will they influence or interact with delivery of the Work Programme? (b) How would LEPs understand or provide sufficient overview? The former may be outside their influence and the latter beyond their internal capabilities to provide sufficient "stewardship".

This may work well in some economically coherent LEP areas like Greater Manchester, however, we need to think about other example areas, that are less neat, when assessing the effectiveness of this approach to regeneration, eg Lancashire.

3.0  Who's driving?

LEPs, in terms of their governance, do not reflect the make-up of the lead players working within or with the policy initiatives outlined in the government paper on community-led regeneration. While direct VCS engagement is lacking from the majority of LEP boards, there is also little or no room for public health leads or even Work Programme providers, etc. The worry is that the current approach will create a fractured approach that lacks drivers, and an understanding of the vital importance of a mixed but linked approach to growth. There is a need to spark communities and markets into mutual life.

4.0  Coherent regeneration mix

As part of a mixed, coherent, spatially-aware, locally driven economic development approach there will need to be effective community-led regeneration initiatives. The current approach provides a significant number of tools without seeking to assess or outline what the current approach is, or what tools might be missing or unnecessary. This is a growing area of thought and activity and the work of the Committee is to be welcomed.

5.0  Top-down Work Programme: how will local links be made?

It is unclear that the Work Programme will offer greater local control to tackle local need. There is a big question mark hanging over how this gap is tackled and how a top-down programme can best deliver what local community leaders need done in order to support people into employment. What influence will local communities and councils have over how the Work Programme operates and links in? Will the voluntary and community sector (in particular niche providers) be able to engage as much as before? How will local activity be co-ordinated with the Work Programme?

6.0  Locally-led "tackling worklessness" initiatives

Local authorities and the local voluntary and community sector have developed significant capacity to tackle worklessness and the worry is that this capacity will be significantly reduced (beyond the level of cuts). These funding streams (Working Neighbourhoods and other area based initiatives, New Deal, ESF, ERDF, RDA, pots matched through LAAs) are either gone, going or on hold (EU). Of these initiatives, particularly those previously run through local authorities, University of Manchester research highlights that VCS groups were involved in about half: Tackling Worklessness in the North West.

The work includes a literature review of the "Characteristics of Effective Initiatives to Tackle Worklessness". See page 4 of this VCS focussed summary of Professor Alan Harding's research:

http://www.vsnw.org.uk/files/Publications/29_Tackling_Worklessness_in_the_North_West(1).doc

7.0  Scaling up community-led regeneration

The key question for community-led regeneration and the role of VCS groups is: how can we most effectively engage niche VCS providers and support them to scale up their delivery? See 8.0 and 9.0 below.

8.0  Shaping the market through a type of personalised budget approach

The Future Jobs Fund (FJF) provided an effective and rapid model for creating employment and building an intermediate labour market (for young people and people living in areas of deprivation) that could be used again and used to drive a change or scaling up in local VCS approaches to supporting growth:

—  (i)  seeking to develop social enterprise employment opportunities (there are a significant number of examples of such activity in the NW which as a region was extremely positive about working with local community-led projects);

—  (ii)  exploring an individualised payment by results model: FJF was previously funded on the basis of what would have been the benefits-based cost of each out-of-work individual to the state; and

—  (iii)  using this model to positively shape the future direction of non-state dependent VCS activity (ie alongside the cuts and the Transition Fund which, it is felt within the sector, has been misdirected and not effective).

A notable and surprising absence (relatively) that this would address, in the current set of tools, is a positive behavioural change regeneration tool.

9.0  Intelligent use of financial models better suited to local community-led regeneration and "the case for grant funding"

Contracts, sub-contracts and the current Work Programme (with its extended chain of sub-contracting) is a poor financial model for small, local VCS groups.

There are also problems with consortia building particularly at the local level:

—  (i)  cost-effectiveness for each delivery partner;

—  (ii)  time and resource intensive demands of building consortia: requires many groups to prioritise a gamble or else need adequately skilled and available VCS infrastructure support;

—  (iii)  the biggest problem is one of culture: firstly, the contract culture does not suit community group culture and, secondly, the necessary and intensive development work needed is a distraction from the everyday work with local people and therefore not a priority; and

—  (iv)  currently, all models of engaging the voluntary and community sector in delivering regeneration require it to move away from its grass-roots life.

There is a tested solution: The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities funded a £0.5 million ("towpath") project to support small, local community groups to develop their ability to tackle worklessness. The project was a great success and has been evaluated by academics. Each group was given a grant of no more than £10k each through a brokerage agent: Greater Manchester Council for Voluntary Organisation (GMCVO). As the trusted local broker, GMCVO ran the risks and managed the complexity on behalf of the service commissioner. We understand that the success rate of groups involved was, in the face of significant concern about risk, absolutely amazing: 85%+ of groups involved succeeded.

We have been working with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) to pull together research, vision and the economic case for a modernised model of grant.

10.0  Further relevant research

Recent thinking, which supports the case for a VCS role in a new model of regeneration, and that makes clear links between the social, economic, and the environmental include:

—  (i)  Theory: Government Economic Service Review of the Economics of Sustainable Development

—  (ii)  Practical application: Future North West: our shared priorities outlines a strategic framework for growth that combines environmental, economic, social, and housing themes. Theme 3 is crucial: Releasing potential and tackling poverty (p.25ff and appendix): http://www.nwda.co.uk/media-library/publications/strategy/future-north-west-interim.aspx

—  (iii)  Assessing economic strategies: The Centre for Local Economic Strategies' resilience model. In particular, the 10 danger signs of flawed local economic development on pages 5 and 6 and their recent research about building resilient communities.

—  (iv)  Full consideration should be given to the LSC report of September 2009: Understanding the Contribution of the Third Sector in Learning & Skills

There are too many pertinent points to place in this response, but as a flavour, the document states:

Analysis of ILR data shows that within the three funding streams explored (Further Education [FE],Work-Based learning [WBL] and European Social Fund [ESF]), third sector provision reaches a distinct learner demographic compared with non-third sector provision.

Within every funding stream, third sector learners are more likely to have a learning difficulty or disability, and in WBL and ESF provision, they are more ethnically diverse and also more likely to be resident in a deprived area.

Almost half (45%) of WBL third sector learners live in the bottom 20% of the most deprived areas, compared with 28% of non-third sector WBL learners.

30% of those learners on an FE course with a non-third sector provider. As well as showing demographic differences, third sector learners engage with learning and skills from different backgrounds and less "traditional" routes. In 2007-08, around two-thirds of WBL third sector learners (67%) were unemployed when they started their course vs. just 12% of learners in non-third sector WBL. Here the third sector has a significant role to play in delivering Entry to Employment (E2E) programmes; over 19,000 E2E programmes were provided in 2007/08, representing just over one-quarter of all the total E2E aims delivered nationally.

This statement alone shows the importance of third sector learning providers in the employability and skills agenda and we request that all the recommendations are considered in the actions on this area of the strategy

(http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/Understanding_the_Contribution_of_the_Third_Sector_in_LSC_-_Summary_Report.pdf)

In addition to this:

There was consistent feedback that 16-19 (bullet 2) was too late to raise aspirations and this was an area where the strategy needed to reference younger age ranges

Increase the value placed upon vocational skills by both employers and young people: focus on a strong further education sector (including the third sector as a key deliverer

Encourage an asset based approach to working with people and communities

Promote and support flexible working as a way of improving routes back to work, improving wellbeing and for tackling congestion and other environmental issues.

Recognise the role of the third sector as an employer: in Cumbria it employs more people than in agriculture, and much of the success of Future Jobs Fund in the region has been as a result of third sector employer involvement

Ensure that the decline in ESOL provision is tackled and that provision to increase the engagement and engagement of BME communities

—  (v)  VSNW's Briefing on VCS activity to Tackle Worklessness which includes a number of case studies, that sit alongside the University of Manchester case studies:

http://www.vsnw.org.uk/files/Publications/29_Tackling_Worklessness_in_the_North_West(1).doc One of the case studies is included below:

CASE STUDY 6 WAI YIN CHINESE WOMEN SOCIETY'S "WOMEN CONSTRUCTION SOLUTIONS PROJECT 2006-07" (GREATER MANCHESTER)

Key Outcome: 120 women engaged, 80 level 1 awards, 12 level 2 awards, engaging a wide diversity of women including single parents, 50 women volunteering, 13 work placements

The Women Construction Solutions Project works with hard to reach women learners and has developed positive partnerships with a number of employers, including New Charter that enable successful and sustainable work placements and employment for women within the construction industry. The project has won ESF awards including: an Embracing Diversity Award (which was awarded to the provider who has demonstrated great diversity in both engagement in learning and employment) and the Excellence Award (which was awarded to the provider who has made an outstanding contribution to a project through designing, developing and effective delivery with challenging objectives). The project was also runner up in the Innovation with Employers Award, which was awarded to the provider who has used the most innovative approaches with employers especially in hard to reach sectors.

In addition to Key Outcomes the project achieved:

—  Most diverse project 1/3 of women were Chinese, other communities represented.

—  New National Accredited ASET Awards written and developed "in house" which have resulted in big advances on training women/volunteers in practical skills in the community.

—  Building skills and confidence, especially for lone parents, conquering one of the last frontiers!

—  Innovation with employers, resulting in the formation of an "Employers Diversity Forum" in the NW, a case study published by Housemark in their publication "Embracing Diversity" contributing to groundbreaking and ongoing advances for women in the construction industry.

—  The project was originally funded by the LSC to December 2007.

Website—www.waiyin.org.uk



 
previous page contents next page


© Parliamentary copyright 2011
Prepared 3 November 2011