Written evidence submitted by National
Association for Voluntary and Community Action
BACKGROUND
NAVCA is the national voice of local support and
development organisations in England. We champion and strengthen
voluntary and community action by supporting our members in their
work with over 160,000 local charities and community groups. NAVCA
believes that voluntary and community action is vital for vibrant
and caring communities.
We provide our members with networking opportunities,
specialist advice, support, policy information and training. NAVCA
is a vital bridge between local groups and national government.
Our specialist teams take a lead on the issues that
matter most to local support and development organisations. We
influence national and local government policy to strengthen local
voluntary and community action.
SUMMARY
NAVCA believes that Government should continue to
invest in the three components of regeneration, social, economic
and physical, and seek to maintain the right balance between them.
We were concerned at the absence of a specific mention of regeneration
in the Coalition Programme[104]
and welcome the inquiry as an indication of a continuing commitment
to this vital area of activity.
The Consultation Document is exceptionally brief,
lacks vision and is weak on structure and content. It is not sufficient
to rely on the Local Growth White Paper to provide strategic framework,
as that document is concerned primarily with economic development.
Nor does the categorising and repackaging of policies and programmes
which have survived the 2010 Spending Review provide reassurance
that a coherent strategy for supporting regeneration is likely
to emerge. We acknowledge that the Select Committee faces a daunting
task in addressing these deficiencies and attempting to arrive
at a new approach to regeneration. NAVCA pledges its continuing
support, both in advising Government on how this might be achieved
and in assisting voluntary and community organisations (VCOs)
to engage fully in the delivery of regeneration programmes and
activities.
Our main recommendations are:
— A strategic
framework is required for the new approach to regeneration. It
is not sufficient or acceptable either to repackage existing schemes
with new labels or to rely on the Local Growth White Paper to
provide this.
— VCOs
have traditionally been the pioneers in many aspects of public
policy, including regeneration. The new approach to regeneration
should not confine VCOs to the role of delivery agents; it should
also provide them with an opportunity to continue to innovate
in tackling deprivation and disadvantage.
— The
Select Committee is urged to recommend that the third sector,
including VCOs, is given equal status alongside the public and
private sectors in a new approach to regeneration.
— The
new approach to regeneration should not imply wholesale abandonment
of past policies and programmes simply because they have come
to be identified with the previous Government. Effective mechanisms
for knowledge transfer should be put in place to preserve the
intellectual capital of agencies which are being merged or abolished.
— We
are concerned that government funding for regeneration has been
artificially inflated in the consultation document and suspect
an element of double counting. We urge the Select Committee to
probe the Government's proposals thoroughly to establish whether
this is the case, if there is an element we hope the Committee
will call the Government to account.
— Funding
for VCOs is a financially efficient means of achieving social
regeneration, producing significant financial multipliers when
resources are invested locally.
— A fire-sale
of RDA assets before enactment of the Localism Bill would prevent
communities from identifying assets of community value and exercising
their right to bid for them. A moratorium is required on the disposal
of these assets so that their value as assets to the local community
can be fully assessed.
— A review
of previous regeneration initiatives shows that Government does
not always have a monopoly on the best ideas—there is much
to be gained from harnessing the ingenuity and commitment of communities.
— Proposals
to return a proportion of the planning gain recovered through
the Community Infrastructure Levy to neighbourhoods require clarification.
At least 25% should be earmarked for community use and communities
should have control over how the proceeds are used.
— The
pressures on local authorities resulting from the Spending Review
have threatened councils' financial support for voluntary organisations.
The Committee should emphasise to Government the importance of
voluntary organisations and community groups to regeneration and
ask them to protect public funding of VCOs at local level.
— Social
value should be taken into account in the appraisal and evaluation
of regeneration initiatives.
— Government
must recognise that for neighbourhoods to improve there must be
investment in the people who live there and not just in economic
development projects or physical assets.
How effective is the Government's approach to
regeneration likely to be? What benefits is the new approach likely
to bring?
We are concerned at the apparent absence of a strategic
approach to regeneration. We would urge the Select Committee to
recommend a strategic framework for a new approach to regeneration,
comprising:
— A vision
for regeneration which balances the social, economic and physical
aspects.
— Aims
which highlight the different needs of urban and rural communities,
promote equality and diversity, address regional imbalances, and
consider the relative merits of national, thematic and area-based
approaches to regeneration.
— Objectives,
which form part of a programme for at least the remainder of the
current term of Government.
— An
outline budget, which sets out what the Government (national and
local) should invest and what can realistically be expected to
be leveraged from the private and voluntary sectors.
VCOs have traditionally been the pioneers in many
aspects of public policy, including regeneration. The new approach
to regeneration should not confine VCOs to the role of delivery
agents; it should also provide them with an opportunity to continue
to innovate in tackling deprivation and disadvantage. It should
also hold out a reasonable prospect that they will be supported
by Government until they are sufficiently viable to become part
of mainstream service provision.
NAVCA's members are involved in all aspects of regeneration,
but the balance of activity is inevitably skewed towards social
regeneration. In our view social regeneration is the key for to
a better quality of life and for access to economic opportunity
for the most disadvantaged citizens. It is social projects that
develop self confidence; introduce people to basic skills such
as literacy, education and first step training programmes; work
with young people, ex-offenders, lone parents and those who have
never had paid employment to give them hope, choices, opportunities
and skills. Such work in disadvantaged communities leads to better
economic outcomes not only for the beneficiaries but also for
society as a whole.
We have responded positively to the Localism Bill,
founding the Real Power for Communities Campaign[105]
and submitting memoranda to the Bill Committee and responding
to CLG Consultations. We believe that Localism ought to be an
opportunity for real empowerment local communities, putting them
in control of regeneration at neighbourhood level. We have indicated
qualified support for proposals in the Localism Bill for neighbourhood
planning, the right to challenge and the right to buy. Without
repeating the specifics of our evidence, we would draw the Committee's
attention to some of the cross cutting themes we have identified
as these are relevant to successful regeneration. In our view,
future policies and programmes should aim to:
— Reduce
inequality and safeguard the rights of minorities. The widening
of public service provision should be to the fundamental protections
contained in the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998, the new Public Sector
Equality Duty (PSED) under the Equality Act 2010.
— Balance
social, economic and physical aspects. We are campaigning
to ensure disadvantaged communities can have real access to new
rights, powers and programmes—not just the powerful and
affluent.
— Promote
community empowerment, strengthen local democracy and harmonise
representative democracy with participative democracy. VCOs are
an important channel for delivering participative democracy at
local level.
Will it ensure that the progress made by past
regeneration projects is not lost and can, where appropriate,
be built on?
The new approach to regeneration should not imply
wholesale abandonment of past policies and programmes simply because
the have come to be identified with the previous Government. It
is essential that effective mechanisms for knowledge transfer
are put in place so that the intellectual capital of those agencies
which are being abolished can be captured, codified and made accessible
to regeneration practitioners and communities in future. The speed
which Regional Development Agencies, Urban Regeneration Companies
and local special purpose vehicles have been dismantled has left
little time for knowledge transfer to be accomplished but with
immediate action, it may be possible to salvage some essentials.
There would be immediate benefits. For example, the task of Local
Enterprise Partnerships in producing local economic strategies
could be simplified if the evidence base of previous strategies
is recovered; and the chances of success of future regeneration
projects will be improved if their promoters have access to a
database of previous project evaluations. Government should make
a distinction between breaking with the past and learning from
the past.
NAVCA members have devoted time and ingenuity to
negotiating and agreeing Compacts, Neighbourhood Charters and
Commissioning Codes with local authorities and have been partners
in LSPs producing Community Strategies for local areas. It is
essential that these important documents are preserved as the
new approach to regeneration takes shape.
The Select Committee should recognise that community
confidence in Government-funded regeneration has been damaged
by the rapidity with which the 2010 Spending Review has been implemented.
In some Housing Market Renewal Areas, homes acquired for refurbishment
or redevelopment now stand unoccupied (an irony given the programme
was intended to tackle estate abandonment) whilst the loss of
substantial HCA funding for PFI-led regeneration has disillusioned
those living in the communities affected (including the Aylesbury
Estate in Southwark featured on CLG's webpage for the present
Regeneration Enquiry!)
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?
The question of whether sufficient public funding
will be provided for regeneration is one for the Coalition Government
to decide, but on the evidence provided in the Consultation Document,
we are concerned that this will not be the case. Certainly, big
figures appear under the heading of "Targeted Investment"
in the consultation document, but the purposes cited are mostly
for large scale infrastructure projects, some of which are not
primarily or even substantially about regeneration. There is certain
to be a large measure of double counting as the same figures are
re-quoted in other Government policy documents. We urge the Committee
to probe the Government on this and to condemn any attempt to
artificially inflate its apparent funding for regeneration.
In the past we have expressed concern about the transition
from the Single Regeneration Budget programme to the Single Pot,
in particular that whilst overall levels of funding had been protected,
the latter was not as effective in channelling funds to local
communities. Then as now, efficiency and effectiveness of targeting
funding are also important.
Our call for a balanced approach to regeneration
does not necessarily imply equal funding for social, economic
and physical aspects. Physical regeneration is, by its nature,
more capital intensive and current priorities, largely in response
to recession, focus on economic development and growth. But we
urge the Select Committee to recognise the importance of social
regeneration and the financial efficiency of funding the VCOs
working at neighbourhood level:
"The positive case for investment in communities
is that it will boost social capital, enhance collective efficacy
and support the mobilisation and use of a wide range of local
resources. In this way many local grants for community activity
result in a multiplier effect of 11:1, with £2,000 resulting
in a further £22,000 of support in-kind and in-cash."[106]
In the context of the proposed Right to Buy in the
Localism Bill, we urge the Select Committee to consider the future
of public sector assets alongside direct funding of regeneration.
The HCA has recently been charged with managing the disposal of
RDA assets, in doing so balancing the need to promote regeneration
with obtaining the best return for the public purse. It is vital
that disposals are not allowed to proceed before communities have
the opportunity, to be provided in the Localism Bill, to nominate
some of these assets as being of community value and of bidding
to acquire them. A "fire sale" at this stage will result
in community divestment. The action of the Commission for New
Towns following the wind-up of the Development Corporations provides
ample evidence of the dangers of asset-stripping and the losses
communities can sustain in such circumstances.[107]
What lessons should be learnt from past and existing
regeneration projects to apply to the Government's new approach?
The experience of NAVCA and its members of past regeneration
initiatives stretch back to the early 1970s—clearly a review
of the strengths and weaknesses of all of them is beyond the scope
of the Select Committee's inquiry. We have therefore selected
10 initiatives and 20 lessons (10 positive and 10 negative) that
might inform the Committee's deliberations:
| 1970s | Community Development Projects
|
| + | Action Research engaged communities in pioneering new approaches to dealing with social disadvantage
|
| - | Concluded that causes of urban deprivation lay in structural economic decline largely beyond the scope of area based intervention
|
| 1970s | Inner City Partnerships
|
| + | Brought central and local government together in addressing urban decline, backed with substantial additional funding
|
| - | Central government funding applied to mainstream local authority capital projects (no additionality) and community not directly involved in the partnership
|
| 1980s | Comprehensive Community Programmes
|
| + | Pioneered a co-ordinated, multi-agency approach to tackling deprivation, later adopted by Local Area Agreements and Multi-Area Agreements
|
| - | Overly academic in analysis, complicated systems of delivery and weak community engagement
|
| 1980s | British Coal Enterprise
|
| + | Delivered managed workspace and advance factory units in coal closure areas, many of sites of former collieries and assistance to former miners to launch new business enterprises
|
| - | Did little to address the social fragmentation that resulted following colliery closures or to mend the rifts in communities following the mining industry dispute.
|
| 1980s | Urban Development Corporations (First Generation)
|
| + | Substantial funding, planning powers and can-do approach cut through red tape and kick started physical regeneration
|
| - | Community side-lined or ignored with the result that mistakes were made with long-term adverse consequences
|
| 90s-00s | Single Regeneration Budget 1-6
|
| + | Later phases particularly effective in engaging local authorities with VCOs at neighbourhood level and funding community led projects
|
| - | Despite efforts to secure a legacy, many initiatives started under SRB collapsed following withdrawal of funding
|
| 2000s | Neighbourhood Renewal Funds
|
| + | In conjunction with LSPs, supported community based projects with a direct impact on areas of deprivation, helping to create a feeling of belonging and tackling the causes rather than the symptoms of deprivation
|
| - | Diversion of some of the funds intended for communities to maintain local authority mainstream services
|
| 2000s | New Deal for Communities
|
| + | Concentrated funding on small areas with the aim of reducing the gaps between the most deprived neighbourhoods and the rest of the country. Communities given a large degree of control the administration of programmes
|
| - | Poor support structure and insufficient effort put into capacity building, with the consequence that some schemes failed spectacularly
|
| 2000s | Urban Regeneration Companies
|
| + | Drew together public, private and voluntary sectors in commissioning and agreeing a regeneration strategy and undertaking mainly physical regeneration projects with an emphasis public realm improvements
|
| - | Lacked sufficient consensus to attract funding for more ambitious schemes and wound up with no regard for preserving a legacy
|
| 90s-10s | Regional Development Agencies
|
| + | Produced coherent economic development strategies for the regions and provided funding for regeneration programmes at sub-regional level
|
| - | Poor on delivery, consequently struggled to gain public acceptance and were perhaps wrongly, associated by the Coalition Government with failed attempts to establish regional government
|
It is, of course, possible to look even further back for examples
of what might now be classified as regeneration—for example
the model towns of Owen in New Lanark and Cadbury at Bourneville,
the achievements of the Rochdale Pioneers in establishing retail
co-operatives and Howard's Garden Cities in Hertfordshire. These
prove that Government does not always have all the answers—there
is much to be gained from harnessing the ingenuity and commitment
of communities and the entrepreneurialism and corporate social
responsibility of the private sector.
Nevertheless, it is essential to learn from experience, particularly
at a time of limited resources, and we believe that current policy
must draw upon the lessons of past regeneration programmes if
it is to avoid the mistakes of the past.
What action should the Government be taking to attract money
from (a) public and (b) private sources into regeneration schemes?
NAVCA takes issue with the way in which this question has been
framed; first, because it focuses on money, ignoring the other
two economic factors, property and labour; and secondly because
it overlooks the vital contribution of the VCOs and the wider
third sector to regeneration.
Previous work by NAVCA members, the Asset Transfer Unit, the DTA
(now Locality) and others have demonstrated how transfer of public
sector assets into community ownership can drive regeneration
at neighbourhood level. Provisions in the Localism Bill will take
this a step further by encouraging communities to identify and
bid to acquire assets of community value. Of course, money will
also be needed, not only to finance asset purchase but also endowment
funding to underwrite long term maintenance costs or certain assets.
We support proposals to change the Community Infrastructure Levy,
whereby a proportion of the planning gain from the development
of land will be returned to the communities affected. This ought
to ensure that redevelopment schemes in urban areas integrate
with the surrounding neighbourhood and contribute to the improvement
of community facilities. But this will only be fully effective
if a reasonable proportion of the levy (at least 25%) is earmarked
for neighbourhoods and the community has control over how it is
used. Otherwise, there is a risk that it will disappear into Council
balances. We urge the Committee to seek early clarification from
Government on these matters.
Human resources are essential to successful regeneration. The
area based regeneration schemes of the past have depended on engaging
members of the community and harnessing the efforts of VCOs at
neighbourhood level. We have already referred to the large economic
multipliers produced by investment in VCOs. The pressures on local
authorities resulting from the Spending Review have threatened
local authority financial support for voluntary organisations.
NAVCA is concerned about the situation and fears that VCOs may
be forced to accept a disproportionate reduction in support for
their activities. The Select Committee should emphasise to Government
the importance of the voluntary and community sector to regeneration
and ask them to protect public funding of VCOs at local level.
Finally, the Committee is urged to recommend that civil society,
including VCOs, is given equal status alongside the public and
private sectors in a new approach to regeneration. In addition
to unlocking human capital at neighbourhood level, it provides
knowledge of conditions at neighbourhood level and draws in finance
in the form of charitable donations to support activities. NAVCA
is concerned that VCOs have already been side-lined or overlooked
completely in some of the new initiatives under the regeneration
umbrella. Many LEPs either excluded VCOs or provided only token
involvement- a clear indication that their promoters (largely
local authorities) may regard them as irrelevant to local economic
regeneration.
How should the success of the Government's approach be assessed
in future?
There is an established procedure for appraisal and evaluation
of Government policies and programmes, as set out in the Green
and Magenta Books[108]
and other Government guidance and evaluation frameworks. Continued
use of these frameworks has the benefit of allowing comparison
between future approaches to regeneration with evaluations of
those undertaken in the past.
NAVCA has supported proposals for social value to be taken into
account in project appraisal and evaluation as well as tender
assessment for public service commissioning. We have argued that
value for money, a key component in assessing success of Government
interventions, should include social value, expressed as the wider
benefits to communities and individuals of a particular approach.
A 2009 Cabinet Office paper expressed this well:
"Put more simply, there are three elements to value for
money as defined by Treasury:
— 1. Quality
and suitability the service for the individual;
— 2. Long
term implications or whole life costs;
— 3. Wider
outcomes for society and the state.
Value for money is concerned not just with unit
costs but with what has been called the full value or public benefit
that a provider brings to delivering a service".[109]
Crucial to this is the extent to which Governments
invests in people and not simply in economic development projects
or physical assets, vital though they are. This entails support
for social projects that develop self confidence; introduce people
to basic skills such as literacy, education and first step training
programmes; work with young people, ex-offenders, lone parents
and those who have never had paid employment to give them hope,
choices, opportunities and skills. Such work in disadvantaged
communities leads to better economic outcomes not only for the
beneficiaries but also for society as a whole.
In conclusion, we hope that the Committee will acknowledge
the essential part that the voluntary and community sector plays
in successful regeneration. Working in partnership with the public
and private sectors we can:
— Enhance
community engagement and capacity;
— Leverage
social value;
— Build
social capital and collective efficacy;
— Identify
and make use of local assets;
— Ensure
institutions are more accountable to local users; and
— Articulate
the empowerment mechanisms that are to be available to people.
May 2011
104 The Coalition (2010) Our Programme for Government
HM Government Back
105
See www.rp4c.org.uk Back
106
Department for Communities and Local Governmnet (2007) Report
of the Local Community Sector Task Force Back
107
See, for Example, Evidence Submitted to the CLG Select Committee
on New Towns Back
108
HM Treasury (2011) Magenta Book-Guidance for Evaluation Back
109
NEF (2009) A Better Return: Setting the Foundations for intelligent
Commissioning to achieve Value for Money, Cabinet Office Back
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