Memorandum from the London Civic Forum
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
London Civic Forum supports greater decentralisation
and localism of public services. This should go hand-in-hand with
opening up the opportunity for local people to influence, in some
cases, deliver, the services they need. Our submission looks at
the case for engagement and gives clear recommendations on how
local authorities and Whitehall can support this.
Extent to which decentralisation leads to more
effective public service delivery and what are, or should be,
the limits to localism
- Local authorities must understand that people
do not often organise within neat political boundaries, and they
should understand the importance of, and be prepared to work with,
social networks, communities of interest, and small user groups
organising around a school, park or library.
- There will be limits to localism. Some decisions
will have to be made in the national interest. In London, there
will be appropriate decisions to make at the city-wide level,
for example, safeguarding the interests of marginalised groups,
or exploring cross-borough initiatives. And even at the borough
level, there will be a need to plan strategies for the whole borough.
Role of local government in a decentralised model
of local public service delivery
Local government has a role as a facilitator of local
opinion and should:
- underpin their engagement practice with a good
engagement strategy;
- establish a range of engagement mechanisms;
- facilitate a culture change on the part of local
government officers;
- engage service users at the point of service
delivery; and
- invest in the role of councillors as community
leaders.
Local government also has a role as a catalyst for
empowerment and should support and invest in:
- active citizenship programmes;
- informal community groups; and
- the social economy;
Extent to which localism can and should extend
to other local agents
Public agencies need to understand the appropriate
spatial scale in which to:
- plan, spend and deliver local services; and
- encourage citizen engagement
Action for Whitehall departments to achieve effective
decentralised public service delivery
Whitehall should:
- encourage more joining up of Government Departments
who are producing their own versions of what localism means;
- continue to fund the Regional Empowerment Partnerships;
- learn the lessons from Total Place; and
- fund national support programmes to encourage
citizen engagement, such as the Take Part programme, Grassroots
Grants, a social enterprise support programme.
Impact of decentralisation in the achievement
of savings
Savings may be achieved by:
- early intervention programmes, some of which
can be effectively delivered by the third sector;
- contracting volunteer-using agencies to deliver
services; and
- the use of Social Impact Bonds and "payment
by results".
Oversight of local government performance
There is a role for citizens to become involved in
assessing the performance of their local services.
How effective and appropriate accountability can
be achieved for expenditure on the delivery of local services
There is a need to set up participative methods to
involve citizens in calling elected members and government officers
to account.
2. INTRODUCTION
2.1 London Civic Forum was established in September
2000 and has a cross sector membership of over 1,300 organisations
and individuals. We aim to increase and improve civic participation
in London. We develop opportunities for Londoners to learn about
the governance of London and empower communities to have a say
in the policies and decisions which affect their lives. Our work
is founded on the understanding that the more people who are involved
in civic society at all levels, the better the governance and
services provided will be.
2.2 London Civic Forum is submitting evidence
based on the extensive expertise we have developed through the
delivery of our cross sector programmes around community involvement
in public services. In particular we host the London Empowerment
Partnership which over the past four years has brought together
a range of statutory agencies, civil society organisations and
networks with the aim of improving the quality, coordination and
evidence of community empowerment in London. Through this we have
conducted research, piloted programmes and developed case studies
which show how effective engagement can be achieved.
2.3 We also run other programmes through which
we have built up a comprehensive understanding of how community
engagement supports public service delivery by a range of agencies.[4]
2.4 London Civic Forum supports greater decentralisation
and localism of public services. However, we know that public
services are more effective if informed, directed and in some
cases delivered by local communities. Therefore increased decentralisation
needs to be accompanied by increased engagement and power for
people as has been identified in the Big Society agenda.
2.5 There also needs to be recognition that London
is different. London has a city wide governance structure in the
Greater London Authority, and therefore there has to be decentralisation
across a range of levels: London-wide, sub regional, Local Authority
and neighbourhood.
3. EXTENT TO
WHICH DECENTRALISATION
LEADS TO
MORE EFFECTIVE
PUBLIC SERVICE
DELIVERY
3.1 The devolution of power from national and
regional government to local government should go hand-in-hand
with opening up the opportunities for people at a local level
to influence the services they need. If the council and the people
plan services together they are far more likely to be configured
the way people actually need; this should result in more effective
services with less waste. Public services should be informed,
and in some circumstances, delivered by the people they benefit.
Decentralising services to a more local level is more likely to
be effective if public bodies understand that people network at
different levels, for example:
- Social networks are of paramount importance.
People's networks do not always fit into recognised political
boundaries: in London, Finsbury Park has a strong identity of
its own despite crossing the boundaries of Hackney, Islington
and Haringey.
- People also often identify more strongly with
a community of interest, such as a disability group, or linguistic
group, than a geographical community.
- Local services often have a stronger catalysing
effect than political boundaries: park user groups, Parent Teacher
Associations, and "keep our library open" campaigns
are often strong and effective, whereas many councils find that
their local area-based structures struggle to attract large numbers
of residents.
3.2 Decentralisation at a more local level can
also be effective since it recognises that people in different
areas have different needs: for example some neighbourhoods may
not need the same level of street sweeping as others. Planning
and delivering services at a more local level than the district
could be more effective since services may not necessarily need
to be delivered uniformly across the whole district.
3.3 However, there is a concern that middle-class
people with the time, confidence and know-how will get more involved
and influence services than those who lack experience or confidence,
or who simply don't have the time. This is an equalities issue
that might possibly be resolved by community development and outreach
work.
4. LIMITS TO
LOCALISM
4.1 Although decentralising power to a neighbourhood
level is valuable, there will be limits to localism where some
decisions are in the national, city-wide or borough interest.
- There will therefore be a need for the Government
to declare some things in the national interest, whether
that is a universal standard for a particular service, such as
access to medical treatment, or a nationally significant development,
such as the route of the high speed rail.
- In London there may be a need to plan
and commission some services at the city-wide level, setting out
what needs Londoners have, including those of marginalised groups
who may be small in terms of numbers at a borough level, but significant
across the whole of London. Strategies such as the London Plan
provide a strategic view which can safeguard the interests of
all Londoners. Indeed, as the example below demonstrates, local
groups can find London-wide strategies useful for safeguarding
their interests at local level.
Just Space Network
The Just Space Network, hosted by London Civic Forum,
promotes sustainable communities through engagement in planning
processes. It played a significant part in helping develop the
Further Alterations to the Mayor's Spatial Plan, and facilitated
representation by community groups at the Examination in Public.
The process enhanced local community groups' understanding of
how London-wide policies, such as limits on the density of developments
in certain locations, could protect their local interests. They
could then use these arguments when talking to borough planners.
- Similar issues may occur within a borough
where neighbourhood planning is not always the most appropriate
level. For example, how will locations for travellers' sites or
supported housing be chosen in the face of local opposition? A
simple majority opinion or referendum may not always be appropriate
if the interests of "unpopular" groups never get prioritised.
It will be necessary for councils to develop local strategies
to tackle the needs of communities of interest in conjunction
with them, and to use these strategies to set out the case for
service provision to meet their needs.
4.2 RECOMMENDATION 1: We would like the Committee
to recognise the value of the Mayor of London in establishing
citizen engagement structures to consult on pan-London strategies.
5. THE ROLE
OF LOCAL
GOVERNMENT IN
A DECENTRALISED
MODEL OF
LOCAL PUBLIC
SERVICE DELIVERY
A facilitator of local opinion
5.1 A key role for local government in making
localism work is as a facilitator of local opinion. If
public services are to be informed by local people, then there
needs to be structures for engagement. The London Civic Forum
has an in-depth experience in working with boroughs and their
partners to coordinate and promote empowerment practice across
London. London boroughs need to:
- Underpin their empowerment practice by a good
engagement strategy which sets out the business case for engagement
and how they will work with communities to identify priority outcomes
and address them.
- Establish a range of appropriate mechanisms
to engage with citizens:
- ongoing area assemblies which appear to work
for planning, environmental issues and crime prevention;
- issue-based forums (eg health and social care
forums) and special interest forums (eg older people's forums)
which work better across a wider area where people can make wider
connections and learn from each other; and
- one-off or annual mechanisms such as consultations,
participatory budgeting sessions on particular issues.
Working with a community of interest: defining
needs and setting priorities
Southwark Council undertook action research on the
needs and wants of Muslims in the borough. The research comprised
recruiting and training a group of Muslim residents as volunteer
researchers. They designed the research questions, undertook focus
groups and a survey, and participated in a workshop that drew
out the findings of the research. A report was written informing
the borough of the needs of Muslims and the research findings
will be acted upon. The Council wants to try this approach with
other groups since it believes it is an excellent way of getting
different communities to define their own needs and make recommendations
to the council, and could save money that might otherwise be spent
on external consultants.
- Facilitate a culture change on the part of
local government officers by cross-fertilising ideas between
officers, community groups, social enterprises and community activists.
We would like to see secondments and short-term exchanges between
young council workers and the community sector as part of their
continuing professional development which could have a profound
effect on their career paths. We believe that community development
training and empowerment training should become as standard a
feature of the continuing professional development of local authority
staff as equalities training has been.
- Engage service users at the point of service
delivery. Many users engage reactively
when they have an issue or need, that is, they engage at the front
line of service delivery. Customer engagement in services is often
not fed back into policy making by front-line staff, but if service
users were engaged at the point of service delivery they could
feed in their views about service improvements. Tapping the resources
of front-line staff is most important in this respect.
- Invest in councillors
so that they can act as a route to engagement with local people.
Time is often limited for them and much time is spent in the council
chamber. Good induction for councillors to help them understand
their role in the community is paramount.
Councillor in the community
Involve, a charity promoting high quality processes
in public participation, was funded by the London Civic Forum,
through the London Empowerment Partnership to develop a new resource
to support elected members in their community leadership role.
A website, Councillors in the Community, was established
with the aim of promoting councillors' capacity to understand
the needs of their ward residents and work in an empowering way
with them, and make a positive impact for them.
5.2 For citizen engagement to be effective, local
councils will need to support local people by:
- hosting and supporting the development of local
groups and enterprises, including providing space and resources
to communities to organise and develop their own messages and
responses;
- investing in community development and promoting
active citizenship programmes, including community leadership;
- investing in local forums and networks, including
online social networking;
- supporting infrastructure groups such as councils
for voluntary services and community anchor organisations to mobilise
collective action around a strategic community agenda;
- facilitating grass-roots community-led action
planning of an area;
- engaging customers at the point of service delivery
and acting on the results to bring about improvements to the service;
- bringing the public and private sector together
with citizens to create a cross sector vision of an area or service;
and
- supporting equalities groups who may need specific
encouragement to enable them to participate fully in society.
5.3 RECOMMENDATION 2: We would like the Committee
to recognise the importance of the role of citizen engagement
in the planning of public services, and to introduce a scheme
whereby public sector officers acquire community development and
engagement skills as part of their continuing professional development.
A catalyst for empowerment
5.4 A second role for local government is to
act as a catalyst for empowerment so that local people
can organise on their own behalf as active citizens, in community
groups and as social enterprises. Boroughs can invest in the community
by:
- Investing in active citizenship.
People may want to become involved in a variety of ways: volunteering
as a member of a local board; becoming a school governor; belonging
to a tenants association; becoming a friend of a park. They may
want to set up informal or more formal groups to provide local
services. Or they may want to get actively involved in influencing
the council - either on one of its more formal forums, or to campaign
around a particular issue. Although these are citizen-led initiatives
the local authority has a role in facilitating them to happen,
particularly in deprived areas where there is not a culture of
active citizenship. This requires, firstly, good community development
skills to find out what is happening on the ground in terms of
social networks and groups, and secondly to nurture people's aspirations
by supporting them to take part in future activities. This can
set them along the route to achieving their goals.
Take Part
Take Part is a national initiative funded by Communities
and Local Government which supports individuals and small groups
to build their skills, confidence and knowledge to become active
in their community. Although a nationally funded initiative, in
London it is working at the borough level. Take Part can act as
a catalyst for the involvement of people who would otherwise not
be involved and has had remarkable results.
Sylvie Montgomery had been volunteering in various
roles for a number of years when she found the Southwark Active
Citizens Hub through a link in an email. Since then she has attended
a wide range of courses to help develop her skills, and has long
considered herself an active citizen. Since getting involved with
the Hub Sylvie has taken on more volunteering roles, including
a construction project for Advocates for the Homeless in Southwark.
She also started a campaign against plans to demolish a police
box in her local area.
"The Hub's courses and the support from the
Active Citizens officers gave me the confidence and skills to
stand up for what I want," Sylvie
explains. "I have also been regularly attending the Hub's
Public Speaking Club which has helped me to speak out in front
of people." In fact Sylvie had become so confident in
her speaking skills that she agreed to give a presentation on
behalf of the Hub at Coin Street Neighbourhood Association, in
front of nearly 100 people. Sylvie is now focusing on her most
recent role as a Trustee for "Together", a mental health
charity.
- Investing in informal community groups. Many
local community groups exist outside of the formal "voluntary
sector" who require little or no money but who want to make
a difference to their area. These groups, such as amenity groups
and after school groups, emerge through local networking and they
are often fundamentally different from those groups who want to
provide a funded service such as job seeking advice. But that
difference has often been unrecognised by capacity building initiatives
which focus on the more formal community sector groups and offer
support in areas such as devising a constitution. Boroughs need
to support these small informal groups to make a local impact
by:
- fulfilling basic needs such as access to a photocopier,
IT training, support in setting up a website;
- facilitating access to information from the local
authority on issues relevant to their campaigns; and
- allocating small grants (using the Community
Chest model) to enable groups to get things off the ground.
- Investing in the social economy. Boroughs
can support the establishment and growth of social enterprises
which can work with the public sector to deliver services. The
Young Foundation talks about "intelligent scaling",
helping social entrepreneurs to "refine their business models
and improve their effectiveness", and growing those whose
model would work more widely.[5]
Transfer of assets could be a big gain for the social enterprise
sector but boroughs will need to ensure that there is a large
enough revenue stream to enable social enterprises to manage any
assets they take over. Boroughs should also help social enterprises
by ensuring an even playing field is established between potential
third sector and private sector contractors. One model could be
for local authorities to support smaller social enterprises to
bid for contracts together, making economies of scale by sharing
some back-office functions. But councils should also be developing
a commissioning model which is not based on larger and larger
contracts, which inevitably favours large commercial providers.
5.5 RECOMMENDATION 3: We would like to see
the Committee encouraging local authorities to invest in and support:
- active citizenship programmes;
- informal community groups; and
- social entrepreneurs and social enterprises.
6. EXTENT TO
WHICH LOCALISM
CAN AND
SHOULD EXTEND
TO OTHER
LOCAL AGENTS
6.1 Here we raise the particular issue of public
agencies engaging at the neighbourhood level, rather than the
borough or wider level. Two important questions that agencies
need to ask are:
- Is the neighbourhood the appropriate spatial
scale in which to plan, spend and deliver local services?
- Or is the spatial area the right place to encourage
citizen engagement?
6.2 These questions raise some issues:
- People tend to engage well on issues where they
can have a direct say on how very local services are run in their
areas, or where they can collaborate to get a problem sorted.
Thus people will engage well on local planning issues, street
cleaning and community safety. The police have generally had very
good success with their Safer Neighbourhood Forums where local
people can work collaboratively with the police and other agents
such as the youth service. Residents may also engage in something
like a local employment and training forum when wanting to plan
local skills training or job search activities, but probably only
for a limited timescale.
- However, people engage less well on a regular
basis at the neighbourhood level where the service has
a wider catchment area eg a further education college. The college
may well want opinions at a neighbourhood level on how a change
in service might affect local people, for example establishing
outreach services, but this engagement is rarely on an on-going
basis.
6.3 The solution is for local people and agencies
themselves to plan what is the appropriate level of engagement
and whether this is one-off, for a limited period to plan a service,
or on an ongoing basis. The existence of an area-based forum will
be a useful means for agencies to engage with residents on a one-off
or time-limited period.
6.4 RECOMMENDATION 4: The Committee should
encourage more joining up of Government Departments who are producing
their own versions of what localism means, and engender a discussion
on where it is most appropriate for local agencies to engage at
a local level, and what for.
7. ACTION FOR
WHITEHALL DEPARTMENTS
TO ACHIEVE
EFFECTIVE DECENTRALISED
PUBLIC SERVICE
DELIVERY
7.1 Whitehall has a role to help decentralisation
happen. This is not about telling local government what to do.
In the spirit of localism, local government must decide for itself
which mix of empowerment models to use. However, we would argue
that the Regional Empowerment Partnerships have been instrumental
in supporting boroughs to share good practice and learn about
what works. Good practice needs to be found, disseminated and
evaluated and the London Empowerment Partnership has continuing
role to play in doing this.
7.2 Whitehall also has a role in joining up the
different departments with a responsibility for delivering localism:
education, health, police as well as Communities and Local Government,
so they deliver the same message. There is a danger that some
of the new initiatives, such as academies and Free Schools, will
not engage with local communities.
7.3 Whitehall should learn some of the lessons
from Total Place and consider the evidence that public agencies
getting together can improve services by sharing certain back
office services, cutting duplication and making services more
efficient for the user.
7.4 Importantly Whitehall can support local people
themselves to take part in the localism agenda effectively. This
will involve putting in place national support programmes such
as:
- Take Part programme which uses community-based
informal learning to build the skills, confidence and experience
of people to meet political, social and technical challenges;
- business support for social entrepreneurs (feasibility
studies, start-up funding); and
- support and advice for social enterprises on
commissioning.
7.5 RECOMMENDATION 5: We recommend that Whitehall:
- continues to fund the Regional Empowerment
Partnerships;
- learns the lessons from Total Place so that
is can best decide how to devolve powers and finance to a particular
location; and
- funds national support programmes such as
the Take Part programme, Grassroots Grants, Social Enterprise
support programme, including support on commissioning.
8. IMPACT OF
DECENTRALISATION IN
THE ACHIEVEMENT
OF SAVINGS
8.1 We believe that one of the most effective
cost saving will be more support for "early intervention"
programmes which prevent crises happening further down the line.
Supplementary schools run by volunteers can improve educational
attainment levels. Outreach by volunteers who raise awareness
of how to detect possible symptoms of cancer may encourage visits
to the doctor who can undertake early diagnosis.
8.2 Other savings can be made by using social
enterprises and the voluntary sector to provide public services.
They may be able to provide a lower unit cost by using volunteers,
but it must be emphasised that volunteers still have to be recruited,
trained and managed - which requires a skilled volunteer manager.
8.3 Another way of saving is the "payment
by results" model. The most innovative example of this is
the Social Impact Bond trialled by the Government as a way of
reducing re-offending rates at Peterborough Prison. Social investors
have put in money to a rehabilitation programme administered by
Social Finance, who will contract with social enterprises. Investors
will receive from the Government a share of the long-term savings
if re-offending rates drop. The scheme has raised scepticism from
those who think that it might distort the client group, working
with those least likely to re-offend and leave the most vulnerable
out. However, Social Finance says they have an incentive for working
with those at risk of offending since they are the ones who will
cause the figures to drop. While this might be true of working
with ex offenders, this may not be the case with jobless people
as organisations may well "cream" off those who are
most likely to enter employment.
8.4 RECOMMENDATION 6: The Committee should
consider advising the Government to invest in programmes that
will ultimately result in cost savings, such as outreach and early
intervention programmes; and evaluating the "payments by
results" model to ensure that the most difficult clients
to help are not abandoned by this model.
9. OVERSIGHT
OF LOCAL
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
9.1 We believe there is a role for the central
scrutiny of local authorities' performance, but we would like
to see a move away from a focus on centrally prescribed quantitative
targets and audits of performance management in local authorities
to a focus on both qualitative and quantitative outcomes. So we
would like to see a model where a local authority defines its
own results as part of a process that looks first at what it is
that the service is to achieve. And it is at this stage that we
want local people involved as service design should be participative.
9.2 Thus Whitehall could require local authorities
to complete a Logical Framework Analysis, similar to that used
by the Department for International Development for the overseas
projects that it funds. This involves defining what changes the
services expects to make and what tangible results it expects
which relate to that change. Too often performance is measured
by activities and processes but does not answer the question "how
has this actually benefited people?"
9.3 Performance measurement should involve citizens.
Service user groups, neighbourhood forums and citizens' panels
all have a part to play in the assessment of services. Community
evaluators can devise their own evaluation models as shown in
the example below.
Community Evaluators in Tower Hamlets
A group of residents in Tower Hamlets was supported
to develop their own community evaluation tool to pilot on a real
council engagement process (in this case, the participatory budget
process) through a project commissioned by the London Civic Forum,
through the London Empowerment Partnership. The tool included
questions that assessed the quality of the venue, how well the
meeting was managed, the question and answer session, whether
there was a summary of points made, and most importantly whether
there was feedback on what the council would do next. The community
evaluators fed back their results and criticisms to council officers
responsible for engagement, suggesting improvements to the process.
The council found the comments useful and was going to take them
on board. Not only did this process lead to real improvements
in the engagement process, but the evaluators felt empowered and
that they influenced the course of action.
9.4 RECOMMENDATION 7: The Committee should
consider encouraging more community participation in performance
assessment
10. HOW EFFECTIVE
AND APPROPRIATE
ACCOUNTABILITY CAN
BE ACHIEVED
FOR EXPENDITURE
ON THE
DELIVERY OF
LOCAL SERVICES
10.1 It is right that people should call their
councillors and MPs, and their local authority officers and civil
servants to account. But care needs to be taken about the context
in which money is spent. Lists of expenditure and Freedom of Information
requests can put people on the defensive and are often misleading
without any context. The correct questions to ask are: "What
exactly did this money achieve and has that been achieved for
less money elsewhere? And if so why?" These questions
focus on results.
10.2 Yet accountability is important. If people
feel their elected members are accountable to them it gives legitimacy
and strengthens democracy. Question and answer sessions such as
the City Hall debates involving the London Mayor are an example
of people being involved in calling elected members to account.
10.3 Participative methods of assessment, such
as community evaluation, are very important methods of citizens
holding their public agency to account.
10.4 RECOMMENDATION 8: The Committee should
consider how the Government can set up participative methods to
involve citizens in calling elected members and government officers
to account.
October 2010
4 We are the Regional Take Part Champion for London
and encourage and enable local authorities and their partners
to build the skills and confidence of local people to get involved
and influence services. Our Big Opportunity programme facilitates
community involvement in the 2012 Olympic Games aiming to ensure
that they leave a lasting and sustainable legacy for Londoners.
Through the Your Voice, Your City programme we work with community
and voluntary sector organisations to help them develop their
skills and understanding of policy and decision making structures
in London and enable them to take responsibility and shape the
work of the key governance structures in London. Back
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