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.
Websitewww.waiyin.org.uk
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