News Archive

April 2010

There are very few developments on the policy front this month, presumably as a result of the general election campaign. I will not attempt to cover that here. However here is a useful and very brief summary from Volunteer Development Scotland about what the three big UK parties have to say on volunteering. 

16+ Learning Choices: Policy and Practice Framework

The Scottish Government has issued its “16+ Learning Choices: Policy and Practice Framework: supporting all young people into positive and sustained destinations”, intended to support delivery of the Government's guaranteed offer of post-16 learning to every young person in the Senior Phase. It states that “Some young people are not yet ready for, or in the position (for any number of valid reasons) to participate in … [formal education & training etc]. Where this is the case, individuals should be able to engage in Personal/Skills Development often, but not exclusively delivered by a community learning and development or a third sector organisation, as a stepping-stone to a positive destination”.

Looking for customer engagement best practice

Consumer Focus Scotland is looking for examples of best practice from councils, health boards and partners engaging customers in their decision making. Organisations are being invited to nominate their consumer engagement project for consideration by an expert panel (which will include the Improvement Service). Successful projects will be invited to take part in a practice sharing event and will be featured in a publication on best practice in consumer engagement to be sent to MSPs and senior management across the public sector. Further information, project criteria and a nomination pack are available on the Consumer Focus Scotland website.

Tobacco control strategy

ASH Scotland has received funding from Cancer Research UK to develop an evidence based campaign for a new tobacco control strategy. It wants to engage practitioners, policy makers, young people and the voluntary and health sectors in debate about the key measures needed to reduce tobacco use, prevent uptake, and tackle the health inequalities caused by tobacco use. It will then develop an alliance to campaign in support of these measures, which will be timed to ensure maximum impact on political party policies in advance of the May 2011 Scottish elections. If you are interested in taking part in this initiative or require more information please e-mail or  phone 0131 220 9478.

Participation in voluntary arts activity

‘Make a Splash!’ is a Scotland-wide series of information and training events being run by Voluntary Arts Scotland, encouraging people to think about how they can increase participation in their activities. It is backed by a small grants programme and opportunities to encourage people to try something new. So far they've visited west Lothian, Aberdeen, South Lanarkshire and East Renfrewshire - with visits to the remaining 27 local authorities planned for the next 12 months. Find out more here.

Online resources

Sustaining and Reinventing Community Regeneration The proceedings of March’s SURF conference are now available.

Community empowerment e-newsletter The spring edition of the Scottish Government ‘s Community Empowerment e-newsletter contains examples of how communities across Scotland have become empowered.

Evaluation Support Scotland - Updated Guides  Evaluation Support Scotland has recently updated their downloadable support guides. These can be useful resources for guidance in both the application and evaluation processes.

Best practice in ‘wider role’ for housing  The Scottish Government, in partnership with Employers in Voluntary Housing, recently held a series of workshops to provide an opportunity for housing associations to share their experience on their ‘wider role’ projects and allowed others to learn from their approach. Proceedings are now available. These will be followed up with case studies profiling the regeneration work housing associations are delivering in communities.  

Self Esteem - Facts - Myths - Challenges – Alternatives  Information from the Centre for Confidence and Wellbeing’s March event is available here.

Rural Community Empowerment The proceedings of an ESRC/Scottish Government Public Policy Seminar held in March are available. The purpose of the seminar was to draw together leading social scientists to give a fresh perspective on what makes some communities more dynamic than others, and how rural communities can be supported to identify and develop their assets.

Publications

Community Renewable Energy Toolkit  The Scottish Government  has produced  a toolkit to help community groups to develop renewable energy projects. It does not assume any detailed knowledge of the topic.

Community Shares: One Year On   The Community Shares Programme is a two-year action-research project funded by the Office of the Third Sector and the Department for Communities and Local Government working in partnership with the Development Trusts Association and Co-operatives UK. The purpose of the programme is to investigate how members of the public can invest in enterprises serving a community purpose. A report on the findings from the first year of the programme is available for download. For further information about the programme along with some case studies of communities that have set up community share schemes visit the Community Shares website.

Public Services and Civil Society working together The Young Foundation has publish a report on ‘Public Services and Civil Society working together: promising ideas for effective local partnerships’. It gives anecdotal and empirical evidence to suggest outcomes are improved when public services and civil society work hand in hand, and develops ‘five promising ideas’: 

• Local innovation brokers - a series of roles for scouting good ideas and entrepreneurial capacity
• Community Dividends - a tool to incentivise more local action and reward both the citizen and the state for improved outcomes
• Opportunities to ‘sweat’ public assets – sharing the public  estate with civil society to bring more disused buildings, play areas and land  into temporary community use for delivering local outcomes
• New local and national performance measures -  to  reward the building of quality relationships with civil society and develop a  better blend and balance of perception based measure of personal capability,  resilience, influence and satisfaction
• A continued spur to improve local partnerships  – better equipping individual public servants with training, tools and discretionary funding to make excellent partnerships a practice of the many, not  the few.

Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion through Human Rights and Democratic Citizenship This Scottish Centre for Regeneration learning point was developed from an event held by Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure in Scotland (BEMIS) and the Democracy and Human Rights Education in Adult Learning Network (DARE) in March. Presentations focused on the causes of poverty and social exclusion and the impact these have on the lives of individuals, groups and communities.

Profiling Local Poverty Another SCR learning point, this was written by John McKendrick, Scottish Poverty Information Unit (Glasgow Caledonian University) from a review of the published literature. It reflects on current practice and proposes ways in which poverty profiling could fulfill a more central role in regeneration activity in Scotland.

Improving the public’s health 2010-2020: a crisis and an opportunity The UK Public Health Association’s Manifesto sets out a need for a new mindset and a real step change in policy. It says that “the new public health agenda must involve a return to the roots - a focus on the conditions in which health and wellbeing are created and on action that creates and sustains these. It calls for five big ‘Strategic Shifts’:

• Government will understand and endorse action to address the social determinants of health.
• There will be a comprehensive and integrated approach to improving public health across all government departments and at regional and local levels.
• Communities will have real power to identify issues and implement solutions.
• Shift the focus from illness to wellbeing
• Create a robust public health workforce and infrastructure.

Identity, Politics and Public Policy This report from IPPR looks at evidence from five years of research under the Economic and Social Research Council’s Identities and Social Action programme. It finds that:

• people with more complex and multiple identities are also those who are much less likely to be prejudiced against others.
• the best interventions may well come from ‘scaling up’ from the grassroots. 
• civic identities are more likely to take hold when they are constructed through civic activism on the ground. Government, local and national, can encourage an active public realm and a healthy democracy in the places that are close to people, where they can most easily participate.

Asset approach to community health and wellbeing This publication 'A glass half-full'  was commissioned by the English Improvement and Development Agency’s (IDeA) Healthy Communities programme.  It offers local authority and health practitioners and others an introduction to the assets-based approach to community health and wellbeing, and to the principles and examples of how it is being used in England. It also outlines a set of tools.

The asset based approach that it describes  seeks to reduce inequalities by assessing and building on the strengths and resources in a community to build resilience, increase social capital and develop better ways of delivering health outcomes. It is argued that there is a growing body of evidence that shows that when practitioners  begin with a focus on what communities have (their assets) as opposed to what they don’t have (their needs) a community’s efficacy in addressing its own needs increases, as does its capacity to lever in external assistance.

Embracing Social Return on Investment This Scottish Centre for Regeneration Briefing Paper sets the Social Return in Investment (SROI) model in context for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and has been produced in partnership with Employers in Voluntary Housing (EVH). It explores the model's potential to support RSLs to enhance their accountability, to improve organisational effectiveness and to access resources for broader regeneration activity.

Progress for People and Places: Monitoring Change in Glasgow's Communities New findings from GoWell (the Glasgow Community Health and Wellbeing Research and Learning Programme) have recently been published. The report outlines findings in relation to residential, social and community, and health and human capital outcomes from the second cross sectional survey (comparing results with the first survey undertaken in 2006).

Safe in my Place Showcased in a workshop at the recent CDAS event on community safety, ‘Safe in My Place’ is a new resource from Youth Scotland, developed with the support of Network Rail, aimed at helping youth workers to introduce work on the subject of community safety. The pack includes themed statements on Crime and the Law, Bullying and Gangs, Travel and Transport, Things to do/Places to go and Press and CCTV, to encourage group discussion and provide the opportunity to address misconceptions.

The toolkit is available for £12 (£5 for Youth Scotland affiliated groups.)

Scottish Social Attitudes Survey: Antisocial Behaviour  Reports findings  on the influences on adults' attitudes to antisocial behaviour (ASB) and to community involvement in tackling ASB, and on views about young people in general and in relation to ASB.

Voluntary Sector Review  A new journal, Voluntary Sector Review,  has been launched. It has articles on subjects including ‘defining the third sector in the UK’ and ‘Voluntary organisations and the recession’.  Available online and in print, you can explore the content of the first issue by signing up to a free online trial. To sign up, please send an email with your name and address details to tpp-vsr-trial@bristol.ac.uk  .

A Brief Guide to Easy Read The Scottish Accessible Information Forum's "A Brief Guide to Easy Read" tells you what Easy Read means, gives some top tips on how to do it, and provides links to other publications and to organisations who can produce your documents in an easy read format. 

Events

Early interventions in vulnerable communities Wednesday 5 May, The Lighthouse, Glasgow

The next event in SURF's Open Forum series will explore the theme, 'How can we make more effective early interventions in vulnerable communities to deliver long-term regeneration?' The half-day morning event will feature three contributors from the Scottish Government, who will discuss early intervention from the perspectives of the Tackling Poverty team, the Positive Futures Division, and the Health Improvement team respectively. Please contact Derek Rankine at SURF to register your interest in attending (email: derek@scotregen.co.uk,  0141 585 6879).

VOiCE conference 10.00am – 3.15pm (registration from 9.15am), Tuesday 11 May, Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh

VOiCE is a database planning and recording tool designed to assist individuals and organisations to design and deliver effective community engagement. This conference, which will be addressed by Alex Neil MSP, has been organised by the Scottish Community Development Centre in order to share experiences and lessons from the programme.

Community-Led Research on health improvement activity (9.30 for) 10am to 1pm, Tuesday 18 May, STUC, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow

Communities are often the subject of research carried out by academic researchers or others from outwith the community.  However, they have consistently shown that, when they are directly involved and shape the research, there is a strong commitment from community members to act on findings and ensure the development of health improvement activity.   This free CHEX seminar will highlight the effectiveness of this approach, drawing on the experience of local people who have undertaken research themselves.  The deadline for registration has been extended to 5pm on Tuesday 4 May 2010.  Register at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7JX38DN.

'After The Recession: So What Do We Do Now?' Tuesday 18 May, 10am – 3.45pm, Civic Centre, North Lanarkshire Council, Motherwell ML1 1AB

Following the downturn in the economy, public spending cuts are unavoidable. These are likely to be deep and prolonged. Against this background, it is important to understand the implications that these cuts have for the public sector, to examine how local authorities and other public sector organisations can help themselves and to identify the key public sector research issues in this challenging environment. LARIA is organising with the Scottish Policy Innovation Forum a seminar on this topic.

The target audience is everyone engaged in research and policy-making in the public sector or concerned with the delivery of local services. It is anticipated that the presentations and workshops will also be of interest to those in the private and voluntary sectors, who are involved in advising and supporting local government and the wider public sector.  Details.

Involvement Training: Developing the leaders of tomorrow Wednesday 19 May – Edinburgh; Tuesday 1 June – Glasgow

Youth Scotland's Involvement Training programme is a structured first step to developing young people as leaders in their own communities. It is open to young people aged between 14 and 18, and also supports workers to deliver the programme within their own groups. Visit the Involvement Training section of the Youth Scotland website for more info and to download a registration form. 

Envisaging Places - the interface between natural and cultural landscapes Thursday 20 May, 10am-4pm, Battleby Conference Centre, Perth PH1 3EW Price: £60

This Sharing Good Practice event is organised by Scottish Natural Heritage supported by the RTPI in Scotland. It is for “anyone with an interest in landscape and culture including educators, community and youth workers, rangers, planners and landscape architects”. It will provide an opportunity to explore the importance of landscape in shaping the culture of places; examine tools and projects that enable communities to celebrate and protect their sense of place and community; deepen your understanding of ways to shape the development of sustainable communities.

Symposium on Community Assets 26 May (new date)

Development Trusts Association Scotland is hosting a national symposium on the transfer of assets from local authorities to community organisations. Speakers confirmed include Alex Neil MSP, Minister for Communities, and Cllr Harry McGuigan, COSLA's spokesperson on community well-being. The event is for elected members, council officials and representatives from community organisations.  For details e-mail assets@dtascot.org.uk

Gang Culture and Young People Edinburgh, 27 May

This one-day Children in Scotland workshop is designed for those working with young people in schools, in community settings and projects who have an interest in gang culture and young people. The workshop will be a mix of presentation, discussion and experiential work in exploring gang culture. Phone: 0131 222 2426 [e-mail | website ]

March 2010

Join the debate on community development in Scotland

After debate and consultation, CDAS has produced a Statement of Principle on Community Development in Scotland, backed by a longer Position Statement. These look at the role and position of community development in Scotland and how it can make a major contribution to achieving our social and economic goals. We hope that these can form a basis for a wider debate, and would welcome your ideas on how to take these forward and use them to gain maximum recognition and support for community development.

Putting Community Development into Community Safety

Speeches and presentations from the CDAS event held on 22 March, including an analysis by Stewart Murdoch of the ‘Key Challenges’ identified are available online.

Sharing Good Practice

A report of the event on 10 February, which looked at the links between Sustainable Development Education and Community Learning & Development, is now available along with presentations, links to contacts etc. The event was organised by Scottish Natural Heritage in collaboration with CDAS and the Sustainable Development Education Network.

A Code of Ethics for Community Learning and Development

The online consultation on a draft Code of Ethics for Community Learning and Development is now open at http://www.cldstandardscouncil.org.uk/consultation/Home . You can read about the background and comment on any or all of the clauses of a draft Code.

New home for CLD teams

From 1st April Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) take over responsibility for two key areas of work in support of Community Learning and Development. The Communities Team will be involved in support for CLD practice, drawing on the work formerly done by the Scottish Government Learning Connections team. In addition the CLD Standards Council will be hosted by LTS, whilst having its own autonomous governance. Both will be based at:

Learning and Teaching Scotland
The Optima
58 Robertson Street
Glasgow  G2 8DU

National Occupational Standards for Community Development

The Federation for Community Development Learning has led the production of a summary sheet draft version of the recently revised National Occupational Standards for Community Development (which can be downloaded in full as an interactive PDF from LLUK)

The Future of Civil Society

‘Making good society’, the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society was launched in Edinburgh on the 18th of March. The Commission was set up by the Carnegie UK Trust in 2006. Its final report argues that civil society has been pushed to the margins in key areas including politics, finance and the media and that this must change. It explores how civil society activity can help:

• grow a more civil economy
• enable a rapid and just transition to a low carbon economy
• democratise media ownership and content
• grow participatory and deliberative democracy.

The Commission hopes that the evidence and ideas provided will inspire individuals and organisations to act and invest in civil society activity.

In a related development Stephen Maxwell has produced  ‘10 big ideas for action’ for ‘a shared transformational response by Scottish civil society to the multilayered economic, environmental, social and political crisis now facing the world’. Two of them are:

• the replacement of GDP as the official measure of prosperity  by an Index of Well- Being and Sustainability
• the entrenchment of measures of social added value in public reporting and auditing processes.

Voluntary sector manifesto

Scotland's voluntary sector manifesto was launched by SCVO at The Gathering event.  'Doing things differently' lays out the economic value of the sector, how it makes a difference to society and how the voluntary sector does things differently. 

Community Wellbeing Champions

Five initiatives around Scotland are to become ‘Community Wellbeing Champions’ where residents help decide how best to allocate resources to tackle antisocial behaviour, and are to receive a share of £100,000 from the Scottish Government. The local authority involved in each pilot will match-fund the Government's investment, effectively doubling the awards. The local authority areas are Fife, South Lanarkshire, North Lanarkshire, Shetland Islands and Stirling.
The establishment of the five pilots was a commitment in the Scottish Government's Antisocial Behaviour Framework published last year. The objectives of each of the pilots include:

•    To bring diverse people together and support community cohesion
•    To promote empowerment of individuals and communities
•    To promote active citizenship to create better public services.

According to the Shetland News “People living in North Staney Hill will be given the chance to vote on how to spend £20,000 in the neighbourhood in an X Factor-type contest. The pilot is the government’s first foray into participatory budgeting, where residents choose how money is spent locally”.

Patient Rights Bill

Measures in the new Patient Rights (Scotland) Bill include:

•    A 12-week treatment time guarantee
•    Establishment of a patient advice and support service
•    Bringing in a legal right to complain.

Health Engagement Guidance

The Scottish Government has produced Revised Guidance on ‘Informing, Engaging and Consulting People in Developing Health and Community Care Services’. 
This includes guidance for NHS Boards to routinely communicate with and involve the people and communities they service to inform them about their plans and performance.  Where appropriate, this should also include involvement of and partnership working with wider stakeholders and other agencies.  In doing so, Boards should follow the principles and practice of the National Standards of Community Engagement. 

The principles of the guidance should be applied, proportionally, to any service change proposed by a Board, including any changes considered to be major. For any major service changes, the Board, when submitting its final proposal to the Minister for approval, should enclose a report from the Scottish Health Council which assesses whether the Board has involved people in accordance with the expectations set out in the guidance.

National strategy for self-directed support

Self-directed support: A National Strategy for Scotland  is now out for public consultation (closing 7th May). The strategy has been developed, by the Scottish Government, COSLA and an Independent Living in Scotland group, to help take forward the personalisation of health and social care services in Scotland

 ‘Self-directed support is key to ... independent living  Independent living means disabled people of all ages having the same  freedom, choice, dignity and control as other citizens at home, at work,  and in the community’. ‘Self-directed support should become the mainstream mechanism for the delivery of social care support. Building on the success of direct  payments, every person eligible for statutory services should be able to  make a genuinely informed choice and have a clear and transparent  allocation of resources allowing them to decide how best to meet their  needs.  The choice should be available to all but imposed on no-one’.

Although the strategy looks at how to support people in the community and how to involve a wider range of service providers, including the third sector, it is perhaps fair to say that it does not have much to say about how to make our communities more supportive environments.

One thing it does do is begin to establish the term ‘co-production’ in official policy. It talks about ‘co-production   of services with disabled people, their families and wider communities’. ‘Implementation of the strategy should adopt the co-production approach at the heart of self-directed support theory and practice’. It recommends that ‘The Independent Living in Scotland group in conjunction with key academic interests, should produce a values framework which articulates how to achieve effective co-production of both individual and collective outcomes for the policy by 2012’.

One consultation event, aimed especially at black and ethnic minority organisations, is being held by BEMIS in association with the Scottish Government on 13 April 2010 in Glasgow (10.30 – 1.00). For information contact Tanveer Parnez 0141 548 8047/ tanveer.parnez@bemis.org.uk.

Independent Budget Review

The Independent Budget Review was commissioned in February 2010 to conduct a review of public expenditure in Scotland as part of the agreement on the Budget in Parliament. It is inviting written contributions to inform the first phase of its work and will report by the end of July 2010. The purpose of the Review is to inform debate in advance of the next UK Comprehensive Spending Review about the challenges and choices which will exist in a significantly constrained public spending environment. The Review panel will conduct their work independently of Government and will seek to present an informed and dispassionate view of:

• The scale of the expenditure challenge that Scotland will face over the coming years; and
• The practical options available to those - in Parliament and in central and local government - who will determine how the Scottish Budget is allocated and spent in the next Spending Review period and beyond.

SURF Network Access Programme

The SURF Network Access Programme (SNAP) is a joint project involving SURF and the Scottish Government’s Community Engagement Team to help community representatives take a more active part in the wider debate on community regeneration.

It provides resources for voluntary community activists to attend events organised by SURF. All expenses related to their attendance are covered, including event booking fees, travel, accommodation and subsistence costs. SURF events include topical seminars, conferences, lectures, international policy exchanges, annual awards for best practice and lunch/dinner discussion events.  For information click here or contact Derek Rankine on 0141 585 6879 or derek@scotregen.co.uk.

Rising awareness of social enterprise

A MORI poll commissioned by the Scottish SE Coalition shows that public awareness of social enterprise in Scotland has risen by 11% in just six months. It is claimed that 65% of Scots surveyed know about social enterprise compared to less than half that percentage in England.

Global Communities

The Department for International Development’s Community Linking Programme aims to increase understanding of global development issues, and offers funding and support to community groups in the UK that have a link with a community group in a developing country.  They can access online support, advice and ideas, newsletters and resources, workshops and funding. 

For further information contact: Global Community Links, British Council, Bridgewater House, 58 Whitworth Street, Manchester, M1 6BB  0161 957 7790 communitylinks@britishcouncil.org .

Scottish Green List 2010

The Scottish Green List is a celebration of people making a difference.  The Scottish Sustainable Development Forum wants to hear about people working in all areas of Scottish society to make Scotland more sustainable.  The top 20 will be published by the SSDF, and featured in the Scotsman. The deadline for entries is Monday 12th April. Follow this link to nominate sustainable development champions.

Active Nation launched 

On 1st March 2010, the Scottish Government launched Active Nation, an initiative designed to motivate Scots to increase their physical activity in the run up to the 2014 Commonwealth Games and beyond. The Active Nation website has tips for getting started, events and activities to join in and volunteering opportunities.  

Community Enterprise in England

The Department of Communities and Local Government has produced its Community Enterprise Strategic Framework for England. This sets out how Government aims to put community enterprises onto a stronger footing with more support, skills training and advice such as how to set up consortiums or franchises to increase their competitive clout when bidding for council contracts.

Cohesion Delivery Framework  

DCLG has also published a Cohesion Delivery Framework 2010 which covers:

• “Our national understanding of community cohesion
• A local understanding of community cohesion
• Deciding on a local set of actions”.

Community Cohesion is “what must happen in all communities to enable different groups of people to get on well together. A key contributor to community cohesion is integration, which is what must happen to enable new residents and existing residents to adjust to one another”.
It sets out “a vision of an integrated and cohesive community, based on three foundations:

• People from different backgrounds having similar life opportunities
• People knowing their rights and responsibilities
• People trusting one another and trusting local institutions to act fairly”.

And “three key ways of living together:

• A shared future vision and sense of belonging
• A focus on what new and existing communities have in common, alongside  a recognition of the value of diversity
• Strong and positive relationships between people from different backgrounds”.

Online resources

Meeting the Shared Challenge A conference was held in February which brought together ideas, challenges and lessons about the importance of community-led health in tacking inequalities and building a healthier Scotland. Presentations and other information from the conference are now available.

Piper is a project based in six Edinburgh schools but with potentially big implications. Supplementing formal education on Climate Change and Sustainable Development provided by Eco-Schools, it wishes to introduce two new concepts, Eco-Homes and Eco-Communities. Parent Councils in the schools are actively involved in pursuing this.

The Poverty Site  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has established ‘the UK site for statistics on poverty and social exclusion’. The material is organised around 100 statistical indicators covering all aspects of the subject, from income and work to health and education. Indicators and graphs can be viewed by age group or by subject. The material covers all parts of the United Kingdom, with specific sections for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Afternow  The 'Afternow' website is  a new development from the culture and health programme at the University of Glasgow. It makes accessible their innovative research into 21st century culture and its implications for population health. In six 5-minute introductory videos – backed up by a dozen 10-minute audio podcasts and over 30 short papers “we unpack the ideas which shape and limit contemporary responses... and look to a brave new future for public health”.

Learning Scotland  the eBulletin version of Learning Scotland will be published shortly by Lifelong Learning UK. 

Scottish Centre for Intergenerational Practice The Scottish Centre for Intergenerational Practice newsletter is now available online.

Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation  The multidisciplinary PIDOP project (Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation) based at the University of Surrey explores civic and political participation among ethnic minorities, migrants, women and youth. The first issue of the PIDOP newsletter is available online.

Publications

Sector Skills Assessment  Lifelong Learning UK has published its findings from research with a sample of employers and stakeholders in the lifelong learning sector in Scotland. It is notable that, although the report covers five of LLUK’s areas of work, of which Community Learning and Development is only one, it constitutes 45% of the total workforce involved (rather less when posts are counted as full-time equivalents).

Social Capital Toolkit  The Edinburgh Health Inequalities Standing Group has developed a Social Capital Toolkit which has already attracted wide interest elsewhere in Scotland, and not only in relation to health. It is now available to download. For organisations whose work increases social capital, the toolkit will give a way of measuring what they already do. For others, it will provide a framework to plan and evaluate new social capital activities.  It will be useful, therefore, for managers, management committee members and funders to:  

• measure the impact of existing work on social capital, health and wellbeing
• clarify health and social capital outcomes
• develop ideas to increase social capital
• plan or commission new work.

For further guidance about the context and use of the toolkit, please contact margaret.barbier@edinburgh.gov.uk.  The Standing Group would also be grateful for feedback on the toolkit - what you have used, what you have found helpful and what improvements you suggest. 

Government and the Third Sector: relationships at local level SCVO and Voluntary Action Scotland have published an overview of the funding arrangements and relationships at local level between government and the third sector as of January 2010.

Survey of community development workers and managers: findings CDF have published the key findings of their survey of community development workers and managers in England, conducted in autumn 2009. The findings provide insight into who CD workers are, how they work with government, how they work with communities, the challenges they face, and how they see CD in light of the recession.

Community Development Challenge: three years on The Community Development Challenge was an influential report especially south of the border. When we discussed it a couple of years ago it also helped to set the agenda for our work on the position of community development in Scotland, highlighted above.

CDF has now published a short assessment giving a ‘traffic lights’ indication of progress on the recommendations of The Community Development Challenge. The overall conclusions might be quite similar in Scotland, even if the processes and detailed issues are sometimes very different - a green light for progress on ‘Definition and status of the occupation’, a red light for progress on ‘Funding’, and everything else somewhere in between.

Race Equality Conference The Race Equality Statement published in 2008 committed the Scottish Government to “hold a race conference during 2009, hosted by Ministers to explore where we need to be on delivering race equality”, and to focus on National Outcome 13 ‘We take pride in a strong, fair and inclusive national identity’. The first part of the Scottish Government Race Equality Conference took place on 15 December 2009, and a report of the conference is available.

‘Faith matters’  CDF has published (free download) a collection of 19 in-depth case studies of projects funded by the Faiths in Action grant programme in England. Looking specifically at projects dealing with the environment, dialogue, young people and social action, the book demonstrates the dramatic impact this work has on the cohesion agenda.

Mass Localism Now that ‘co-production’ is already entering the language, the next buzzword may be ‘mass localism’. Published by NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) the ‘Mass Localism’ report  offers a solution to the dilemma in which “Government has traditionally found it difficult to support genuine local solutions while achieving national impact and scale”.

It is offered as “A way to help small communities solve big social challenges” and “offers a set of principles for how government can stimulate and support more local responses to big problems, at manageable cost to the public purse”. These principles are:

• Establish and promote a clear, measureable outcome
• Presume a community capacity to innovate
• In the early stages, challenge and advice is more valuable than cash
• Identify existing barriers to participation and then remove them
• Don’t reward activity, reward outcomes

It argues that localism does not represent “a form of R&D for central government. Rather, it is the local approaches themselves that represent the final ‘product’ and which we need more of. In other words, localism is not a means to better national programmes; it is the way in which more national objectives can be met on the ground”.

Voluntary Power Scottish think tank, Reform Scotland, has been considering the issue of public service reform and concludes there needs to be much greater diversity in the way services are delivered. They stress this is not an argument for greater privatisation. Instead they see a much stronger role for the third sector with responsibility and control over services being devolved much closer to communities. Their latest report ‘Voluntary Power’ is out for consultation with a deadline for responding of 30 June.  Responses to Alison.Payne@reformscotland.com

Social Economy 2009 An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland on the state of the social economy.

From Clients to Citizens The International Association for Community Development (IACD) recommends this publication on ‘Deepening the Practice of Asset-Based and Citizen-Led Development’.

Good practice for pilot projects ASH Scotland and Partnership Action on Tobacco and Health (PATH) have produced a ‘Good practice guidance for pilot projects’ document, which distils their learning from funding projects that were aimed at reducing the prevalence of tobacco in Scotland.  Although its focus is on tobacco, the stage-by-stage guide can be used as a checklist by other organisations that are considering, or are involved with, the funding, planning and delivery of short-term projects.

Making the Case This is the final report from the Early Years Self-evaluation Collaborative (EYSEC), a pilot support programme provided (over two years) by Community Food and Health (Scotland) and Evaluation Support Scotland (ESS), to support six community food and health initiatives to improve their evaluation skills. All three stages of the report are now available to download . The Stage one and two reports focus on the different approaches and methods that were used and detailed in case studies and evaluation reports. The Stage three report describes policy issues and the contribution that initiatives working in Early Years are making towards national outcomes. A logic model was used to describe this.

Greenspace and Health Outcomes Framework The Greenspace and Health Outcomes Framework has been produced by greenspace Scotland, NHS Health Scotland and Scottish National Heritage with local partners in Dundee and Glasgow.  The partners hope it will be a helpful tool for partnerships to support outcome focused greenspace interventions targeting health improvement and tackling health inequalities. This publication builds on work already undertaken by NHS Health Scotland using logic modeling approaches to build rational, evidence-informed arguments explaining the ways in which day-to-day work is delivering on local and national health improvement priorities. 

Recognising Achievement The Scottish Government has published the findings of a national evaluation of pilot projects on approaches to recognising achievement and a  literature review These focus on achievement which is ‘wider than’ or ‘additional to’ the specified outcomes of the formal curriculum and national qualifications.  Achievement is taken to include “knowledge, skills and competences gained at any age or stage as a direct or indirect result of … community...  activities”

Arts participation and mental health The Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health (SDC) recently conducted research exploring the relationship between mental health, and arts attendance and participation in Scotland (summary). Attendance of, and participation in, the arts is enjoyed by a sizable proportion of the Scottish population, and is an activity that is widely perceived to have multiple wellbeing benefits. Despite this, those with poor mental wellbeing are less likely to have recently attended arts events or participated in arts activities.

Dialogue between the EU and civil society Social Platform, consisting of 42 pan-European networks of NGOs, has produced a Report on how to establish an effective dialogue between the eU and civil society organisations,  containing recommendations for the EU and for civil society organisations such as:

• Establish a European Statute for European civil society organisations
• Establish cross-sectoral minimum standards for the Commission on funding for civil society organisations

It also includes ‘the cSo involvement scale’. Civil society organisations ‘can use the scale as a tool to assess the quality of their relationships with decision makers’. In summary it runs:
 -1  Exclusion
  0  Indifference
  1  One-way dissemination of information
  2  Consultation
  3  Dialogue
  4  Participation
  5  Partnership.

Scottish Anti-Poverty Review The latest edition of the Scottish Anti Poverty Review is now available for download. This edition is themed around health inequalities and contains articles looking at the Glasgow Health Commission, the relationship between long term conditions and poverty and alcohol and poverty.

Total Place The English pilot ‘Total Place’ programme, looking at savings achievable through delivery of services within a community in a unified way, crossing service and agency boundaries, is attracting a lot of comment in the context of future options for public spending. This report was prepared to inform the programme by looking at the lessons from previous evaluations of locally based initiatives.

Conclusions include:
“Previous experiments in Cumbria, Norfolk and Suffolk succeeded because of the time spent building relationships, and engaging local people – and the clarity of focus on outcomes. The additional agenda of ‘efficiency gains’ may make it harder and slower to engage communities and staff”

Social exclusion, worklessness and the economic downturn A report from the Cabinet Office ‘Learning from the Past: Tackling worklessness and the social impacts of the recession’ argues that beating the social impacts of recession is crucial in preventing the downward spiral into long-term worklessness that the country has seen in the past. It is published alongside an evidence pack that sets out the data related to the past and current economic context. The report outlines how previous recessions have resulted in not just rising unemployment, but also increases in crime, mental health problems and family and relationship breakdown. It highlights the social impacts of previous recessions and how this time, despite steeper falls in GDP, labour market effects have been less severe than in the past.

The State of Happiness Happiness is down, people seem less optimistic about the global environment, the recession and the failures of Copenhagen may be taking its toll, according to a survey ‘Making the connections: Recession affected wellbeing disorder’ carried out in January by Forward Scotland as a follow up to pilot work in 2007 and 2008.  Forward Scotland has long argued that wellbeing is an important element of sustainable development and one that is largely overlooked by policy makers.

 Events

Social Enterprise and Health This year’s ‘Fit for Purpose’ Social Enterprise and Health Conference takes place on Friday 24th April at the Perth Conference Hall. This is the fourth year the event has been held. Keynote speakers will include Mary Allison (Director of Programme Design and Delivery at NHS Health Scotland) and Dr Lynne Friedli (mental health specialist and advocate of social prescribing). To register interest, email karina@senscot.net

February 2010

Information seems to be coming in faster than I can get it out again at the moment, so apologies for a long Bulletin – hope you can find what you are interested in.

Issues discussed at Members’ Meeting

CLD and National Outcomes Jim Rooney of HMIE introduced a discussion on the need for Community Learning and Development services (in all sectors) to get better at tracking their impact on national and local outcomes. A short paper, a first draft of an outcomes framework, and an example of a logic model being developed by voluntary sector adult learning provides, showing how these things might be linked are available and comments are welcome. The CLD Managers Scotland network will be taking discussions forward.

Community Development Statement of Principle CDAS members have previously seen a draft ‘Position Statement’ on community development in Scotland. We considered the latest draft, together with a short Statement of Principle, which might, it is hoped, help to express how the overall values and approaches of community development relate to a wide range of Scottish policy and practice. Final versions are now available, and we will consult members on how to use them to build understanding of and support for community development.

Exchanging International Experience The international Association for Community Development is a Non-governmental Organisation recognised by the United Nations, Council of Europe and African Union. It is based in Scotland and registered as a Scottish charity and company. However there has been no opportunity for Scottish practitioners to connect more closely to the organisation. A free seminar is being held in Dundee on the afternoon of 26 March to begin to remedy this and hear from people with community development experience in several parts of the world. Details Booking Form

Learning from Four Nations What can we learn from community development practice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and what can they learn from Scotland? How can we overcome the practical difficulties of exchanging learning across these nations? Peter Taylor is leading a consultation on behalf of the Community Development Foundation to look at these questions, and is keen to hear from members about their existing experience of learning from others around the UK, and how and on what subjects they might wish to exchange learning in future. Contact peter@pdtaylor.com 0141 586 7588.

‘Stronger Communities: Wealthier and Fairer Scotland’

Some of the presentations from last November’s CDAS conference on this subject can now be viewed on our website.

Better Community Engagement programme

This communications brief has been produced to inform people about the focus and progress of the Scottish Government funded ‘Better Community Engagement Programme’, which aims to develop a learning programme to support and improve practice in engaging with communities.

Code of Ethics – consultation

The CLD Standards Council is pursuing a voluntary model of membership under which workers, managers, training providers and others involved in Community Learning and Development will be able to register as members in various categories. Regardless of the category, a core requirement will be commitment to a Code of Ethics. This Code should also help to inform others in related fields of practice. 
 
An online consultation on a draft Code of Ethics will be available from early March. To enhance this, a number of events are also being held. One, which may of particular interest to CDAS members, is aimed specifically at people working in community development, whether or not they identify their work with CLD, to allow them to explore how the proposals might relate to their own practice. This event will be held:

1 pm-4pm      Wednesday, 14 April           Atlantic Quay, 150 Broomielaw, Glasgow.

In addition qualified or experienced CLD workers in all strands of work, at all levels, including managers and volunteers, and in all partner organisations, are invited to take part in the following events:

9.30am-12.30pm        Wednesday, 24 March          The Tolbooth, Stirling
9.30am-12.30pm        Friday, 26 March                    Dundee Contemporary Arts
1 pm-4pm                    Wednesday, 7 April               Urquhart House, Inverness
1 pm-4pm                    Monday, 12 April                    Atlantic Quay, Glasgow
1 pm-4pm                    Friday, 16 April                       Thistle House, Edinburgh.
 
Places at all these events are limited, must be booked in advance and are subject to confirmation. Please register your interest now by contacting Kirsty Horne (0300 244 1373, contactcld@scotland.gsi.gov.uk), giving name(s), job title(s), organisation(s), email address(es) and phone number(s) of those involved.

(For details of additional events aimed specifically at people in the broader fields of youth work and of community-based adult learning, contact Peter Taylor)

Upskilling

The first phase of the Scottish Government’s programme of investment in the CLD workforce is now under way. LLUK Scotland have been chosen to manage delivery of the project and will provide an analysis of existing approaches and highlight any gaps where resources should be focused. Resources are being allocated to local CLD Partnerships to help them to develop their local workforce development strategies and widen Continuing Professional Development (CPD) opportunities for CLD staff. There are also national pilot programmes in key areas of activity. Two of these are delivering leadership and management training programmes. We understand that one is already fully subscribed, but places are still available on the course offered by North Highland College.

In addition the Scottish Community Development Centre is delivering a series of seminars on "Outcome-Focused Practice in CLD".

• Edinburgh - Tuesday 9 March 2010 @ the Scottish Storytelling Centre
• Glasgow - Wednesday 10 March 2010 @ the Teacher Building
• Inverness - Thursday 25 March 2010 @ the Townhouse

 Participants should register their interest by 24th February by contacting aileen@scdc.org.uk

For further information, contact Moira Stewart, 0131 221 7912 or Alex Burden, 0131 221 7913.  For information on plans for the programme in 2010-11, contact Colin Ross in Learning Connections, 0300 244 1367.  

Meanwhile the CLD Standards Council for Scotland is developing a longer term strategy and framework for CPD in CLD. The focus for both is establishing a new learning culture which is celebratory and developmental; this will be a positive model, not a deficit, 'gap-filling' one.

New youth work qualification

The new Professional Development Award In Youth Work at SCQF Level 6 is the first national introductory level youth work qualification in Scotland to be accredited and available to volunteers and paid staff. The unit descriptors and other information are available on the SQA website.

Embedding an ‘outcomes approach’ in community regeneration

Five local partnerships have been selected to participate in a project aimed at embedding an ‘outcomes approach’ in tackling poverty and community regeneration.
The local partnerships that will participate in the project are:-

• Dumfries & Galloway Poverty, Inequality and Deprivation Working Group;
• Midlothian Improving Opportunities Group;
• Falkirk CPP Community Regeneration Theme Group;
• Fife Sustainable Communities Group; and
• West Lothian Life Stages Strategic Board.

The pilot project is a collaborative initiative between the Improvement Service (IS) and the Scottish Centre for Regeneration (SCR).  The project will provide practical, hands-on support to the local partnerships in order to help them fulfill the potential of the outcomes approach in their work. Regular updates on the progress of the pilot project will be posted on the Community Regeneration and Tackling Poverty Learning Network.

Get Involved

The Get Involved campaign was officially launched by SCVO at The Gathering in Edinburgh on 18 February. It aims to inspire more people to become involved with the voluntary sector in more ways throughout their lifetime, from paid work to one off volunteering and campaigning opportunities.

Youth Work Toolkit on knife crime and violence

As part of the Scottish Government ‘No knives, better lives’ Initiative, YouthLink Scotland is coordinating the development of a National Youth Work Toolkit around the issues of knife crime, weapons and wider violence. There are two ways you are able to get involved: Firstly, by providing activities and good practice case studies for the toolkit and secondly by taking part in a national survey for young people and youth workers. For further information on this project, please contact Richard Cooke, richard.cooke@fairbridgetraining.co.uk 07739430307 or Lisa Hogg lhogg@youthlinkscotland.org 0131-313-2488.

A Charter for Strengthening Relations between Paid Staff and Volunteers

Volunteering England and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) have jointly developed a Charter that sets out the key principles on which volunteering is organised and how good relations between paid staff and volunteers are built. Read More.

Governance Networks

The Supporting Voluntary Action programme, supported by the Scottish Government Third Sector team, is piloting the creation of a number of local Governance Networks which bring together the board members and trustees of organisations to address common issues, share information and experience etc. More information from ACOSVO, the forum for chief officers in the voluntary sector

Adult Literacy provision reviewed

HMIE, the education inspectorate, have produced an evaluation of adult literacy provision delivered by colleges, local authority community learning and development services and prisons in Scotland. One amongst several recommendations is that “local authority community learning and development services should ensure that they have effective processes in place to capture and demonstrate ... the impact of literacy provision on wider community outcomes.”

An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK

The UK Government commissioned report “An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK” from the National Equality Panel, has found that the gap between rich and poor is now bigger than it was 40 years ago and that "Deep-seated and systemic differences" remain between men and women and between minority groups and others.

Implications of Equality Bill

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is conducting the first phase of a consultation on draft Codes of Practice for the Equality Bill. This phase runs until April 2 and covers three aspects of the Equality Bill - employment, equal pay and services, public functions and associations. The latter includes draft guidance on “How voluntary and community sector organisations must treat volunteers”, including:

“In the absence of a contract [of employment], it is possible that providing a volunteering opportunity for someone counts as providing them with a service.
Whether this is the case or not, as a matter of good practice you should not discriminate against your volunteers or would-be volunteers because of their disability, race or sex, because they are pregnant, a new mother or breastfeeding, or because of their gender reassignment status, religion or belief, or sexual orientation ...
It is also likely that, whatever their legal status, a volunteer delivering your service would be acting on your behalf if they discriminated against a client or service user because of a protected characteristic, and you would be held legally responsible for what they did. This is true, even if you are not aware of the conduct nor approved it.”

Research on local-level work to tackle poverty, discrimination and disadvantage

The Institute for Public Policy Research has launched a project looking at local-level work to tackle poverty, discrimination and disadvantage, improve job opportunities and protect the environment. They would like to find out about the work currently being done by local organisations across the UK. They are keen to hear from all types of organisations, including trade unions, local authorities, charities, social enterprises, campaign groups and service providers - anyone who is involved in tackling poverty, improving job opportunities or protecting the environment at a local level. The survey can be accessed here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MXRWRQC.

Better Banking Campaign is Launched

The Better Banking Campaign is led by a UK wide coalition of third sector organisations. They came together during summer 2009 to run a campaign to address the problem of financial exclusion. To address the issue, it is campaigning for full financial disclosure by financial institutions, a cap on unfair credit rates for those who cannot afford them and obligations on banks to demonstrate that all who merit it have fair and equal access to credit.

New local food network

Since the local food gathering at Dunbar in October 2009, a steering group has been working to establish a national network linking people and organisations with an interest in sustainable food.  The network is called “Nourish  - Scotland's sustainable food network”. Nourish is open to all who are actively growing, selling and eating locally produced food in Scotland - be they farmers, gardeners, Transition food groups, local markets, chefs, artisan pie-makers or just keen eaters of good local food. Information Contact

Simplifying planning policy

The Scottish Government has launched a document which sets out planning policy on topics such as housing, wind farms, flooding and the natural and built environment. It replaces 17 separate policies with one single document which is easier for communities and developers to understand and interpret.

Social Enterprise Mark leads to controversy

We have previously reported the process of establishing a Social Enterprise Mark setting criteria for recognition as a social enterpriser. This has now led to controversy, with Senscot declining the opportunity to be the Scottish partner because it feels that the eligibility criteria are being “softened to enable [social enterprise] to become a high volume/quick impact instrument”.   Lobbying from, amongst others, the co-operative movement raised the cap on dividends that could be paid by a recognised social enterprise, from 35% to 50% of disposable income.  A concern also emerged about the possible inclusion of local authority subsidiaries such as Leisure Trusts.  

Meanwhile Senscot reproduces an article by Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK, arguing that “The term social enterprise has always benefited from its own ambiguity… A new term will be needed to evoke that broad movement that we can all feel part of.  I believe that Muhammad Yunus’ term “social business” will increasingly be used as the generic to cover everything from charities trading through co-operatives, CICs, social enterprises, housing associations etc”. 

Minister backs Trust Schools

Plans by East Lothian Council transfer clusters of schools into arm's-length trusts have been given broad backing by education minister Michael Russell. Under the East Lothian plan, management boards would be set up for each cluster, including "young people, education representatives, parent representatives, councillors, community representatives and local businesses".

Age Unlimited Scotland

NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) has launched a new programme in Scotland called Age Unlimited. We are looking for people in their 50’s and 60’s in Scotland to come forward with new ideas that could be turned into live community projects which would improve the lives of older people. The programme aims to test how older people can be engaged in the design and delivery of innovative new services that could improve older people’s health and well-being and reduce dependency on costly mainstream public services. More information.

CADISPA

CADISPA (Conservation and Development in Sparsely Populated Areas) has been relaunched as an independent charity concerned with helping local people in rural Scotland to build a sustainable community ‘for themselves – by themselves’.

On-line resources

SROI Project  Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a framework for measuring a concept of value that is much broader than simply financial. New features on the SROI project website include an Interactive impact map  which goes through each of the stages.

CLD Talking Points  The CLD Standards Council offers a number of Talking Points, which are intended to be “a series of challenging, provocative essays and papers on CLD.

Regeneration Learning Points The latest Learning Points produced by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration are:
Developing Leadership in Community Planning
Introducing Excellent Approaches into Housing Organisations
Effective Procurement and Tendering for Services to Tackle Poverty
Growing Up in Scotland (developed bringing together practitioners interested in early years development and the practical use of data to evidence outcomes)
The Centre has also produced Lessons from the Fairer Scotland Fund case studies

Take Part online resource directory  ‘Take Part’ is an English three year programme of support for active citizenship and learning. It is a national programme, run at the local level, which aims to support people and communities gain the skills, knowledge and confidence to have more of a say about what happens in their area and become involved in local action to help shape the decisions that affect their daily lives.  It provides an online resource directory, including:
Take Part – find out about the Take Part approach to learning, and how programme is using this distinctive approach to support communities.
Empowerment – get information on what community empowerment is, and how it can help develop communities and improve local decision-making.
Directory – access a wide variety of resources, organisations and case studies, which can be searched and filtered to find the specific information you need.

Publications

The art of influence The Community Development Foundation has published “The art of influence: how community workers lobby for change from within” (Free download). CDF worked with two groups of frontline community development workers in the public sector to help them more effectively exert internal influence. In Project 1, a group of CD workers tasked with building ‘stronger’ communities successfully addressed the lack of profile and coordination of their work within their local strategic partnership. In Project 2, workers mobilised local service providers to act in partnership to address complaints from residents about the neighbourhood’s physical environment.

 Encouraging start for Community Initiative to Reduce Violence A report assessing the first year of Glasgow’s Community Initiative to Reduce Violence scheme shows that recorded violence among members who engaged with it dropped by almost half. There was also an 18.5 per cent decline in violent activity among gang members who refused to join the project.

How Inequality Damages all of us The 2009 book 'The Spirit Level', by Profs. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett continues to be a regular point of reference in debates on poverty and equality and in media articles. Kate Pickett gave the SURF Annual Lecture for 2009 and presented the main lessons from the extensive research behind the book. A full transcript of this lecture is available here.

Approach to tackling inequality and discrimination needs radical rethinking A report by the independent think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research argues that the current approach to tackling inequality and discrimination is out of date, alienates many people and is often counterproductive. People in the UK have complex and multiple personal identities, meaning that the current ‘tick box’ approach to identifying problems gives a simplistic and sometimes false picture of disadvantage, exclusion and inequality. The report calls for a new approach to monitoring and tackling inequality and discrimination, including “approaches that avoid ascribing problems to broad group identities when the real cause could be other factors (such as skills, social class, deprivation and exclusion)”

Handbook of Sustainability Literacy A collection of Papers by leading thinkers in the field of sustainability and how it can be interpreted and applied to development practice is available in an expanded multimedia version at www.sustainability-literacy.org.

Health Impact Assessment of Greenspace - a guide Developed by greenspace scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Institute of Occupational Medicine, this guide will help practitioners to assess the health and equity impacts of greenspace projects. The guide will also be a valuable tool in assisting people to demonstrate the role of greenspace in improving both mental, physical and community health.

Partnerships for anticipatory care NHS Health Scotland has published case studies of Partnerships between the NHS and Community & Voluntary Organisations for anticipatory care. They include examples of methods to reach “harder to engage” clients and of referral processes to community and voluntary services.

A Health Impact Assessment Toolkit  for social enterprises  This toolkit is designed to help social enterprises explore their understanding of health, how to improve health, and to judge how their organisation could impact on the factors and experiences that promote health. 

Dimensions of diversity This report by NHS Health Scotland Public Health Observatory Division provides a concise overview of basic information about 13 characteristics or groups of the population of Scotland. It covers: age, asylum seekers and refugees, carers, disability, ethnicity, language, literacy, migrants, poverty, prisoners, religion and belief, sex and gender, and sexual orientation. The most important, recurring, theme is the damage done to mental health and wellbeing by the pervasive and insidious effects of personal prejudice, collective discrimination and structural exclusion.

Making a difference to pupil exclusion The voluntary sector Pupil Inclusion Network has published ‘10 Things We Do To Make A Difference’, looking at how the voluntary sector makes a difference to the educational experience of vulnerable, disaffected and excluded pupils.

The Engagement Ethic This ‘think piece’ from the Innovation Unit argues that supermarket-style approaches have taken public services so far, but the next phase of improvement relies on their ability to engage and inspire citizens and staff.  It appears to be a source for the debate about ‘Easyjet’ vs ‘John Lewis’ approaches which has since received considerable publicity. 

It suggests that people will only encourage people to take more responsibility for their own health, learning and carbon footprint if people are given greater rights to shape the work of local public services.  It argues that public services need to strengthen their ethic of engagement by giving citizens and staff greater voice in decision-making.  If not, while public services are improving, the risk is that remain something done to the public rather than with the public.

BLF evaluates small grants The Big Lottery Fund has produced an evaluation of their various small grants schemes (Summary). 58% of the projects surveyed were first-time applicants. However  applying for small grants was particularly challenging for organisations that did not have any previous experience of funding.  71% of grant holders agreed that their project had been very successful in their local community.<p>

Understanding Britain’s Unmet Needs BLF has also published ‘Sink or Swim’, an assessment of ‘Britain’s Unmet Needs’ (Summary). ‘Implications and directions for action by foundations and policy-makers’ include:

• Support organisations providing preparation, bridges and support for difficult transitions
• Support projects that enhance resilience and coping with shocks
• Back projects that tackle isolation
• Support projects providing access with ‘no wrong door’
• Support provision of both new and old necessities
• Speed of response – pre-empting needs and understanding what’s changing
• Rethink welfare provision through the lens of wellbeing

Community Work Skills Manual The Federation for Community Development Learning has published its New Community Work Skills Manual 2009 (£30, discount to members). 

 Lifelong learning sector working together as 'one system' Lifelong Learning UK Scotland has published a report on a seminar which brought together employers from ‘all six sub-sectors of lifelong learning’. Discussions focused on how the lifelong learning sector can work better as 'one system' .

Participatory mapping - what works and what doesn't Participatory mapping  plays an important role in helping marginalised groups by making visible the association between land and local communities, highlighting important social, historical and cultural knowledge as well as presenting geographical feature information. The International Fund for Agricultural Development has published a report (free download) that outlines what is involved and looks at best practice.

The barefoot guide to working with organisations and social change Another international publication, this is ‘a practical do-it-yourself guide for leaders and facilitators wanting to help organisations function and to develop in more healthy, human and effective ways’. It was developed by ‘The Barefoot Collective’, a global team of collaborating practitioners and activists. The guide, with its supporting website, includes ‘tried and tested concepts, approaches, stories and activities’.

Community Benefit: measuring the impact of arts and crafts activity The Voluntary Arts Network has produced many useful Briefings. Its latest, number 131, is on ‘Community Benefit – measuring the impact of arts and crafts activity’. In 3-4 pages it gives brief descriptions of tools and frameworks, which may well be helpful to people in other sectors.

Disability organisations in Scotland The Scottish Government has produced a series of reports into disability organisations across Scotland and their capacity to influence public authorities.
Mapping Scotland's Disability Organisations
The Capacity of Disability Organisations to Engage with Public Authorities
Resource Guide to Engagement Standards, Guidance and Tool Kits

Events

"A Right Blether" "A Right Blether" is the Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People's consultation with children and young people on issues that affect their lives. Launches are being held across Scotland to explore how organisations can become involved in what will be a hugely exciting and influential piece of work.
Tuesday 9 March - 4.30 to 6.30pm, Glasgow
Friday 12 March - 1.30 to 3.3.0pm, Inverness
Friday 16 March - 4.30 to 6.30pm, Perth
Friday 19 March - 1.30 to 3.30pm, Dumfries
Tuesday 23 March - 5.30 to 7.30pm, Edinburgh

Places are limited at each event so you need to contact Sareta Puri 0131 558 3733 at SCCYP to guarantee a place or register your interest in becoming involved.

Fighting Poverty in Scotland: Achievements and Opportunities The Poverty Alliance’s annual seminar series is focusing on what has been achieved so far, and what the anti-poverty movement in Scotland should be pushing for in the next period.  The discussions at the seminars will contribute to the Alliance’s general election work, and will also feed into broader work around the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. Remaining events are:
Inverness, 2 March
Elgin, 3 March                                  
Aberdeen, 4 March
For more information or to book, visit http://www.povertyalliance.org/events.asp.

An Introduction to Working with Asylum Seekers & Refugees
2 March, Glasgow

A Scottish Refugee Council course for people working with asylum seekers and refugees who need a comprehensive understanding of the core issues affecting those seeking sanctuary in Scotland. It is particularly relevant to people working in social work, housing, welfare, education, employment, health, community development or the justice system. For information contact Jamie Spurway 0141 248 9799 or click here.

Study Visits to SURF Awards Winners In a previous Bulletin we highlighted the work of Playbusters, winner of the SURF Award for 2009 in the ‘People’ category. A free visit to the Glasgow East End project is being arranged on 8 March, 09.45 – 13.30. For more information and to register contact gabriella.coia@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or call 0141 271 3736.
There will also be visits to ‘Place’ winner, the TACT Healthy Park, Blantyre (1 March, 09.30 – 13.30) and ‘Partnership’ winner the South Lanarkshire Childminding Development Programme (10 March, 09.45 – 12.30)

Poverty profiling workshop
15 March, West Park Centre, Dundee

Another Scottish Centre for Regeneration event, in conjunction with the Scottish Poverty Information Unit and the Poverty Alliance, this workshop will explore practical techniques to profiling poverty and how to use poverty profiles to best effect locally. Contact gabriella.coia@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or call 0141 271 3736

Tackling Multiple Deprivation in Communities
17 March, 09.30-13.30, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

And another, this time in conjunction with SURF. This free morning workshop will explore how we continue to address the pockets of complex multiple deprivation which persist in our communities. Contact gabriella.coia@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or call 0141 271 3736

Community Building Study Tour
20 March

The Glass-House and Development Trusts Association Scotland are delivering a free study tour to some inspiring community buildings across Glasgow. This one-day event is for community groups who are at an early stage in developing building or refurbishment projects in their neighbourhood. Please register your place by visiting the ‘What’s On’ Page of The Glass-House website.  Enquiries: 020 7490 3136 or hannah@theglasshouse.org.uk .

SURF Annual Conference  - Sustaining and Reinventing Community Regeneration
24-25 March, Edinburgh (Days separately bookable)

This key Scottish regeneration event will look at the challenges ahead; but its focus will be on linking people, projects and practice to examine the real opportunities for supporting more sustainable community regeneration in this time of change. In cooperation with the Public Policy Network of the University of Edinburgh, the first day of the conference will link Scotland’s extensive regeneration oriented academic resources with the practical challenges at hand for practitioners and policy-makers.

The second day will focus on cooperation in policy and practice. Key speakers, debates, presentations and panel sessions will link the policy process to the realities of delivering positive change in Scotland’s most disadvantaged communities. In doing so, we will showcase the assets and resources that are at hand to support and sustain regeneration, despite the increasingly difficult economic climate and related challenges.

You can register online by clicking here, or download a copy of the booking form.

Self Esteem – facts, myths, challenges, alternatives
Tuesday 30 March, 1.30pm to 4.30pm, Grosvenor Hotel, Great Western Rd, Glasgow

This Centre for Confidence and Well-being event is relevant for anyone working in mental health; health promotion; education (all types and stages); skills; social services; enterprise; sports coaching; human resource management; business. It is also very relevant to parents and anyone working with parents. Attendance is free but you need to reserve places in advance. Please email. For full information on the programme and speakers, please click here.

VOiCE Conference
11 May, Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh

VOiCE is a database planning and recording tool designed to assist individuals and organisations to design and deliver effective community engagement. This conference, which will be addressed by Alex Neil MSP, has been organised by the Scottish Community Development Centre in order to share experiences and lessons from the programme. Full registration and booking details will be available shortly. Please contact Aileen Skillen by email or on 0141 248 1924.

Annual International Community Development Conference
July 25-28, 2010, InterContinental Hotel, New Orleans

This year the International Association for Community Development’s world conference is being delivered together with the US Community Development Society and is on the theme of ‘The Role of Community in Economic and Disaster Recovery’. More details.

January 2010

Measuring What Matters – the movie

A short video of extracts from the ‘Measuring What Matters’ conference that we held last year, mainly featuring contributions from Nick Marks and Ron Colman, can be seen on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAKSQCnv6Fk

Scottish Community Empowerment Newsletter 

The Scottish Government has produced the first version of a quarterly Scottish Community Empowerment Newsletter. This electronic newsletter is intended to update readers on the progress of the Community Empowerment Action Plan, give details of training opportunities and upcoming events, and provide examples of community empowerment in action.

 Standards Council opts for voluntary model

The CLD Standards Council has been looking at how to introduce a system of registration for Community Learning and Development workers in a way that best suits the values and diversity of the field. They hope that this will foster a strong sense of identity and a shared understanding of professionalism within CLD and its constituent strands. This understanding will be reflected in an increased awareness of and respect for CLD work by other partners.
After scrutiny of existing models in comparable fields, its Registration Committee has recommended a voluntary model of registration for workers, managers, training providers and others involved in CLD. The core criteria for all applicants, regardless of the category they register within, will be:

• making a clear commitment to the CLD values and competences
• signing up to a CLD Code of Practice or Ethics
• committing to ongoing development and improvement of practice.

There will be a small number of categories of registration depending on qualifications and experience. The committee will work on the details of these and consult with the field before finalising the model. This consultation will begin with a series of events around the content of a Code of Practice / Ethics.

“Equal Communities in a Fairer Scotland” Action Plan

Following the Equal Communities in a Fairer Scotland Policy Statement published jointly by Scottish Government and COSLA in October 2009, which reaffirmed the need for targeted action to tackle disadvantage in spite of the demise of the Fairer Scotland Fund, the two partners have now issued an Action Plan. This consists of a work plan for the Community Regeneration and Tackling Poverty learning network, setting out a range of support to be provided to Community Planning Partnerships and their delivery partners until March 2011.

Concordat reaffirmed

The two partners have also issued a brief statement reaffirming their Concordat, stating a continuing commitment to partnership working between national and local government. Particular mention is given to the delivery of services to the elderly and tackling climate change.

Ministerial responsibilities

The Scottish Government has announced some changes in the responsibilities of the ministerial team working with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. Full details.  Keith Brown’s title changes from the Minister for Schools and Skills, to the Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning. Community Learning and Development continues to be among his responsibilities. They also include ‘Universal provision’ for young people ‘(e.g. youth work)’. He is supported in this area by Adam Ingram, whose responsibilities also include ‘Workforce (Children and Young People)’ and ‘Regeneration (Children and Young People)’.

Declaration of Dunbar

In October groups interested in promoting local production and consumption of food in Scotland came together for the first time and issued this Declaration:
“We are working towards a sustainable Scotland in which, in every region we produce more of what we eat and eat more of what we produce.
We believe a more localised food system would be better for the environment, health, community and economy of our country. We are building a movement to create a food system that:

• Is locally based with shorter supply chains
• Promotes and respects seasonality
• Is resilient
• Is fair and accessible to all
• Creates and maintains a sustainable livelihood for producers.

These steps are essential in order to ensure a fairer more equitable food system appropriate for a low carbon economy.”

Local community development in practice

The 2009 SURF award in the ‘People’ category went to Playbusters, a grassroots voluntary organisation that provides a broad range of educational projects for children, families and the wider community within the East End of Glasgow. Project funding originally came through the Standing Up to Antisocial Behaviour Award. A grant was later awarded by The Big Lottery Fund in Scotland.
Its activities have included: 

• A programme of collaborative working between schools and older people, providing opportunities to learn new skills and enjoy visits to places of interest.
• ‘Easy Spanish’ workshops, which offer a fun family learning experience, and a ‘hidden’ educational agenda; these are having a visible impact upon the number of children who move on in education, and demand has grown substantially
• A practical environmental project that was developed through engagement with local Eco-School committees. Participating groups took part in the creation of community gardens in several neighbourhood locations, and the project has also developed a rooftop garden and an allotment.
• Opportunities for local people to become involved with the project in a voluntary capacity, and to later progress onto paid sessional work.

So, by my reckoning, their community development approach has helped to make people Smarter, Greener, Wealthier, Safer and almost certainly Healthier. For more information, contact Margaret Layden on 0141 551 0071 or info@playbusters.org.uk

Community enterprise enters new league

Stenhousemuir FC has become the first professional football club from either the Scottish or English Leagues to become a Community Interest Company. More.

On line

Guidance on social networking  YouthLink Scotland, in partnership with Young Scot and Fujitsu, organised a very successful conference last year on how youth work can engage young people through the use of digital technologies with a special focus on social networking. Delegates were asked to contribute to the development of Guidance Notes for Youth Workers. These Guidance Notes are now available to download along with copies of some of the workshop presentations.

Lifelong Learning debates Materials from Lifelong Learning UK's annual conference are now available. As well as key note speakers Will Hutton, of The Work Foundation and Stephen Uden, Head of Skills and Economic Affairs at Microsoft Ltd, the conference included inputs from Rory MacLeod and Duncan Simpson of the CLD Standards Council for Scotland around the nature of professionalism

“The debate around professionalism is particularly pertinent at the present time in the CLD Standards Council. We want to embrace all of those working in the sector, so we are not about to develop an exclusive club for ‘professionals’. On the other hand, we do want our workforce to aspire to the good things about professionalism – like shared values, a commitment to quality improvement, and taking personal responsibility for the development of services”

A Practitioners Guide to A Curriculum for Excellence  Copies of presentations on how A Curriculum for Excellence relates to work with young people (from a seminar held by YouthLink Scotland in partnership with Learning Teaching Scotland) are available.

Publications

SOAs and youth work  The Children’s Voluntary Sector Policy Officers Network has analysed the extent to which issues affecting children and young people have been addressed in the 2009 Single Outcome Agreements (SOAs). 

Meeting the Shared Challenge  The Scottish Community Development Centre has produced a short Briefing Paper on the community-led approach to health improvement and the work of its Meeting the Shared Challenge programme to promote this.

Community Self Help   The Community Development Foundation has published a position paper (free download) on community self help. It describes this as the collective ability of groups to make decisions and take direct action in addressing their communities’ needs — with minimal influence from government. Self-help groups and projects can complement existing public services, and offer an innovative way to enrich service provision across the country.

Voluntary Sector and Freedom of Information  A survey report has been published on the use of Freedom of Information laws by the Third Sector in Scotland. It appears to cover organisations of all sizes and types, and finds that half of all respondents had made a Freedom of Information request. 

National elected member development strategy  A National Elected Member Development Strategy for Scottish local government has been published by the Improvement Service. The strategy outlines how councils, the Improvement Service and other partners can work together to establish development programmes and other opportunities for elected members to develop their political, leadership and governance skills. It says:

“Without elected members supporting improvement and change agendas at local levels much in terms of public service improvement could stall or fail to have the impact that it otherwise could have. Elected members will be fundamentally important in ensuring that improvements in outcomes for communities, families and individuals occur and as the only locally elected individuals within the community, they will also be a vital link to engaging with the community itself as part of the improvement process”.

Green Up – English guide  CDF has produced Green Up!  (free download), which ‘provides community groups with everything they need to work productively with their councils on environment and sustainability issues’. Though the general principles are useful, the guide is very much about the English system.

However its plain English approach makes it very handy if you want a quick description of how Local Area Agreements, National Indicators etc work south of the border. Shouldn’t someone be producing something like this for Scotland?

Practitioner - Led Action Research  A pack is available from the Scottish Government containing examples of practitioner led action research in adult literacies, and a guidance booklet on how to carry out this out. 

Teaching Reading to Adults Handbook  A pack created by adult literacies practitioners in Scotland is now available. It is described by one participant as “A collection of ideas, strategies, innovations, resources and terribly clever practices.”

Impact of devolution  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a series of reports on the impact of devolution. One looks at the impact on Area-based Regeneration, identifying the relevant policies in each nation.

Another looks at devolution and low income and identifies some of the key challenges in the years ahead if devolution is to make more of an impact
on people and places in poverty. 

Creating a Successful Development Trust  The Development Trusts Association is distributing a learning resource based on the story of Comrie Development Trust. Community organisations who would like a free copy of “Inspiring Change”, which includes a booklet, DVD and timeline wallchart, should contact Katrina .

Community Benefit clauses  The Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition has published ‘Winning new business through sustainable procurement : An introduction to Community Benefit clauses’, described as ‘a new slow burn revolution currently taking place in public sector procurement practice’.

OECD on community capacity building  The OECD has published a guide to ‘Community Capacity Building: creating a better future together’, edited by Antonella Noya, Emmy Clarence and Gary Craig. Drawing on examples from around the world, the book analyses community capacity building in social policy, local economic development and environment. Purchase details.

Events

Civil Society Summit
Thursday 18th February, Edinburgh International Conference Centre, 10am (Registration 9:30) to 4pm Free, but places limited Details

This summit represents a desire to bring all sections of the Third Sector together with other parts of civil society such as faith groups, trades unions, campaign groups and co-operatives to discuss the themes of:

• Poverty & economic democracy
• Equalities & Human Rights
• Climate Change and Climate Justice.

YouthLink Scotland National Conference
Thursday 18 March, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow
The YouthLink Scotland National Conference and Youth Worker of the Year Awards 2010 : conference brochure,  booking form, or book online at  www.youthlinkscotland.org

SURF Annual Conference
Thursday 25th March, Roxburghe Hotel, Edinburgh
To receive early notice by email, please sign up for the SURF events e-bulletin.

The theme of the 2010 SURF Annual Conference is sustaining and reinventing community regeneration in a time of anticipated record reductions in public spending, sharply rising levels of unemployment and resultant poverty.

There will also be an Academic Symposium on the 24th March, in co-operation with the Public Policy Institute of the University of Edinburgh, to help link Scotland’s regeneration oriented academic resources with practitioners and policy-makers.

Social enterprise trade fair
Wednesday 21st April, Corn Exchange, Edinburgh

Early bird rates are available for those booking at Scotland’s premier social enterprise trade fair, S2S, prior to Friday 19th February. Last year’s event attracted almost 500 attendees and exhibitors. Details 

Don’t forget

To book for the CDAS conference on ‘Putting Community Development into Community Safety’, Monday, 22 March in the Renfield Centre, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 4JP from 10.30am (registration 10) to 4pm. Flier. Please book online, or use this booking form

Christmas 2009

CDAS conference on community safety

Bookings are now open for our conference on ‘Putting Community Development into Community Safety’. This will take place on Monday, 22 March 2010 in the Renfield Centre, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 4JP from 10.30am (registration 10) to 4pm. The conference is organised in association with the Scottish Community Safety Network.
Speakers include:

• Fergus Ewing MSP, Minister for Community Safety
• Detective Chief Superintendant John Carnochan, Violence Reduction Unit on ‘Violence reduction – a public health issue’
• Jon Bannister, Senior Lecturer / Network Leader (Communities and Crime) the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, Glasgow University on ‘Community development and best practice in community safety’.

Workshops will include sessions on: community development practice examples; How Community Safety Partnerships can support community development; Community Learning and Development approaches; Preventing inter-community conflict and promoting cohesion; Violence against women; and possibly more.

The cost is £25 for voluntary & community organisations and £35 for other organisations. Here is a flier for the event. Please book online, or use this booking form.

SNH/CDAS event: Community Learning and Development  and Sustainable Development Education

Across Scotland there are people working in Community Learning and Development (CLD) to build communities’ capacity to address local issues. There are also people working in Sustainable Development Education (SDE) to encourage local communities to take action to address global issues.

Scottish Natural Heritage, in association with CDAS and the Sustainable Development Education Network, is holding an event to bring together these two groups to share their expertise, learn from each other, and examine opportunities to embed best practice in CLD into SDE, and best practice in SDE into CLD. Rory McLeod of the CLD Standards Council and Morag Watson of the SDE Network will lead discussions on the two approaches.  Practical examples of CLD and SDE approaches to working with communities to support local and global action will be showcased. 

 The event will take place 10am (9.30 registration) to 4pm on 10 February at The Tolbooth, Jail Wynd, Stirling FK8 1DE, cost £55. Flier. Booking Form

UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development – Action Plan

Work has been proceeding on an Action Plan for the second half of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. A conference for education and sustainable development stakeholders to look at the key messages and actions in the Action Plan is being held in Edinburgh on the afternoon of 21 January. It is important that people involved in all forms of community learning are represented. Although places are by invitation, please enquire via Peter Taylor peter@pdtaylor.com 0141 586 7588 if you would like to be involved.

Advocacy and community development – CDAS discussion

The CDAS website now contains a full summary of the presentation by and discussion with Professor David Donnison of Glasgow University at our last members’ meeting on the role of advocacy services in the changing welfare state in Scotland. This led to some interesting discussions about the common origins of community development and advocacy, and the issues both face.

Safer Communities Programme

The Safer Communities Programme was announced at the National Community Safety Convention in September. It is intended to provide the framework for a series of new national guidance and support which the Scottish Government's Community Safety Unit will publish over the coming months.  An introduction to this series is now available. The programme has been developed to support:

• Multi-agency strategy level groups dealing with issues relating to community safety.
• Staff from partner organisations who play a key role in providing support to the partnership and delivering partnership activity.

Climate act “an opportunity for community development”

The Sustainable Development Commission Scotland's Third Annual Assessment of the Government's progress on sustainable development says that the world leading the Climate Change (Scotland) Act is a golden opportunity for the Scottish Government to deliver on health, community development and social inclusion. The report claims there needs to be a rethink of the structure of communities and economy if Scotland is serious about a low-carbon sustainable lifestyle.

Better Community Engagement Demonstration Projects

The Better Community Engagement work that is being pursued by the regeneration division of the Scottish Government currently involves a series of Demonstration Projects, leading towards an integrated programme to develop skills and capacity in community engagement. Here is a communications brief on current progress.

Social Return on Investment – and the alternatives?

Many organisations in Scotland are currently considering a Social Return on Investment (SROI) approach to reporting on their performance. This interesting piece from Social Enterprise magazine asks, to my mind in a constructive and useful way, whether SROI is the right method for everyone. It concludes that “SAA [Social Accounting and Audit]  and SROI each have considerable strengths, but also a number of weaknesses; in theory, a merger of the two processes into a new approach combining the best features of both may prove beneficial, but it is not yet clear whether this will be achieved.”

Are there three sectors in the Third Sector?

Senscot has produced a short paper that sets out very clearly a view that they and some others have been strongly urging, namely that the so-called ‘Third Sector’ is in fact made up of ‘three main branches – the social enterprise, the community or the voluntary sub-sectors’ which require to be represented in different ways.  

Social enterprise manifesto

The Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition (SSEC) launched its manifesto in Westminster this month. It calls for the UK government to shake up its support for the sector in banking, employment, procurement and the environment. SSEC chair Laurie Russell, launched the manifesto: ‘There’s an opportunity now for social enterprises to grow to a scale where they can deliver for the community with social and environmental business.' he said. He added that government support was 'one of the key aspects' of continued success.

EU Year for Combating Poverty

2010 is the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. The Poverty Alliance are keen to highlight the wide range of activities that are taking place in the UK to address poverty and social exclusion, ensuring that a lasting legacy of good practice and knowledge will emerge from 2010. If you want them to help publicise the work you are already doing to address poverty and highlight it to the members of the Network across Europe, please download the form from their website. 

Community Allowance scheme pilots

We have previously highlighted the idea of a Community Allowance scheme that will allow people on Incapacity Benefit or Employment Support Allowance to do up to 16 hours a week of work that benefits their community, paying them up to £92 a week without affecting their benefit entitlements. The Create Consortium, a group of not-for-profit organisations set up to promote the scheme, on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions has now announced the three organisations that will pilot the scheme in various areas of England. The project is expected to run for two years from January. Background report from New Economics Foundation.

In defence of community based Housing Associations

Community controlled housing associations have been one of Scotland’s housing and regeneration success stories in the last four decades. The Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations, Employers in Voluntary Housing (EVH) and SHARE have come together to look at how they respond to the challenges facing the sector. They see threats arising in recent pronouncements from the Scottish Housing Regulator and in the draft of the forthcoming Housing Scotland Bill.

Research into Community Ownership and Management of Assets

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has commissioned the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) and Cordis Bright to undertake national research into the community ownership and management of assets. The researchers would very much appreciate input from voluntary and community groups by completing their short online survey. The deadline for completing the online survey is Friday 18 December.

Standards Council Workplan

The Work Plan of the CLD Standards Council for Scotland, detailing the key activities it is taking forward, is now accessible online.

Scottish Government consults on Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations

The Scottish Government has begun its consultation on options for implementing the part of the Charities and Trustees Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 which relates to Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations (SCIOs).  Written responses to the consultation must be submitted to the Scottish Government by 26 February.

Embedding an Outcomes Approach in Tackling Poverty / Community Regeneration

The Improvement Service and the Scottish Centre for Regeneration are looking for local Partnerships who will take part in a pilot project on embedding an outcomes approach in tackling poverty and community regeneration. The project will provide hands on, practical support to four local partnerships to help them realise the full potential of an outcomes approach in their work on tackling poverty/community regeneration. Details of the project and information on how to apply, plus an application form are available. The deadline for applying to participate is 18th January.

Online Resources

Third Sector Online Interactive Evidence Library SCVO has launched this evidence library at: www.scvo.org.uk/evidencelibrary

Beyond GDP The European Union and other partners, including the OECD, have a ‘Beyond GDP’ website highlighting work on improving measures of progress, wealth and well-being. It includes information on recent developments, such as the EU policy paper “GDP and beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world.”, and on ongoing work on indicators to assess social, economic, and environmental progress.

Housing & Neighbourhoods Monitor The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has produced a Housing and Neighbourhoods Monitor, which offers easy viewing of maps of a range of social and economic indicators at scales ranging from UK wide to local neighbourhoods, and charts showing trends.

Publications

Beyond the Fairer Scotland Fund The Scottish Government  has published research by ODS to assess the past development and implementation of the Fairer Scotland Fund, and to provide a detailed picture of the continued support needs of Community Planning Partnerships in tackling poverty and deprivation under an outcome based framework.  Findings include:

• There was little evidence that regeneration programmes over the last ten years have acted as catalysts for mainstream expenditure. On their own, the ... funds were seen to be insufficient to bring about the scale of change that is needed.
• There is a perception that partnership working has improved during the life of the FSF. Reasons given for this included shared outcomes giving partners a clear focus for their work and partnerships being taken more seriously by senior managers in public agencies
• Active members of communities often felt less directly engaged in strategic, thematic approaches than they had been in neighbourhood based programmes.
• Continuing community engagement appears to be mainly at a local level and to involve consultation rather than decision making.
• There is a need to develop ways of involving communities (and service users) that are appropriate for these strategic approaches. This may involve new methods of engagement - and it will be important to share emerging good practice in this area.

State of Social Enterprise The State of Social Enterprise Survey 2009  (summary) was the largest survey of its kind of social enterprises in the UK. It finds that despite the recession, social enterprises are twice as confident of future growth as SMEs (smaller businesses).

Connecting Generations The Scottish Centre for Intergenerational Practice has published “Connecting Generations: A Guide to Best Practice”, a practical guide to developing your own intergenerational programmes, with case studies of pioneering projects in Scotland. 

Equal opportunities and the Scottish Parliament The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published “Equal opportunities and the Scottish Parliament: a progress review”, in order to contribute  to understanding of the progress made by the Scottish Parliament and  Scottish Government in using the equal opportunities powers granted  under the Scotland Act 1998. It finds that:

• Understanding of the equal opportunities powers conveyed by the Scotland Act is quite limited. 
• Where the equal opportunities powers are used, the impact can be limited as a result of a perceived lack of scrutiny and leadership from the Scottish Government. 
• But, even with a variable understanding of what the Scotland Act powers mean in practice, equality considerations are found to be embedded in public policy discourse in Scotland.

Tackling Health inequalities: who does what? CHEX, Voluntary Health Scotland, Community Food and Health Scotland and UK Public Health have joined to produce a briefing entitled ‘Tackling Health Inequalities in Scotland: working with communities – a partnership of Scottish Health Intermediary Bodies’ which highlights their collaborative work, together with their distinctive roles and remits and the activities of their respective constituents.

SCVO pre-Manifesto Discussion Document SCVO has issued a Discussion Document to start a process of sector-wide discussion to produce a Scottish Voluntary Sector Manifesto for the UK Elections 2010 and Scottish Elections 2011.

The highs and lows of a community association Ormlie Community Association has produced a book based on the last 12 years of community development and regeneration in the Ormlie area, Thurso.  It highlights the lessons that have been learned over the period.  The book is available at a cost of £7.99 plus postage from Ormlie Community Association Ltd, 108 Marr Terrace, Thurso KW14 7SW.  Tel: 01847 891789.  Email: ormlieca@tiscali.co.uk.

A Guide to Collaborative Inquiry and Social Engagement The book “SAS2: A Guide to Collaborative Inquiry and Social Engagement”by Canadian authors Jacques M. Chevalier and Daniel J. Bucklesis freely availableonline. It argues thatthat group dialogue and social inquiry are crucial for local and global development, and presents the concepts and means needed to support multistakeholder dialogue and a selection of techniques for collaborative inquiry and examples of real-life applications in South Asia and Latin America.

Events

Scottish Credit & Qualifications Framework and Community Learning Practitioners Friday 15 January 2010, 9.50-15.00, Scotland's Colleges, Argyll Court, Stirling (free)
This event will promote and support implementation of the SCQF in community based learning settings.  View programme Book online , closing date 14 January

Policy and practice for community-led health  Monday 1 February 2010, Perth Concert Hall
This conference “Communities, inequality and health improvement: Policy and practice for community-led health” is based on the lessons of the ‘Healthy Communities: Meeting the Shared Challenge’ programme that aims to encourage and support community-led approaches to health improvement throughout Scotland. It aims to share experiences and lessons from across Scotland, to link community-led health to key policy agendas, and help signpost the resources that are now available to support community-led health.

Full details of the event and registration forms will be available shortly on the project website. For enquiries, please contact Lee Goundry at SCDC lee@scdc.org.uk, or 0141 248 1924.

Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion in Europe through Education for Democratic Citizenship / Human Rights Education Glasgow, March 3-4, 2010
This conference, organised by BEMIS (Black and Ethnic Minorities Infrastructure in Scotland) and DARE (Democracy and Human Rights Education in Adult Learning), consists of country reports and case studies from all over Europe to highlight the effects of poverty and social exclusion on education for democratic citizenship and human rights education - and vice versa. Workshops and site visits introduce the conference participants to local and European best practices. For more information visit the DARE website

Fighting Poverty in Scotland: Achievements and Opportunities
The Poverty Alliance's annual series of free seminars across Scotland will focus on looking at what has been achieved so far, and what the anti-poverty movement in Scotland should be pushing for in the next period. A total of 10 seminars are being organised this year:

 For further details and to registerclick here

How to engage with the NHS
Tuesday 19 January 2009 – Dumfries    
Tuesday 2 February 2009 - Falkirk
Tuesday16 February 2009 – Inverness   

Voluntary Health Scotland is promoting a series of one-day seminars across Scotland to equip third sector organisations with the skills to engage with NHS Health Boards. Each day is planned to help members of voluntary and community organisations, Councils for Voluntary Service, Volunteer Centres, Social Enterprises and Equality and Diversity groups develop strategies for increasing influence on and engagement with the NHS. As there are limited spaces it is advisable to book early. To register for these seminars please complete and post / fax the registration form on the event flyer , complete online or call Voluntary Health Scotland on 0131 225 7290. 

Competencies of Community Researchers Wednesday 24 February, 9.30-16.30pm, Thistle Hotel, Glasgow (TBC) £50 until 6th January, £75 until 5th February, then £125
The Glasgow Anti Racist Alliance GARA is holding this conference to help identify the type of research experiences that people working in the community have had in the areas of health, education, employment, housing, social justice, youth work, etc. (not necessarily exclusive to BME communities). GARA also wants to identify the core competencies required of community/peer researchers in order to conduct their tasks effectively.

The conference is suitable for anyone involved in community based research, peer/community researchers, community research contractors, independent researchers, organisation leaders, service providers, policy makers, academics interested in conducting community research.

For more information visit the conference page or contact GARA 0141 418 6530 or events@gara.org.uk.

November 2009

Next CDAS conference

Following a successful recent event on ‘Stronger Communities: Wealthier and Fairer Scotland’, CDAS’ next public event will continue to provide the opportunity to explore how community development helps to deliver key national and local outcomes.

A conference on ‘Putting the Community Development into Community Safety’ will take place on Monday, 22 March 2010 in the Renfield Centre, 260 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 4JP. Costs will be £25 for voluntary & community organisations and £35 for other organisations. To register an interest please contact Peter Taylor, 0141 586 7588, peter@pdtaylor.com. Full details will be circulated later.

Speakers will include: Fergus Ewing MSP, Minister for Community Safety, Detective Chief Superintendant John Carnochan, Violence Reduction Unit on ‘Violence reduction – a public health issue’ and Jon Bannister, Senior Lecturer / Network Leader (Communities and Crime) the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, Glasgow University on ‘Community development and best practice in community safety’ . There will be a variety of practice presentations and workshops. The conference is organised in association with the Scottish Community Safety Network.

Antisocial Behaviour Plan

The Scottish Government has published an implementation plan for the actions previously set out in the antisocial behaviour policy review. The plan:  ‘Promoting Positive Outcomes: Working Together to Prevent Antisocial Behaviour in Scotland’ makes ‘four basic claims’:

• Prevention:  we  should  be  focusing  on  addressing  the  causes  of  the  problem  through preventive work
• Integration: we should be working together better to achieve shared outcomes
• Engagement: we should be engaging communities in a meaningful way in  the development of national and local strategies and keeping them informed of progress
• Communication: we should communicate better as partners to ensure positive, coordinated and evidence-based messages are shared with the public.

Specific points include:

• a new  voluntary  performance  framework , whose objectives include to enable and support local authorities, Community Safety Partnerships etc to better reflect ‘Safer and Stronger’ outcomes in Single Outcome Agreements and local strategies 
• developing an evaluation framework (using a ‘specialist supplier’) relevant  ‘to all community safety projects, programmes and processes’
• establishing ‘a  range  of  learning  sites’, which ‘will  bring  together  experience,  knowledge  and learning  specific  to  ASB  and  across  the  Safer  and  Stronger  spectrum’
• the Scottish Government, COSLA and other national partners, ‘will produce shared strategic guidance on partnership working on ASB by the end of 2009’ and ‘will  consult,  by  autumn,  on  the development of shared guidance aimed at encouraging local communities and agencies  to build  their capacity in addressing ASB problems through community engagement and empowerment activities’
• a main part of the actions on ‘community engagement’ will (as previously announced) be the three ‘participatory budgeting pilots focused on dealing with ASB’ that are being led by COSLA, the list of which is to be announced by the end of November.

Anti-bullying consultation

The Scottish Government has published a consultation on ‘a national approach to anti-bullying for Scotland’s children and young people’, which recognises a role for community and youth groups, and Community Learning and Development workers, amongst many others.

Tackling deprivation: new evidence and policy

In face of the impending end to the Fairer Scotland Fund, and thus thirty or forty years of targeted funding for action to meet the needs of disadvantaged areas and groups, the Scottish Government and COSLA have issued a joint statement ‘Equal Communities In A Fairer Scotland’.

This “confirms the ongoing commitment of government at national and local level to addressing the socio- economic disparities that exist between our most deprived communities, entire local authority areas, and the rest of Scotland”. This commitment is based on the following principles:

• “A focus on investment and services that address the root causes of long-standing  concentrated multiple deprivation, not only alleviate its symptoms
• Emphasis on making early interventions in vulnerable communities to address  emerging problems as quickly as possible
• Encouraging effective joint working between community planning partners. This  should include links to the third and private sectors
• Focused action on improving employability and linking residents to employment  opportunities as a key means of extending opportunity and tackling high levels of  local deprivation
• Support for community empowerment, so that local communities become more resilient, can deliver change themselves and influence and inform the decisions made by community planning partners”.

Within the context of the major national social and economic strategies, “a specific focus on improving outcomes for people living in our most deprived geographical communities remains essential”. Although “tailored local programmes aimed at directly assisting the most deprived geographical areas” are usually more relevant to urban areas, the Government still considers “the communities covered by the 15% most deprived data zones [in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)]  as representing the best overall summary of geographically concentrated  deprivation across the country”,  regardless of whether and how SIMD is used locally as a tool for planning investment and the  deployment of services.

The announcement coincided with the publication of the 2009 version of the SIMD. Findings include:

• There have been continued and marked improvements in Glasgow, with reduced numbers of data zones in the 5 per cent, 10 per cent and 15 per cent most deprived categories, but the city still has nearly a third of all deprived areas.
• Multiple deprivation is becoming less concentrated geographically, as improvements have been seen in other Local Authorities as well as Glasgow. Five Local Authorities now contain 57 per cent of the 15 per cent most deprived zones. This is a fall from 67 per cent in SIMD 2004.
• The majority (82%) of areas that moved out of the 15 per cent most deprived in SIMD 2006 have remained out, demonstrating sustained improvement.
• 81% of data zones in the most deprived 15 per cent in SIMD 2009 were also in the most deprived in the two previous versions, showing that there are still major sustained concentrations of deprivation.

Upskilling the CLD Workforce

Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) has taken on the role of managing the first stage of a CLD workforce up-skilling programme using the Scottish Government funding available in 2009-10. Local CLD Partnerships have been offered funding to develop workforce development strategies and improve Continuing Professional Development opportunities for the CLD workforce, across sectors.

Other priorities for the first year of the programme will include a national programme of leadership and management training, and mapping out existing training opportunities and gaps in provision across Scotland. The Standards Council for CLD is leading the establishment of a national framework for workforce development.

The key LLUK contact for the delivery of the programme this year is Moira Stewart, moira.stewart@lluk.org   or 0870 756 4970. For issues relating to the overall and longer term development of the up-skilling programme, contact  Colin Ross, Cath Hamilton, Edith MacQuarrie or Kim Smith at Learning Connections, 0300 244 1367. For issues relating to the Standards Council for CLD, contact Rory MacLeod or Karen Geekie.

SOAs and the community sector

Local People Leading reports on its review of references to community empowerment and/or engagement in Single Outcome Agreements in 2008 and 2009.

• The majority of SOAs appear to have some reference to community engagement. Most of these refer to how the SOAs etc have themselves been influenced by various forms of community engagement.
• There are only five references of any sort to community empowerment and only one specific local action is mentioned (Stirling in 2009 refers to the local implementation of the Community Empowerment Action Plan)
• Thirteen authorities include some specific actions regarding improving or increasing community engagement. Only three include a specific local outcome about community engagement. Most of these references are from the 2008 SOAs.

Lifelong Learning and Skills inquiries

‘Learning through Life’, the report of the UK wide Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning talks about a ‘new mosaic of time’, referring to the varied mixes of paid and unpaid work, leisure and of course study time which seem to be emerging.  Ironically, the recession and the employment crisis may actually be opening up new opportunities for such patterns, as companies look for better alternatives than making people redundant. It argues for a new 4-stage model of the adult life-course:   18-25, 25-50, 50-75, 75+.

‘Towards Ambition 2020: skills, jobs, growth’ provides advice from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. It looks at how UK wide approaches could be changed, as well as providing more detailed recommendations on the English system. It recommends that we should “Continue to publicly promote literacy, numeracy and basic employability skills for all adults, and make public investment in basic skills and employability a key priority until such time as the number of low skilled adults in the UK is reduced to the level of our key international competitors”, but says little about community-based approaches.

Voluntary Action Scotland extends scope

Councils for Voluntary Service (CVS) have voted overwhelmingly to open membership of their new national body, Voluntary Action Scotland, to Volunteer Centres (VCs).

John Swinney on role of social enterprise

Senscot reproduces a letter in which Cabinet Secretary John Swinney agrees that “we need to bring social enterprise centre stage in the work of community planning partnerships”

Social Enterprise Mark

The new Social Enterprise Mark will be launched next February. The criteria for its award to organisations have been published.  Qualifying organisations will: 

• Be an eligible legal form  
• Adhere to certain shareholders restrictions
• Have own constitution and governing  body
• Profit is predominantly used and/or distributed for social/environmental purposes.
• Have traded for a minimum of one year and  earn 50% or  more of its  income from  trading
• Be able to provide evidence that social/environmental objectives are being achieved.

Inquiry into asset-based community development 

The International Association for Community Development and the Carnegie UK Trust have launched an inquiry into the applicability, challenges and potential of asset-based approaches to community development. This recognises that there are differing understandings of these - approaches which stress the existing skills and resources in communities; approaches which empower them to develop independently – and looks at what these have in common.

Nobel for work on common resources

In an unexpected move, the Nobel Prize for Economics has been awarded for the first time to a woman, Elinor Ostrom, who has argued for the importance of cooperation and collective action to safeguard local and global ‘commons’: natural resources, like fish stocks, common land etc.  She argues that societies and groups regularly devise rules and enforcement mechanisms which prevent the degradation of nature.  Active participation by citizens, she says, is the most important feature of successful outcomes. 

On-line resources

Community capacity building: on-line guidance Learning Connections guidance ‘Capacity for Change, Building Community Capacity: guidance for staff working with communities’ is available online.

SCVO Green Web Pages SCVO's website now includes 'green' web pages. The pages aim to help voluntary organisations understand the relevance of and take action on 'green' issues. In particular, the 'What you can do' section includes a simple carbon accounting tool which has been developed with Scottish Environment LINK to enable organisations to start measuring their carbon impact.

Publications

A manifesto for rural communities The Carnegie UK Trust has published ‘A Manifesto for Rural Communities - Inspiring Community Innovation’  It builds upon their 2007 Charter for Rural Communities but acknowledges the accelerating pace of economic and social change.  The publication draws upon evidence from forty-four organisations and communities that have explored some of the most pressing challenges facing rural communities over the past four years.

Briefing on Equality duty The Poverty Alliance has produced a short briefing on ‘The Equality Bill and the socio-economic inequality duty: What are the implications in Scotland?’.

Human Rights Enquiry The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published the findings of its Human Rights Inquiry, based on in-depth research, public polling, focus group work and a series of public evidence sessions on human rights in the UK. It found that an overwhelming majority of the British people support legislation protecting their human rights. It is also the first major study into how far public sector authorities have adopted a rights based approach to delivering services, and found that where human rights were put at the heart of the delivery of public services, they delivered successful results.

Ethnic minorities and Community Planning This report is based on a consultation  by  the Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure  in Scotland (BEMIS) with members  of  voluntary  faith-based  and  community  organisations  from  diverse  ethnic minority  communities  in Scotland.   The purpose of  the consultation  was  to  seek  their views on  Government  support  for  tackling  poverty  inequality  and  deprivation  through  local  Community Planning Partnerships.  

Laying the roots for a multicultural Scotland The Scottish Refugee Council has published a review  of the work of its Community Development Team from 2001 to 2009 with approximately 120 organisations, working with around 2,000 people. It concludes that Community development work is of significant value to their partners, refugee communities themselves, receiving communities and internal stakeholders.

Count Us In: newly-arrived young people HMIE has produced a report on what Scottish schools are doing well at to support newly-arrived young people and their families. The report is also aimed at “people who work in partnership with schools including education officers, community learning and development staff, youth work services, as well as voluntary providers, community and faith groups and other educational establishments”.

Building Cohesive Communities The English Department for Communities and Local Government has published “Building Cohesive Communities: What frontline staff and community activists need to know” “a short practical guide for busy activists and frontline staff working on community cohesion”.

Education for Sustainable Development An international review  of ‘Contexts and Structures for Education for Sustainable Development’ has been produced by UNESCO as part of the monitoring of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (more on Scottish developments soon).

Evidence Base for Third Sector Policy The Scottish Government  has published ‘The Evidence Base for Third Sector Policy in Scotland: A Review of Selected Recent Literature’  (summary research findings here)

Third Sector: key policy issues  A document containing short presentations on key policy issues for the Third Sector in Scotland by a variety of experts has been produced as a result of an ESRC seminar series. Presentations include, amongst others:

• Geoff Pope, Head of Opportunities for Growth Team in the Scottish Government Third Sector Division on The third sector and the Scottish Government
• Dr Stephen Sinclair, of the Scottish Poverty Information Unit, Glasgow Caledonian University, on findings from a pilot study of Voluntary and Private Sector Influence in Community Planning in Scotland
• Dr Susan Baines, Reader in Social Policy, Manchester Metropolitan University on Co-production and the modernisation of public service: what has it to do with the VCS?
• Dr Philomena de Lima, Director of the UHI Centre for Remote and Rural Studies on Impact of the economic downturn on the ‘rural voluntary sector’ in Scotland
• Professor Stephen P Osborne, Professor of International Public Management, University of Edinburgh Business School on rare research findings on Voluntary and community groups and innovation in public services.

Communities in recession The Joseph Rowntree Trust has produced a short round-up of evidence on what impact the current recession is having on disadvantaged communities and what we can learn from evidence from previous recessions.

Lifelong Learning UK newsletter Lifelong Learning UK is to publish the first edition of its newsletter, Learning Scotland, this November. The publication promotes the sharing of best practice across the different parts of the lifelong learning sector and provides an update on the recent work of Lifelong Learning UK in Scotland. If you would like a copy please contact Kate Sankey.

Community Philosophy The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has produced the report of a three-year experiment using an approach called 'Community Philosophy' to promote conversations and develop positive relationships between different groups of people within a community.

Sustainable Livelihoods Handbook Church Action on Poverty and Oxfam have published a Handbook for community groups, based on their Sustainable Livelihoods work. This takes as its starting point not deprivation but assets: the strengths and capabilities of people living in poverty and the strategies they use to get by. Connections are made between people's own strategies and the wider context. This information is then used to plan and prioritise possible actions to bring about positive change in people’s lives.

Facilitator Guide to Participatory approaches  An existing guide based on VSO’s experience on promoting participation, designed for volunteers, partner organisations and staff has been now been made available online. It collates a range of participatory methods that have been used successfully in the field. Examples are given of methods that can be used for specific purposes such as Participatory Organisational Appraisal and Gender/Diversity Analysis. The third part gives tips on how to choose the most appropriate tools and participatory exercises, and how to organise participatory workshops and small group activity.

Events

Citizenship and Health  Glasgow University’s annual public series of Stevenson Lectures on Citizenship focus this year on ‘Citizenship and Health’. The remaining events in the series are:

1 December 2009:  Dr Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland "Can communities create healthy citizens?"
9 February 2010:  Margo MacDonald MSP "Patient autonomy and the right to determine when life has become intolerable."
23 February 2010:  Sheila Dillon, Radio Journalist and Presenter “Four kinds of madness:  obesity, hunger, agricultural policy, and The Royal Society”
2 March 2009:  Professor David Donnison, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, University of Glasgow, "Speaking to Power: Development of the Scottish advocacy service"
23 March 2010:  Rt Hon David Blunkett MP "Active citizenship equals a healthy democracy: a healthy democracy equals the health of the nation" (This will be the inaugural Crick Memorial Lecture, in honour of the late Professor Sir Bernard Crick).

All lectures are free and open to all members of the general public, are held in the Sir Charles Wilson lecture theatre (corner of Gibson Street and University Avenue) and begin at 6pm.

Third Sector Skills Conference  Edinburgh, 3 December

Throughout 2009, SCVO and the Scottish Government have been working with key third sector organisations and key skills partners to develop the new framework for a Scottish third sector skills strategy. This event will discuss how new arrangements and recent developments in skills could help your organisation to be as effective as possible and to support third sector organisations to contribute to Scotland's economy. Contact: SCVO, 0141 225 8019, e-mail, further details.

Community Engagement and Action around Alcohol Issues Tuesday, 8 December 2009, SAS Radisson Hotel, Glasgow Cost: £45

Alcohol Focus Scotland’s National Community Conference is the first conference of its kind in Scotland that addresses how changes can be made to Scotland's relationship with alcohol through engaging local community interest and increasing partnership working. The conference is aimed at all who work in community settings where alcohol issues form part of their remit. It is intended for a broad audience of community activists, teachers, practitioners and workers. Please click here to view the programme.

A Curriculum for Excellence – a practitioner’s guide Friday 4 December, Rosebery House, Edinburgh

Do you keep hearing about A Curriculum for Excellence but don’t really understand how it relates to you and your work with young people? YouthLink Scotland, in partnership with Learning Teaching Scotland , will facilitate a seminar for youth work practitioners at on 4 December which will explain the basics. Contact: Susan Symington, phone: 0131 313 2488, e-mail

Voices for Change, Creating Change 9 and 11 December 2009, Glasgow

This training by the Poverty Alliance is aimed at individuals and groups that have experience of poverty issues and who want to get their voices and experiences heard more effectively in order to instigate change. The two days cover:

• Exploring the complexities of poverty
• Change in our communities
• Public attitudes
• Understanding the factors that affect our lives & communities
• Understanding Government policy and how to analyse policies that affect our lives
• Presenting and arguing your case.

To register for this training session and to get further information please click here.

Scottish Assembly for Tackling Poverty Glasgow Royal Concert Hall,  5 February 2010

This event - '2010 and Beyond: Creating a Vision of a Better Scotland for All'  will be the first in a series of annual National Assemblies, bringing together people from a wide range of backgrounds to discuss, debate and plan how we create a sustainable society for the future, where fundamental rights will be made a reality for everyone. Creating a new economy based on sustainable production, providing jobs and a social security system that guarantee a decent standard of living, and ensuring that our welfare system tackles health and educational inequalities; these will the challenges that this first Scottish Assembly for Tackling Poverty will confront.

Registration will open for this event in December. For more information contact sarah.welford@povertyalliance.org

'Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion through Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education'

As part of their contribution to the European Year of Tackling Poverty, BEMIS (Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure in Scotland), in partnership with Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe (DARE), will be holding a national conference addressing 'Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion Through Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education' in March 2010. Please get in touch if you are interested in taking an active part in this event. Phone: 0141 548 8047 [ e-mail | website ]

October 2009

Joint statement on Third Sector

A new joint statement on the importance and role of the Third Sector has been produced by a Joint Third Sector Task Group bringing together the Scottish Government, CoSLA, SOLACE and representatives from the third sector, led by SCVO. The agreements that it records include:

• The third sector will organise itself so as to effectively participate in mutually acceptable decision making structures, in a transparent and accessible way.
• As a general rule funders will aim to take a 3-year approach to both grant and contract funding (and several other points on funding)
• A ‘strategic commissioning’ approach, led by local authorities, is a ‘positive way forward for the assessment of need, design, procurement and monitoring of the effectiveness of services’ commissioning strategy. But local authorities must involve ‘the relevant partners including service users and their representative bodies where appropriate’ in the strategy; consider the use of forming public-social-partnerships as a means of planning and delivering services; look to purchase multiple outcomes and maximise the use of Community Benefit clauses. (See: Scottish Government information on CB clauses  Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition leaflet)
• Confirmation that the ‘local third sector infrastructure’ (e.g. Councils for Voluntary Service and Volunteer Centres), is expected to establish a single ‘Third Sector Interface’ in each Community Planning area, as ‘an important contributor to improved engagement’ and ‘providing a visible connection and communication channel between the third sector and the CPP’.

Think Tanks Report

In a related development, ‘Framework for the Future’, the report of the Think Tanks project, established as part of the Supporting Voluntary Action Programme, has been launched.  The project aimed ‘to develop a shared vision, purpose and direction for the voluntary sector support infrastructure in Scotland’, concentrating on the national level. 

The report suggest that there should be, not one single body, but “a national Congress of all infrastructure support organisations – CVS, VCs, national intermediaries, national social enterprise support bodies and local networks and LSEPs (estimated to be as many as 140 bodies currently)”; that these should be linked through a ‘portal’ IT system; and that there should be a “brand identity for infrastructure in Scotland” and “a ‘badge’ which guarantees a level of quality of service”.

 Upskilling the CLD workforce

Learning Connections has issued a paper that outlines the principles that guide the national CLD Workforce Upskilling Programme and the outcomes that it is intended to achieve. The “CLD workforce“ is defined as consisting of those staff whose primary work role focuses on using the competences for CLD, irrespective of employer.

It has also outlined how the first stage the programme of will be delivered.  The Government has awarded a grant of £950,000 in 2009-10 to Lifelong Learning UK for delivery of this stage. LLUK will be providing support to CLD Partnerships to develop local strategies for workforce development. The CLD Standards Council  will provide a means for the sector to input to the strategic direction of the programme, and act as the key point of reference and advice on development and delivery.

More action on empowerment?

Local People Leading has welcomed the Scottish Government’s Community Empowerment Action Plan as an important step on the road to greater community empowerment in Scotland, but believes that ‘it is not sufficiently radical or ambitious to achieve significant change’. It has outlined its views on six key areas where further action is needed. We hope to have a chance to discuss these at a future CDAS meeting.

Achieving Community Empowerment

As we have previously reported, the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) SCDC has been awarded over £400,000 from the BIG Lottery Fund to deliver the Achieving Community Empowerment (ACE) capacity building programme in Scotland.  The programme aims to build the capacity of emerging community groups by providing mentoring support, developing learning materials, facilitating the sharing of knowledge, experience and learning between participating projects and communicating key lessons more widely.  The programme will run for four and a half years and will directly benefit 50 groups across Scotland.

SCDC is currently devising the systems and processes to identify eligible groups for the programme and expects to launch further details of the application process in the New Year.  However, it invites people who would like to express their interest and be added to the database to receive further detailed information, to contact Aileen Skillen on 0141 248 1924 or email aileen@scdc.org.uk .

Promoting Community Council democracy

The Scottish Government has launched a pilot scheme involving 13 community councils in Moray to raise community councils' profile, validate their role in local decision making and show that they are democratic. More people are being encouraged to stand in community council elections. Each pilot community council has received £500 to promote becoming a community councillor, ahead of elections in October. This adds to two existing pilot schemes in which one urban and one rural Community Council has been granted £15,000 each to spend as they wished for the benefit of their community.

Resilience Fund

The Scottish Government has announced a £1.7 million Resilience Fund for Third Sector organisations affected by recession.  The fund, which will be open for five weeks from late October, is being delivered as a ring-fenced part of the existing Third Sector Enterprise Fund. Organisations seeking information on the fund, or potential applicants, should contact Mary Lyden on 0141 305 4176, or Polly Chapman on 01463 663918. 

It is interesting to note that the approximate equivalent in England, the Hardship Fund, is administered by the Community Development Foundation on behalf of the government.

Social Enterprise in SOAs

Senscot and the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition commissioned a piece of work to review the Single Outcome Agreements for 2008 and 2009 to assess how far social enterprise was reflected in them.  A summary of the findings  reveals that:

• Only one SOA in 2009 (2 in 2008) had references to social enterprise in all four possible ‘information fields’ – context of the area, local outcomes, local indicators and actions required.
• 12 SOA’s in 2009 (up from 10) had no references to social enterprise in any of the four fields and 9 had only one reference (compared to 10)
• Overall, it appears that SOA’s for rural areas –especially those in the Highlands and Islands – are more likely to contain references to social enterprise compared to those in urban areas. 

Learning & Development Standards Review

Lifelong Learning UK is consulting on the National Occupational Standards for Learning & Development and related qualification requirements. It regards these Standards as covering the community-based adult learning sector in Scotland as well as other forms of vocational education.  People can take part by attending one of two free TWO consultation events (both10am-4pm):

17th November 2009 - Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow
20th November 2009 - Station Hotel, Aberdeen

(Application form)  Please return your completed, available from the link below, as soon as possible. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.  If you are unable to attend either of the above events, information on how to input to the review, is available from the Lifelong Learning UK website.

Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress

An international report on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (in effect  ‘Measuring What Matters’) has been produced by a group commissioned by President Sarkozy of France, chaired and advised respectively by Nobel Prize winners Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz and Professor Amartya Sen. 

The OECD’s Global Project on "Measuring the Progress of Societies" also provides relevant materials and links.

Do social enterprises exist?

Senscot reproduces a provocative article from New Start in which Michael Finlayson, Chief Executive of social enterprise/social firm Forth Sector, argues that “social enterprises don’t really exist and our social firms have no future”. His reasons, briefly, are that a social enterprise has no legal status, the term refers to an activity rather than an entity, and that social firms are over dependent on grants, and ‘a tool not a cause’, justifiable only if they serve the charitable purposes for which they were established.

Schools Consultation Scotland Bill

The Scottish Parliament has published the stage 2 version of the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Bill. Consumer Focus Scotland ‘supports the aims of putting in place a more open, participative and transparent process that is easier to understand’ for changes to schools, but is disappointed that the Bill only extends the statutory consultation period from 28 days to 6 weeks.

A sign of things to come?

‘Community workers protest over cuts plans’ reports the Irish Times. Thousands of workers in family resource centres, youth programmes and drugs projects took to the streets of Dublin on 30 September to protest about current and proposed cuts to their sector. A 15 per cent budget cut has already been imposed on the sector, and further cuts are proposed in the report of a government ‘Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes’, popularly known as ‘An Bord Snip’ (Cuts Board). This concludes that Ireland’s network of 180 Community Development Projects (CDPs) ‘showed no evidence of positive outcomes’.

Getting community ownership back on track

Local People Leading have reproduced an authoritative but trenchant talk by James Hunter on the Scottish experience of community land ownership, why he fears that it is failing to progress and what should be done about it.

Scottish Refugee Council

The Scottish Refugee Council is asking for comments on the priorities for its strategic plan though participation in an online survey.

Any examples of intergenerational practice?

Generations Working Together is embarking on a major exercise to collect examples of interesting and good intergenerational practice from across Scotland. If you would like your organisation or project to feature on their website, please contact Pat Scrutton, pat.scrutton@o2.co.uk  or 07915584104.

Links with developing countries

A survey funded by the Department for International Development is urging all UK-based community groups with links in a developing country to tell their story.

The DFID Community Link Programme (DCLP) survey aims to build a comprehensive picture of UK groups and their activities, such as charitable project links, exchange programmes, visits to specific communities or any other community links.

The survey results will be made public Spring 2010 and will help shape future learning, grants and support under the DCLP and make sure it helps a wide range of community groups.

Survey of English CD workers

CDF is currently carrying out ‘the authoritative England wide survey of community development workers and their managers’, updating and improving on a similar survey conducted in 2003. Some Scottish workers may have received mailings, but the survey is purely focused on England. However the results, which will be published in March 2010, should provide interesting comparative material for the CLD Standards Council for Scotland and others to look at.

On-line resources

CLD Standards Council e-newsletter The CLD Standards Council is launching an e-newsletter, which will be published initially on a quarterly basis. It will contain a mix of news, events and updates from the council and the wider CLD field. It will provide updates from the four Standards Council committees - Approvals, CPD, Registration and Executive - who currently meet every three months.

To subscribe to the newsletter, either follow the link button on the home page of the Standards Council website to take you through to the sign up area, or email your details to contactcld@scotland.gsi.gov.uk . If you have any news or events you'd like to promote in the e-newsletter send an email or tel:0300 244 1369.

Evaluation Support Scotland - support guides Evaluation Support Scotland has recently updated their downloadable support guides. View the catalogue here.

NHS Scotland e-Library The NHS Scotland e-Library has been entirely redesigned. The new service, provisionally entitled Knowledge for Care Scotland, is now available to try. Some search facilities etc are generally accessible, and a wide range of people who work in partnership with the NHS are able to register for full access to services.

Community Food and Health (Scotland) Community Food and Health (Scotland) has launched a newly redeveloped website.  As well as an expanded funding section, the new site also contains information on legal responsibilities; ideas for being business-like; suggestions for networking and making links; signposts to training and development support; and useful tips on how to demonstrate that your work is making a difference.

Publications

Bridging the Gap This report on the links between youth work and schools is jointly published by Learning and Teaching Scotland, YouthLink Scotland and the Scottish Government. It is a significant statement that recognises the existing partnership work and provides a platform for future developments.

Statement on the Nature and Purpose of Youth Work Youthlink Scotland has reissued this brief statement, previously developed with the whole sector, incorporating up to date links etc.

Young Men in Scotland: A conversation YMCA Scotland called together a group of influential policy makers from a wide range of professions and stakeholders with an interest in young men. A number of significant factors were identified in the lives of young men and the group ultimately concluded that there was a critical need for a whole new approach to work with young men in Scotland. The full report, written by Howard Sercombe, can be viewed here.

Economic evidence A report with the unwieldy title ‘Preliminary Case Studies of the application of Economic Evidence of Health Improvement Work in Community led Projects and Organizations’, was launched at the Healthier Lives, Wealthier Communities? conference on 30th September. (Declaration of interest: I wrote this report).

NHS Health Scotland hopes it will be of interest to partners across the sectors, both from a funding/commissioning and a community organization perspective. NHS Health Scotland will be working with a National Reference Group and their partners more widely on drawing learning from the case research along with the feedback from delegates at the conference, to shape the onward agenda regarding Economic Evidence of Community-led Health Improvement.

A report of the conference, including the presentations will shortly be available.  If you did not attend the conference and would like a copy, please e-mail Kirsty.smith@health.scot.nhs.uk.

Pledgebanks The Department for Communities and Local Government in England has published a literature review on community Pledgebanks . A pledge scheme is an invitation from an organisation to an individual to make a public commitment to a behaviour change. Studies of the effect of pledging on recycling, vehicle safety, voting, smoking and environmental behaviour indicate that: 

• Asking people to pledge can lead to behaviour change, but there is no clear evidence that it is any more or less effective than other campaigning approaches 
• Asking people to pledge seems to work best if it takes a personal approach, but it is unclear whether it is the personal approach or the pledging that has an effect.

Communities and Policing Full reports are available on the recent Scottish Institute for Policing Research conference "Communities and Policing: evidence and innovation in Scotland"

European Social Fund Stories The European Commission has published a book of personal stories from around the continent: “Making a difference in life: the EU investing in people through the European Social Fund”. Download here (click the ‘en’ button).

Voluntary Sector Review, the new journal of the Voluntary Sector Studies Network will publish peer-reviewed, accessible papers on third sector research, policy and practice. Details.

Empowered Communities survey results The Topic Report on ‘Empowered Communities’ from the English 2007-08 Citizenship Survey contains a range of interesting information on subjective empowerment, trust and actual participation. For example, 38% of people in England felt they could influence local decisions, while 20% felt they could influence national decisions. These proportions have not changed since 2003.

Community development approaches to grant giving CDF has produced a report ‘Funding Communities, Adding Value’ on Community development approaches to grant giving, which ‘means an open, transparent and fair approach that meets the needs of the community, as identified by the community that the grant fund is targeted at’.  (free download)

Care Commission Involving People Plan The Care Commission’s Involving People Plan is now available in an easy to read version.

Events

Poverty Alliance AGM
Friday 23 October 2009, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

The Poverty Alliance’s formal AGM will start at 10am and will be followed at 10.30am by their annual seminar, on ‘The Cuts: What do they mean for the fight against poverty?’ John Mclaren, Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Public Policy for Regions at the University of Glasgow will present the findings from his recent analysis of the Scottish Budget. Paul Bivand, Head of Analysis and Statistics at the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, will look at the cuts from a UK perspective, focusing on what the implications are for current welfare to work policies. Leading members of the Poverty Alliance will comment on how campaigners should respond to the cutbacks and the economic crisis.  Places are limited so please register online as soon as possible.   

Income inequality
6th November, Easter Road Conference Centre, Edinburgh Cost: £10

A conference ‘For everyone born a place at the table: Tackling income inequality in Scotland’ jointly organised by Action of Churches Together in Scotland and the STUC. Keynote Speaker: Professor Richard Wilkinson.

Youth Work Week Conference and YouthLink Scotland AGM
3 November 2009, Hilton, Glasgow Grosvenor Cost £60 (+ VAT = £69)

The theme for Youth Work Week 2009 focuses on the two key qualities of ‘resilience’ and ‘resourcefulness’, in the belief that these are qualities that  that youth workers have always helped to impart, and which young people are going to need in spades in the near future. YouthLink Scotland’s event is built around a session with Carol Craig and the team from the Centre for Confidence and Wellbeing.  ‘In recognition of the current economic climate’ YouthLink Scotland will hold its AGM as part of the event Book Online | download

Participation and Influence with New Communities
18 November, Glasgow

Voluntary Action Fund workshop for organisations working with refugees, asylum seekers and/or migrant communities, and those who have an interest in community participation and partnerships. The workshop will explore what we know of the barriers to involvement in community planning and civic participation by people in Scotland’s new communities. For information contact Rhona Morris 01383 620780 / rhona.morris@voluntaryactionfund.org.uk

Learning from Evaluation
13 January 2010, 9.30am - 3pm, Surgeon's Hall,  Nicolson Street Edinburgh

 Evaluation Support Scotland conference ‘Learning from Evaluation – Fitting the Pieces Together’

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August/September 2009

Forthcoming CDAS conference

The forthcoming CDAS conference ‘Stronger Communities: Wealthier and Fairer Scotland’, will look at the fundamental contributions that our communities make to making Scotland a wealthier and fairer place to live, especially in the current economic situation, and how these contributions can be supported and developed. The conference is taking place on Tuesday, 10 November at the Stirling Management Centre, University of Stirling. Details here - please circulate them to your networks or members.

Report from Members’ Meeting

At the CDAS Members’ Meeting on19 August, Colin Mair, Chief Executive of the Improvement Service gave a presentation on ‘Communities and Wellbeing: Opportunities and Challenges’. This raised some important questions about how building the strength of communities may be affected by the forthcoming gap in funding for public expenditure, but also how it could contribute to a response. A summary of the presentation and discussion is available here.

Thoughts on empowerment

“The social and economic costs generated by crime, unemployment, ignorance, environmental damage will all outrun the managing capacity of the state unless they are also ameliorated directly by people”. This view - similar to those expressed in the discussion at the members’ meeting – is expressed by Gabriel Chanan, reflecting on the experience of the English community empowerment programme, in a short article (from New Start, reproduced by Local People Leading).

England funds community anchor organisations

As part of that community empowerment programme, the Communitybuilders investment fund, match funded by Unity Trust Bank, is being launched by the Department of Communities and Local Government in England to ‘strengthen the resilience of multi-purpose community-led organisations through a mixture of financial and advisory support’.

Scottish Government policy directions to the Big Lottery Fund

The Scottish Government has issued new policy directions to the Big Lottery Fund. These guide the Fund's spending in relation to all devolved areas of responsibility. They include a direction to "ensure that the Fund achieves over time, the distribution of money reasonably equally between the expenditure on or connected with:

(i)   the promotion of community learning;
(ii)  the promotion of community safety and cohesion; and
(iii) the promotion of physical and mental well being."

You can find more information at the Big Lottery website. 

Action Plan on Children’s’ Rights

The Scottish Government   has issued 'Do the Right Thing: For People who Work with Children or Work on Their Behalf',  an Action Plan on the Rights of the Child in response to the comments of the United Nations Committee monitoring UK compliance with the UN Convention on that subject. ‘Action areas’ that may be of interest include:

• Participation of children and young people in schools (including a recognition that ‘the difficulties experienced by children with disabilities and other children with additional needs were ... often marginalised in current participation models’.
• Promoting positive forms of parenting (including ‘mutual support networks for parents and other carers; community development programmes including parenting and early years’.)
• Tackling negative perceptions of children and young people (including implementing the new antisocial behaviour framework Promoting Positive Outcomes: Working Together to Prevent Antisocial Behaviour in Scotland, ‘which includes countering negative stereotypes and promoting positive role-models as one of its key strategic aims’).

Do the Right Thing: A Report for Under 18s  is also available.

Request for case studies

The Urban Forum is doing a piece of work for the Equality and Human Rights Commission producing case studies on good examples of public bodies involving excluded groups. They are particularly in need of one or two Scottish examples. These need to be of real involvement - not consultation – and ideally with demonstrable outcomes in terms of influencing policy decisions or services through the involvement process. The range of ‘excluded groups’ that could be covered is fairly broad. The timetable is tight, so please send any ideas direct to Toby Blume, 020 7253 4816  Toby@urbanforum.org.uk

Community Research Opportunity

The Poverty Alliance is undertaking participatory research with urban based community groups starting in January 2010. Community groups will identify the issues, carry out the research and present the findings of the research. A community research officer will provide full training and continuous ongoing support. The research will provide part of the evidence base of poverty experienced by communities that will be fed into the Evidence Participation Change project to influence anti-poverty policies in Scotland. If you would like to know more, please get in touch with Fiona McHardy on 0141 353 0440 or   fiona.mchardy@povertyalliance.org 

SURF Awards for Best Practice in Community Regeneration

SURF (now known as ‘Scotland’s independent regeneration forum’) is now accepting entries for the 2009 SURF Awards for Best Practice in Community Regeneration.  The closing date for entries this year is Monday 21 September 2009.  Please click here for further information on the application process for the 2009 SURF Awards.  For more information on SURF, visit http://www.scotregen.co.uk.

Scottish civil society and the global crisis

A civil society roundtable, chaired by the Convener of SCVO, was held in Edinburgh in June to test the appetite for a shared response from civil society to the global crises: economic, environmental, of civil liberties and of poverty. This paper aims to capture some of the key elements of this discussion.

There was agreement that the normative role of civil society, in offering alternative visions of the good society, had been neglected and could be recovered and developed. It was also suggested that the principles of sustainable development could underpin a shared response by civil society to the multiple crises affecting our economy, environment, and politics.

A worldwide movement?

Some of us heard John McKnight, Co-Director of the Asset Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University, Chicago, speak recently at Glasgow University. Senscot have reproduced a short piece in which he argues that ‘there is a new worldwide movement developing, made up of people with a different vision for their local communities’ and taking responsibility for ‘health, safety, economy, environment, food, children and care’

It was John McKnight who first recruited Barack Obama to work as a community worker. Here he is on YouTube telling the story.

‘Rediscovering Scotland’

A diverse group of 22 people met by invitation in Edinburgh in July at a “Rediscovering Scotland Event” aimed at inspiring new thinking in Scotland. Those invited were from the world of business, Community Development, Community Learning and Development, Social Enterprise, Government, Universities and related agencies. A summary of the presentations is available here.

Third Sector Climate Change Questionnaire

The Green Alliance are undertaking mapping work to look at climate change activities across the whole of the third sector.  They are hoping to gather views from as many people as possible across the third sector at every level in order to get as broad a picture as possible,  using a questionnaire. This is designed to be filled in by as many people as possible within each organisation. In addition an activity sheet is designed to be completed by the most relevant people who are involved in planning or delivering climate change activities within each organisation. Please complete by the end of September.

Third Sector Division

Here is an ‘Organogram’ explaining who’s who in the Scottish Government’s Third Sector Division.

Equality Measurement Framework

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has been working with stakeholders across the UK, including the Scottish Government to develop a measurement framework that can be used to assess equality and human rights across a range of domains relevant to 21st century life.

These domains focus directly on those things in life that people say are important for them to actually do and be, such as enjoying an adequate standard of living, being healthy, having good opportunities for education and learning, enjoying legal security, and being free from crime and the fear of crime. The framework is particularly concerned with the position of individuals and groups with regard to characteristics such as age, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion or belief, sexual orientation, transgender and social class.

It is not a performance measurement framework, but provides a baseline of evidence for evaluating progress and deciding priorities.

The Right to Control

The Office for Disability Issues (UK Government) has launched a consultation to ask disabled people how to make choice and control a reality in their lives, and on the best way to deliver the Right to Control.  It will trailblaze (sic) this approach in selected English local authority areas. However there may be implications for all four countries in the UK.  For example, in the trailblazer areas it is likely to trial the inclusion of some funding streams which are available across the UK.

The consultation invites disabled people, organisations, public bodies, service providers and commissioners to submit their views. The closing date for responses is Wednesday 30 September 2009.  For more information, please click here.  

European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion

The EU Commission has designated 2010 as the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. The DWP is inviting proposals to cover the main activities of the Year.

A free seminar to hear from the UK and Scottish Governments, the European Commission and the European Anti-Poverty Network about their plans for the year, and how you can be involved is being held on Friday 25 September 2009, 9.30am – 1pm, City Chambers, Edinburgh. To register for this event click here

Future Jobs Fund

The Scottish Voluntary Sector Consortium's bid to the Future Jobs Fund scheme has been successful. Over 200 voluntary organisations from across Scotland joined the collective bid to provide six-month-long posts for 18 to 24 year olds who have been unemployed for nearly a year. The voluntary sector consortium will provide 1020 jobs in the first six months, making the consortium's allocation the biggest in Scotland and one of the largest in the UK.

Online resources

Recession support
ACEVO (the Association for chief officers of voluntary organisations in England) provides a ‘recession support’ website to help support the third sector in the current situation.

Youth Work Blog
The Youth Work Blog is an online space for youth workers, managers and those interested in youth work and working with young people.

Publications

A future for community development
This new paper from the Community Development Foundation examines how the community development field and profession is likely to be affected by the recession, and after a general election. The analysis is based partly on how the community development profession has responded to previous recessions. It looks at current funding trends in local authorities, and how political and economic factors are affecting community development workers.

Community ownership and management of assets
A report on ‘Community ownership and management of assets’ by Mike Aiken, Ben Cairns and Stephen Thake, has been published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and available as a free download. Summary. Evidence was examined from a wide variety of sources in the four UK countries.

In addition the Big Lottery Fund has published a first year baseline report by SQW Associates on the evaluation of their Growing Community Assets Fund in Scotland.  A key lesson that is drawn is that a community group may not need to own an asset to be able to use it to its advantage.

Healthy Living Centres – case studies
The Community Health Exchange (CHEX) has published ‘Breaking Through’ a series of case studies of the work of Healthy Living Centres.  HLCs demonstrate that one of the most effective ways of addressing health inequalities and increasing the health and wellbeing of a community is to listen and act on needs identified by the communities themselves.

Health and Social Enterprise
A whole series of publications have come out looking at the relationship between social enterprise and health improvement. NHS Health Scotland and CHEX have produced a report that looks at ‘How does the Social Enterprise Model fit with Community-led Health Initiatives?’ through a series of case studies.

Senscot have also produced case studies, entitled ‘Fit For Purpose: Social Enterprise And Health 2009’ , and a paper ‘Health and Social Enterprise’ by  John P Boswell, Margaret J Douglas and Noelle P O’Neill which explores the impact of social enterprises on improving the health of the population. This paper uses a rapid impact assessment guide to explore the issues with a number of different social enterprises across Scotland.

Community Engagement in Health Improvement – lessons from England
‘Reaching out - community engagement and health’ is one of a series of publications from the Improvement and Development Agency’s Healthy Communities programme in England, this time written in conjunction with NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence). The document explores the importance of engaging communities in health promotion and health services, and the health benefits that this can bring  and builds on the NICE guidance on community engagement and health previously published.

Participation of people experiencing poverty - European case studies
Small Steps – Big Changes is a new publication of the European Anti Poverty Network (EAPN) on the participation of people experiencing poverty. It presents 10 case studies from members of EAPN about the participation of people experiencing poverty and social exclusion. The case studies address participation in community work and in organizations, but also in policy and decision-making.

Poverty and gender in SOAs
Engender, the organisation that campaigns on behalf of women in Scotland, has carried out a gender and poverty analysis of the first round of Single Outcome Agreements that were published in April 2008. Engender looked at all 32 SOAs for references to poverty in the strategies or to people who are likely to be affected by poverty. They also looked for the relationship between references to poverty and gender.

Whilst poverty is mentioned in all SOAs the authors of the report have real concerns about the approach and how it is shaping it up. There are questions about the availability of data that would allow for a meaningful assessment of progress in tackling poverty at the local level. Engender also questions whether there is strategic leadership from the Scottish Government in relation to the equalities duties that local government must discharge. It is accepted in the report that this is an analysis of the first round of SOAs, that the process is still relatively new and that guidance has been improved.

The Experience of Poverty in Rural Scotland
New research from the Scottish Government, The Experience of Poverty in Rural Scotland - Qualitative Research with Organisations Working with People Experiencing Poverty in Rural Areas aims to increase awareness of poverty in rural areas and to find out in what ways it is distinctive from urban poverty in Scotland.

The findings are based on the perceptions of a small sample of service providers working with five groups: lone parents, pensioners, migrants, people with mental ill health and disabled people. The study found a mixture of distinctive rural issues which cut across many of the five groups, such as the problems associated with infrequent and expensive public transport, along with other issues which impact on specific groups such poor employment terms and conditions for migrant workers.

Poverty, Inequality and Human Rights
This Joseph Rowntree study (free download) looks at how other countries have used human rights to tackle poverty and how this could be applied in the UK.
The report covers:

• how human rights have been used to understand poverty;
• how communities experiencing poverty use human rights to act against injustice, build alliances between disparate groups, and articulate their conditions and claims;
• the tools that communities and their allies use to hold the state accountable for its human rights obligations;
• how human rights have been implemented in practice in anti-poverty work by governments and other organisations;
• lessons for integrating human rights and anti-poverty work in the UK.

The Cultural Pathfinder Programme
The Scottish Government  has published an evaluation of the Cultural Pathfinder Programme.  This Programme was developed to support local authorities and their partners to explore ways of widening access to, and participation in, cultural activities across diverse communities.

It finds that:

• The Pathfinder projects made a strong and effective contribution to encouraging participation in cultural activities amongst under-represented groups
• They performed well in the development of effective consultation processes but their performance was more mixed in ensuring that the outputs of the consultation process are captured and used to inform wider planning and action. Some struggled to engage with Community Planning Partnerships.

Evidence from OSCR
The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator has published its Stakeholder surveys for 2009 and its summary report on Public and Charity Perspectives 2009

Go Well Briefing Papers
The Go Well programme (a partnership between the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, the University of Glasgow and the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, which looks at the health impacts of neighbourhood change) has launched six briefing papers:

Public Health, Housing and Regeneration:  What Have We Learned From History?
Health, Wellbeing and Deprivation in Glasgow and the GoWell Study Areas
Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Glasgow’s Regeneration Areas, 2006-07
Environmental Employability Programme Evaluation
Community Engagement in the Initial Planning of Regeneration in Glasgow
How will regeneration activity impact on the health of residents of Glasgow?  Policy and key informant interviews in 2007

Cohesion and Migration
The Community Development Foundation (CDF) has published a new briefing on Cohesion and Migration (free download). It outlines the interim findings of an ongoing piece of work with community development practitioners to explore community development approaches to building cohesion in areas affected by migration.

The issues it looks at include:

• How community cohesion can be built in areas with transitory migrant populations
• How CD approaches can bridge language barriers
• The difficulties involved in gaining access to migrants in isolated areas
• The ongoing issue of responding to tensions triggered by negative and inaccurate media reporting
• The effects of the recession on migration and community cohesion

Events

Think, Explore, Influence
Edinburgh City Chambers, Tuesday 22nd September 2009; 9.30am to 3.15pm; £20 members/£40 non-members

Learning Link Scotland’s Annual Conference looks at the concepts, methods and principles that lie behind learning and lead to change in our society, and at influencing the debate and shaping policy on Modernising the Learning Workforce.

Scotland's Generations Working Together
Perth, Thursday 1st October

The National Generations Working Together Conference will feature Scottish and international speakers, showcase best practice and provide an opportunity to network and learn.

The conference is free and children, young people and older people's groups are welcome to attend as well as policy makers, practitioners and senior staff in organisations involved in intergenerational working. Contact: Scottish Centre of Intergenerational Practice, phone: 0141 548 2492 [ e-mail | website ]

Skills for Social Justice
Mitchell Library Theatre, Glasgow, Friday 2nd October

The WEA's Biennial Conference comes to Scotland for the first time in 105 years.  Delegates from branches throughout Scotland and England and sister organisations in Europe will discuss the theme Skills for Social Justice.

Adult Education providers and partner organisations are invited to attend the Conference. Download further details and the booking form, or contact Sadia Bowering on 0207 426 3466  sbowering@wea.org.uk .

Transforming Lives with Music - Scotland and Venezuela

Raploch Community Campus, Stirling, October 16 &17, £60
Sistema Scotland – International Conference

The State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children since 1975. It is perhaps
better known throughout the world as “El Sistema.” In summer 2008 this phenomenon reached the UK as the charity Sistema Scotland launched its Big Noise Orchestra in Raploch, Stirling - with the aim of repeating the Venezuelan success. The two day conference will focus on the philosophy of the Sistema approach, Big Noise’s work in practice, and the processes towards establishing a Sistema orchestra. Details Booking form

Scottish Third Sector Research Conference
Edinburgh, 26 October (9.45 – 5.00)

A conference organised by SCVO in conjunction with the Centre for Public Services Research, Edinburgh University Business School to connect researchers, policy-makers and practitioners to ensure Scotland’s Voluntary Sector has the latest knowledge and
research at its fingertips.  For information see here or contact Ian Lees ian.lees@scvo.org.uk

Tri Serious Fun: “Critical Engagement, Creative Approaches”
Inchyra Grange Hotel, Dundee, 28th – 29th October; £80+Vat (full residential)

This ‘Serious Fun’ conference is organised by the Community Education Training Network, by the Community Education Training Network which was established in 1995 to act as a support and information channel for organisations and individuals involved in Community Education mainly in the North East, Central and Highland areas of Scotland.   Speakers include Richard Wilkinson, co-author of “The Spirit Level”.  Leaflet Registration Form  

Parental Involvement in Children’s Learning
Stirling Management Centre, 26 November Ticket price includes finger buffet served at 6.30 pm. Lecture starts 7.30pm Members: £15 Non Members: £30

The Scottish Network for Parental Involvement in Children’s Learning’s Annual Lecture is on “The impact of parental involvement on pupil achievement: A review of the evidence and implications for policy and practice” by Charles Desforges, OBE, Emeritus Professor in the University of Exeter. Details

Rural equality issues

Identity and Rural Equality Seminars are being held across Scotland, August – December 2009. The seminars will encourage debate that focuses on sharing and building ideas to move the equality & diversity agenda forward in a practical way. They are linked to Development Days for the Scottish Rural Equalities Network.

Remaining dates are:
Grantown on Spey              Thurs 10 September           Grant Arms Hotel
Ayr                                          Thurs 10 September           John Pollock Centre
Perth                                      Tues 22 September             Huntingtower Hotel
Inverness                              Thurs 1 October                   Great Glen House
Stornoway                             Wed 7 October                      3rd Sector Hebrides
Dunstaffnage, Oban           Wed 7 October                      SAMS
Scalloway, Shetland           Tues 1 December                NAFC
Laurencekirk                         Tues 1 December                Grassic-Gibbon Centre
Kirkwall, Orkney                   Thurs 3 December               St Magnus Centre (Development session only)

More details about the Identity Seminars and the SREN in the attached document or by visiting www.hief.org.uk.

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July 2009

Farewell to Learning Connections

The Scottish Government’s strategic review of the Learning Connections unit of its Lifelong Learning Directorate (formerly in Communities Scotland, formerly Community Learning Scotland, formerly the Scottish Community Education Council) has concluded that ‘Historically there has not been strong co-ordinated support at national level for the delivery of policy and practice in Community Learning and Development (CLD), and the existing delivery landscape for CLD is complicated’. It has therefore decided to split the unit up.

It identifies three groups of functions.

• The new Standards Council for CLD in Scotland will, as expected, become independent of the Scottish Government , and will be managed by Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK), the sector skills council for lifelong learning
• Policy development will remain an internal SG function. The team will join others currently in the Further and Adult Education Department  to form a single unit, and they will establish  formal links with the Youth Work team in the Children, Young People and Social Care Directorate (which addresses an existing split in responsibility for developing policy for the different elements of CLD)
• Practice development and policy implementation work (such as the current work on support for community capacity building) will be moved out of direct Scottish Government control into Learning and Teaching Scotland, where a representative advisory body will oversee its work.

Upskilling the CLD Workforce

The Scottish Government has identified resources to invest in a programme of "upskilling" of the CLD workforce.  Learning Connections (for the time being) is implementing the programme, with the advice of the Standards Council for CLD.  The Standards Council will be looking for partners across all sectors and aspects of CLD to contribute to its success.

The main strands of the action plan for the programme are  

• Establish a national workforce development strategy
• Deliver a national workforce development programme
• Establish a continuous learning framework for the CLD workforce
• Establish a coherent system of CPD opportunities for the CLD workforce, accessible across Scotland
• Support the development and use of individual learning plans for and by all CLD practitioners
• Establish a programme to develop collaborative leadership and management
• Ensure a specific focus on equalities and diversity
• Support and encourage the active involvement of practitioners
• Support sustainable change.

A report by Blake Stevenson scoping the requirements for the programme is available.

Initiatives on Community Empowerment

The Scottish Government has launched a number of new initiatives in pursuance of its Community Empowerment agenda including:

• Support to SURF (Scotland’s independent regeneration forum) for a Networking Assistance Programme (SNAP) to enable community activists and volunteers to attend events, seminars and forums organised by SURF.
• Support to Local People Leading for a Knowledge and Skills Exchange Programme, to promote and stimulate learning and exchange of expertise. LPL will work with Development Trusts Association Scotland  to provide a brokerage service to help community groups to share experience and practice, through visits to other organisations and projects across Scotland
• A learning resource pack on setting up a Development Trust
• Hosting a learning event on regeneration and community empowerment around October/November; this will be free and open to community activists and volunteers, and will provide a forum for learning, sharing best practice and networking (groups that are interested in presenting their experience should contact Wendy-Louise Smith at communityengagement@scotland.gsi.gov.uk before 31 July)

Brief reports are also given (see Annex E here) on progress with other actions set out in the Community Empowerment Action Plan:

• Development of a learning programme to support and improve practice in engaging communities
• Community Empowerment Case Studies
• Support for communities to own assets.

 ‘Dynamic Inclusive Communities’ projects

The Big Lottery Fund has awarded a total of £1,123,467 to three Scottish organisations from its Dynamic, Inclusive Communities programme (DInC), which is aimed at strengthening communities so that they can play a bigger and more effective role in planning their own futures.

The Scottish Community Development Centre will receive an award of £399,086. Their Achieving Community Empowerment project will provide community organisations with mentoring support so that they can access expert advice and information to help them carry out community activities. It will also develop a learning exchange programme to capture, analyse and disseminate learning across the community sector in Scotland.

The Scottish Community Foundation has been awarded £315,150 for Our Community Our Future, which will establish capacity building programmes in eight Scottish communities (locations to be announced). It will help groups living in those communities to canvas the opinions of their community to find out what the issues are, in the hope that they will be empowered to approach decision makers with greater confidence, armed with findings to support their cause.

Forward Scotland will receive over £400,000 to investing in the delivery of its Sus it Out Plus ™ community empowerment programme.  This will work with 150 groups, increasing awareness of sustainable development principles, developing group action plans and providing funding to enable the building of skills and experiences. The programme will run for two years and is open to community groups, new and existing, that wish to develop in a more sustainable manner. Groups interested in taking part can contact Forward Scotland.

The three organisations intend to work closely together.

BLF’s new strategy

The DInC fund is part of BLF’s Investing in Communities programme. The BLF’s UK wide Big Thinking consultation on its future strategy has led it to the conclusion that in Scotland  it will build on Investing in Communities, improving it and refocusing it where necessary to take account of the needs and priorities of communities. It will do this in dialogue with its stakeholders and customers, reflecting the policy directions given by Scottish Ministers, and aims to open to applications by June 2010. 

Consulting on new equalities rules

Two consultations arising from the current Equality Bill close on 30 September. One consultation document sets out policy proposals for the specific public sector equality duties. “Equality Bill: Making it work – ending age discrimination in services and public functions” sets out how the legislation will enable things that are beneficial to continue such as age-based holidays and discounts for pensioners.

Call for Evidence on Local Government Finance

The Scottish Parliament's Local Government and Communities Committee has issued a Call for Evidence, seeking the views of all interested parties on questions including:

• What has been, and is likely to be, the main impact of the current recession on local authority finances?
• What will the current recession mean for the provision of local authority services and for local communities more generally?
• What do you consider are the main mechanisms available to local authorities to alleviate the impact of the recession on the local communities they serve?

Future Jobs Fund

COSLA has adopted a report on the progress that has been made to institute the Future Jobs Fund, which sets out recommendations for the role of councils in accessing the fund in Scotland. It proposes that councils should have a leadership role in developing composite bids to the fund for each Community Planning Partnership, with a two way dialogue with partners in the third sector to join up bids and eliminate duplication. Guidance Notes on bidding are also available.

Volunteering and state benefits

Volunteer Development Scotland (VDS) have provided this reminder on benefit claims and volunteering: over the past few months there has been an upsurge in interest in volunteering as a means of enhancing employability and helping people into the labour market. There are now no limits on the amount of volunteering benefits claimants can do – as it related to volunteering, the so called 16-hour rule was abolished several years ago. As the most up-to-date guidance makes clear, if you volunteer your benefits will not be affected.  Overall Jobcentre Plus are keen to encourage customers to consider volunteering as a step back into work.

Benefit rules may however cause problems for the attempt to bring the Grameen Bank, offering business loans to people without collateral, to Glasgow. Read more.

Meanwhile the DWP has rejected Create Consortium’s initial proposal to pilot a Community Allowance scheme to allow community organizations to pay local people on benefits to carry out part time work in their neighbourhoods, as it included those on Job Seekers Allowance. But it has asked them to put forward another, scaled-back bid to focus on those on Employment and Support Allowance and Incapacity Benefit, so it seems likely some pilot schemes will go ahead.

(un)Happy Planet index

nef (the new economics foundation) has released the Happy Planet Index, the second global ranking of the ecological efficiency with which the world’s nations deliver long and happy lives for the people who live there. The new Index is based on improved data for 143 countries around the world, representing 99 per cent of the world’s population. Costa Rica emerges as the ’greenest and happiest’ country

Intergenerational Pilot

YouthLink Scotland is seeking expressions of interest from organisations wishing to develop intergenerational work from a youth work perspective. Each organisation will receive £10,000 to develop the work. It wants to work with four organisations to develop different models of intergenerational practice, with a specific focus on community safety and working with the hardest to reach young people and older people within particular communities using a partnership approach. To express an interest, contact: Lisa Hogg, phone: 0131 313 2488, e-mail  (Closing date 31 July).

Community Ideas Campaign

Employers in Voluntary Housing have launched a web based Community Ideas Campaign. The campaign is based on the Irish Ideas Campaign where 5000 ideas were generated in one month to help regenerate the Irish economy. The initial phase of the campaign is seeking people's ideas to: 

• Preserve and grow employment 
• Stimulate activity across the community
• Make it easier for ordinary people to make a difference
• Kick start our construction industry to provide sustainable homes

EVH are hoping it will lead to something much bigger later in the year.

Free mentoring support

The Realise Mentoring programme is funded by the Scottish Government as part of its Enterprising Third Sector Action Plan. It is aimed at providing mentoring support to leaders of third sector organisations to help them improve their financial sustainability and make a step-change to become more enterprising.

Success on pilot community housing programme

The first students have successfully completed an HNC Working with Communities/Housing pilot programme, created by John Wheatley College in partnership with Easthall Park Housing Co-operative. The course is the first of its kind in Scotland and, supported by 12 housing organisations across the city, the students have benefited from workplace-based practical experience.

BEMIS supports BA in Community Development

Black and Ethnic Minorities Infrastructure in Scotland (BEMIS) and the University of Glasgow have formed a Partnership in which they will facilitate support for willing trainees through a BA in Community Development, complemented by extra direct training days.

Online resources

Scottish Education and Action for Development
Scottish Education and Action for Development's new 130-page online resource for community action  gives groups access to support from all kinds of organisations in Scotland and around the world who can offer the benefit of their experience. The site includes the Climate Action Hub which has links to everything you might want to know about climate change, what we can do about it, examples of community action already happening in Scotland and around the world. The site also has a Community Action Toolkit with information on everything from community involvement, practical solutions for a sustainable society, getting funding, using the media and choosing the best approach to achieve the aims of the group. 

Adult Literacies Online
A new look for Scotland’s Adult Literacies Online resource site has gone live. New to the site is a report on the online learning support programme that finished at the end of March 2009.

Community Powerdown
The Community Powerdown consortium website aims to help communities reduce the carbon footprint of their village or town. 

Publications

Community Empowerment Case Study Research
Research for the Scottish Government explores examples of community empowerment practice. The main findings are:

• There is already a wealth of community empowerment experience in Scotland; the Community Empowerment Action Plan is not starting from a low base.
• Every community is different and there are many ways in which they can become empowered. They work within a community empowerment spectrum, from participation to control. A one-size fits all approach is inappropriate.
• There is little evidence from the case studies to suggest that movement up and down this spectrum is either straightforward or necessarily an aspiration. Communities can be ‘locked in’, or lock themselves in, to particular forms of empowerment.
• A positive relationship between communities and key stakeholders usually lies at the heart of a successful community empowerment initiative. Local authorities and other external agencies need to be supportive and enabling partners.
• The most successful empowerment initiatives are likely to be those that grow from a strong community base. Government, local authorities and other external agencies can create the right climate for community empowerment, but they cannot make it happen.
• Community control of decisions about some local authority or external agency budgets can be empowering, but only if agencies are prepared to devolve some responsibility to neighbourhood level and avoid micro-management.
• Successful community empowerment depends on investment in on-going support, training and individual capacity building. The commitment and quality of external advisors can be crucial.
• Community empowerment initiatives benefit from regular opportunities for networking and peer group learning.
• Community asset ownership can boost community confidence and status, underpin community sustainability and give a boost to local economies.

A Journal of Youth Work
The Scottish Youth Issues Journal has a new name and format; “A Journal of Youth Work: Research and Positive Practices in Work with Young People”. It is now available free of charge.

Scottish Anti-Poverty Review
The Poverty Alliance has relaunched the Scottish Anti-Poverty Review. The Review is now available online to download for free. The current issue is themed around tackling poverty during the recession.

Tackling Multiple Deprivation in Communities: Considering the Evidence
This report, commissioned by the Scottish government from Andy Fyfe of ODS, reviews the current context for area based community regeneration in Scotland, the impact of the long history of previous interventions, and the future challenges.

Meeting the Shared Challenge
The fourth edition of ‘Engage’, the magazine produced to complement the Meeting the Shared Challenge programme of capacity building for community-led health improvement is now available. This edition focuses on evidence and evaluation.

Resource Pack on the Scottish Parliament
This pack, aimed at Literacy and Adult Education Tutors has recently been revised and updated. It has been developed by the Workers’ Educational Association, CLAN (City Literacy and Numeracy) Edinburgh Partnership and the Scottish Parliament. 

 ‘A future for community development’
This new report from CDF (Community Development Foundation) examines how the community development field and profession is likely to be affected by the recession, and after a general election.   The paper explores where the opportunities for community development may lie in the coming years, examining the most likely scenarios for 2010, particularly from a policy and economic perspective. To read the report, click here.

The Well-Connected Community
Alison Gilchrist has produced a fully-updated second edition of her widely read book on ‘a networking approach to community development’. It includes new ideas drawn from recent research on social capital and the policy context for community practice. Details and how to purchase.

Building public support for tackling poverty
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a report (free download) examining different ways of building public support for tackling UK poverty. It argues that focusing on the specifics of wage levels, housing conditions or debt rather than the abstraction of poverty is likely to achieve more impact.

Events

Voices for Change, Creating Change
Monday, 13 July and Friday, 17 July, 10:00am – 4.30pm, Edinburgh Training Centre

Part of the Poverty Alliance’s Evidence Participation Change (EPIC) project, this training is aimed at individuals who have direct experience of issues that result from living a life on low income. It is also suitable for organizations that support and work with communities and want to do more to address poverty by working together. Please contact: kathryn.mcturk@povertyalliance.org, 0141 353 0440 or register online.

Young People, Youth Work & Social Networking Event
26 August 9.30am - 3.30pm, Edinburgh. Cost: £60 plus VAT = £69.00
YouthLink Scotland in partnership with Young Scot are holding a conference to explore how the youth work sector can engage young people through the use of digital technologies with a particular focus on social networking. Contact: Susan Symington: 0131 313 2488, e-mail , Book Online

Learning Network Conference: Delivering Regeneration in a New Context
27 Aug 10:00 - 14:30, Stirling Management Centre

This event will respond to the needs of the members of the Community Planning Partner Network and Community Regeneration & Tackling Poverty Learning Network. It will provide advice and practical support to allow practitioners to effectively respond to the end of the Fairer Scotland Fund ring fence and safeguard anti poverty / regeneration strategies during a harsh economic climate.
Contact Heather Smith about network membership

"Communities and Policing: evidence and innovation in Scotland"
1st September, West Park Conference Centre, Dundee

The Scottish Institute for Policing Research’s Annual Conference will include parallel sessions on:

• Dimensions of 'community' in Scotland: patterns, futures and challenges for policing
• Policing of Virtual Communities and Cybercrime
• Partnerships in Policing

The Keynote Speaker is Professor David M. Kennedy, Director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York. Details

Economic Evidence of Community Health Improvement Impact
Wednesday 30 September, Barceló Edinburgh Carlton Hotel

NHS Health Scotland is providing an opportunity for funders and commissioners of community health improvement and community and voluntary sector health initiatives to come together to learn more about, and take forward the agenda on economic evidence of community health improvement impact.  Key note speaker will be Shona Robison, MSP (Minister for Public Health and Sport).

To register your interest in this conference, please email hope.turner@health.scot.nhs.uk  providing your name and email address by Friday 24 July 2009.  It is expected that there will be a high demand for this conference.

CHEX National Conference
Monday 2 November, The Lighthouse, 11 Mitchell Lane, Glasgow. 

The Community Health Exchange (CHEX) is holding its first Annual Conference. Shona Robison is Keynote Speaker here too. The aim of the conference will be to:

• show/ demonstrate how community-led health organisations reduce health inequalities and enhance their improvement.
• celebrate the work/impact of community-led health organisations.
• to provide an opportunity for community-led health organisations to network and explore a collective voice.

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May/June 2009

Information from CDAS Members Meeting, 22 May

• Main discussion

Robin Tennant and Sarah Welford of the Poverty Alliance each gave a presentation and took part in discussion on the role of community development in tackling poverty, in particular its relationship to the Scottish Government’s ‘Achieving Our Potential’ framework and the role of the Alliance’s Evidence-Participation-Change project. A note of the presentation and discussion is now available here.

• CDAS activities

Subject to feasibility, CDAS plans to hold a public event probably in late October on the theme of how community development could build community resilience in the face of economic circumstances, and another in the new year on how community empowerment can help build a ‘safer and stronger’ Scotland. Ideas and comments would be welcome.

It was noted that IACD would shortly be completing a report based on the ‘Measuring What Matters’ conference, following which CDAS hoped to start discussions with interested parties on the possibility of pilot work on community control of indicators.

• Information exchange

Learning Connections reported that the internal review of their role should be complete by mid-June, and possible implications were discussed. Learning Connections would shortly be announcing the practical arrangements for the upskilling programme for CLD workers, to which resources had been allocated.

The Scottish Government Regeneration section reported on progress with the Community Empowerment Action Plan. The framework of competences for better community engagement is being developed by the Linked Work & Training Trust, and groups have shown a good level of interest in participating as local demonstration projects. The Development Trusts Association Scotland is working on building community capacity for asset ownership and a leaning resource about Development Trusts for community organisations.

The Scottish Community Development Centre confirmed that it will be incorporated as an independent organisation on 1 July, with a public launch later. Current activities include promoting the VOICE tool for community engagement, the Meeting the Shared Challenge programme of capacity building for community-led health improvement, and a supporting role in the Better Community Engagement programme.

The Care Commission provided information on how the public could get involved in its work. 

Kathleen Taylor, COSLA representative from Stirling Council, described the attempts to build a bottom up agenda for the Critical Partnerships linked to Stirling’s Community Planning Partnership. There was also a discussion of the general threat of closures and loss of jobs in local authority CLD across Scotland.

Andy Milne reported on forthcoming SURF activities, including Open Forums on poverty and inequality and on sustainable communities. It was noted that SURF were hoping to host visitors involved in regeneration from  Pittsburgh, and also that CDAS was in contact with a group of community development workers who were hoping to host a South African visitor. Opportunities for offering involvement in these visits would be sought.

New statement of competences for Community Learning and Development

The Executive Committee of the CLD Standards Council for Scotland has finalised the new statement of competences for Community Learning and Development, which is now publicly available for use. Discussions about mapping these competences to the National Occupational Standards for Community Development and the ‘How Good is our CLD’ framework have begun.

Towards a Mentally Flourishing Scotland

The Scottish Government has launched a new policy and action plan for mental health improvement for 2009-2011: Towards a Mentally Flourishing Scotland. It lays out the Government's plans to support:

• the promotion of good mental wellbeing
• reducing the prevalence of common mental health problems, suicide and self harm
• improving the quality of life those experiencing mental health problems or mental illness.

The action plan states:  

• “Our approach is based on a social model of health which recognises that our mental state is shaped by our social, economic, physical, and cultural environment…
•  The participation and engagement of individuals themselves in activities has a clear well being benefit
•  The actions of individuals and communities are also central to this agenda”

The Third sector is specifically mentioned as making “a significant contribution to the mental health improvement agenda both nationally and locally. Its key roles are to:

• “Deliver services which directly or indirectly promote mental health improvement
• Innovate in the development of new service approaches and interventions
• Act as a catalyst in promoting active citizenship and social capital to develop community capacity
• Advocate change and improvement for service users and the general population”

Minister ‘keen to maintain momentum’ on empowerment

Local People Leading reports on its meeting with Alex Neil MSP, Minister for Housing and Communities. They discussed the Minister’s wish to maintain momentum on community empowerment, the danger of backward steps in some parts of the country in response to financial pressures, and other related topics.

Future Jobs Fund seeks community benefit

The Future Jobs Fund is a major new initiative which will operate across the UK, and is designed to create 15,000 jobs across Scotland between October 2009 and April 2011. The 18 month initiative is focused on young people aged 18 - 24 who have been on Job Seekers Allowance, but it will also support some long-term unemployed people who have barriers to employment or live in areas with high concentrations of unemployment. 

A key element of the programme is that the jobs created should provide community benefit and in Scotland there is an expectation that over 1,000 green jobs will be created as well as jobs in social care, childcare, health, energy efficiency, sports and the arts.  Funding of around £95m will be available in Scotland and this will fund the costs of employing an individual for 6 months on at least a minimum wage.

SCVO have a Future Jobs Fund Team who can advise on how voluntary and community organisations might get involved: contact 0141 225 8017 or futurejobsfundscotland@scvo.org.uk .

Preparing for a Changing Climate

In April, the Scottish Government published a consultation ‘Preparing for a Changing Climate’. This is the second consultation to inform Scotland's Climate Change Adaptation Framework. It builds on the responses to the first consultation and has also been informed by the Scottish Climate Change Bill which is now in Parliament. Views can be submitted by July 20 2009.
The consultation makes a positive but very general recognition of the role of the community and voluntary sector, which reads in its entirety:
“The Scottish Government recognises the pivotal role the Third sector has in achieving its aim of building Scotland's resilience to the impacts of climate change. The Third sector is often best placed to connect with individuals that the public sector finds hardest to reach, working with the most vulnerable in our society - those who may struggle the most in the face of extreme weather events or changing climate. . The Third sector also provides a valuable public service in helping protect our natural environment and presenting opportunities where the private sector doesn't operate. The Scottish Government will continue to work with the Third sector in pursuing its climate change adaptation objectives.”

Participatory Budgeting pilots

The recent Scottish Government / COSLA Antisocial Behaviour Framework proposed, as one of the specific national actions, the establishment, by autumn 2009, of a participatory budgeting pilot exercise across three Community Planning Partnership areas as part of the community empowerment agenda. Participatory budgeting should enable local community and neighbourhood groups to influence local action by helping to direct how small action funds are spent to develop solutions to local antisocial behaviour problems.

COSLA has now received a report on the overall approach, which reveals that 14 Councils/Community Planning Partnerships have formally notified COSLA to declare their interest in being part of the Participatory Budgeting. There will be an initial stakeholder information and awareness event to encourage the development of creative uses of Participatory Budgeting; and COSLA and the Scottish Government will establish an appropriate evaluation system for the pilot projects.

Scottish Government Programme For Third Sector Research

The Scottish Government‘s current programme for Third Sector research covers three themes:

• Alignment of research evidence to government strategy
• The localism agenda
• Sustainable growth of the third sector

A project on ‘The contribution of the third sector to the Government's purpose and five strategic objectives’ has already been commissioned. Further projects will include:

• “The Opportunities and Challenges of the Concordat for the Third Sector”
• “Evaluating the success factors for establishing a thriving social enterprise in Scotland”
• “ The Opportunities and Challenges of the Changing Public Services Landscape for the Third Sector in Scotland: A Longitudinal Study”

Progress on Community Allowance

The campaign for a Community Allowance has passed another milestone. The proposal is to enable community organisations to pay local unemployed people to do part time or sessional work that strengthens their local community and for those people to be able to keep their benefits and keep what they earn on top of their benefits, up to a maximum of £86 a week. The CREATE Consortium’s proposal  to DWP’s Right to Bid scheme, for £2.2 million to run a pilot programme with 15 community anchor organisations across the UK, has now been selected to go through to the last stage of assessment. More information.

Funding for equality and human rights work

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has announced a new GB-wide £10.2 million Strategic Funding Programme, providing three-year project-based funding for community and voluntary sector organisations of up to £450,000. There are three key priority areas:

• organizations providing guidance, advice and advocacy services in areas including education, health and employment, and building capacity where there are gaps in local provision
• increased co-operation between groups -- including ethnic or religious communities -- in areas where there are known tensions.
• support for legal advice and awareness of legal rights

For more information contact Douglas Guest or Fiona McLeod, Freepost RSAB-YJEJ-EXUJ, Equality and Human Rights Commission, PO Box 2696, Glasgow, G2 9DU, 0141 228 5910, scotland@equalityhumanrights.com.

Communities And Renewable Energy

The Scottish Government has provided information on the advice and support available from the Communities And Renewable Energy Scheme, and also a Community Renewable Energy Toolkit which aims to encourage and help communities considering how they can lead their own renewable energy projects.

Development Trusts Manifesto

The Development Trusts Association (UK) has issued a manifesto pledging:

• to help every community set up an effective development trust
• to promote community ownership of land and buildings
• to grow a culture of community enterprise
• to build alliances with partners in all sectors
• to demonstrate community impact.

Consultation on third sector support

The Dynamic Inclusive Communities Forum was established in 2007 to provide independent advice to the Big Lottery, SCVO and Scottish Government about investment in the services and networks that support the third sector in Scotland. It is asking people to respond to a survey about the support available to their group/organisation and how this might be improved. Access the survey at http://www.ekosonlineresearch.co.uk/dinc.htm.

Social Capital & Community Resilience

A conference on this theme was held by the Assist Social Capital network in New Lanark on 4 June. According to a Herald report, the Scottish Government was accused of ignoring social capital. "It is disappointing that when social capital is seen around the world as such an important currency, the Government's enterprising third sector plan doesn't mention it once, and it isn't mentioned in the community empowerment plan either", said Colin Campbell, executive director of Assist.

ACPOS advances community development

The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS), which represents the heads of the nation's eight forces and their most senior colleagues, has been granted charitable status because of its work in "advancing citizenship and community development". We look forward to a possible dialogue about what this means in practice.

Looking into community resilience

The National Community Forum (NCF) is a group of 25 individuals - both residents and professionals - from some of England's most deprived communities, which was established as an Advisory non departmental public body in 2002. Members are selected through an open recruitment process. “It acts as a sounding board for Ministers and civil servants, providing them with a grass roots perspective on policies aimed at narrowing the gap between deprived areas and the rest of the country.”
This Forum is now commissioning research to “increase understanding of the factors that contribute to resilience and community wellbeing at a time of economic downturn and how this can be promoted at a local level.”

Campaign for community reinvestment

The Urban Forum in England, mostly made up of local community groups, has launched a campaign and a petition “calling on political parties, civil society groups, entrepreneurs, opinion formers and the financial services sector to embrace the concept of community reinvestment, and establish a new system of banking with a social purpose. A system that offers a return on the public investment made – people-centred finance”.

Gobbledygook

An adult learning plan produced by the Isle of Wight council has been labeled one of the worst official documents ever published in the UK. Dismissed by the Plain English Campaign as "baffling gobbledygook", the document was meant to help adults learn how to speak and write in clear and intelligible ways. Yet it contains 16 acronyms and a variety of terms, including the word "moodle"

One sentence includes a description of the council's Train to Gain programme, which "has been well received within the Isle of Wight council with recent pilot with leisure staff leading to the future expectation of this would be to have this project open to all departments of the council and have people directly referred through self-referral and the PDR cycle". More.

Online resources:

Connecting Rural Scotland

A new network to help rural communities share ideas, experiences and information has been launched. The Scottish National Rural Network is supported by a website within which communities can share common problems, examples of good practice and development ideas. The website, the first of four to be set up in the UK will encourage links to other countries throughout the European Union.

New EU website on integration

The EU have launched a new website on integration, looking at the successful integration of third-country nationals legally residing in the Member States of the European Union. Open to all, it enables visitors to share good practices, to discover funding opportunities and to look for project partners, and to stay updated on the latest developments at EU, national and local level.

Youth Scotland e-bulletin

Youth Scotland, the network of youth clubs and groups across Scotland, is soon to be launching a brand new e-bulletin. To subscribe, visit the website and enter your details.

Publications:

Making the links : greenspace for a more successful and sustainable Scotland

This new greenspace scotland publication is a book in two parts:

• The first half (making the links) draws on international research and project examples from around Scotland to demonstrate how greenspace contributes across the Government’s five strategic objectives and national outcomes to create healthier, safer and stronger, wealthier and fairer, smarter and greener communities.
• The second part (making it happen) looks at the actions that are needed by a range of partners to make greenspace deliver these outcomes and benefits; this section signposts readers to a range of useful tools and resources, and highlights examples of good practice from across the country.

Positive Psychology

The ‘Have a word with yourself’ project sought to implement principles from Positive Psychology to increase subjective wellbeing in adults living in Wellhouse, Glasgow and was initiated by the local Housing Association. A report on the project finds that all measures of wellbeing improved significantly over time.

Flexible Learning and Support Packages for Young People

The Scottish Government has produced five ‘Case Studies of Flexible Learning and Support Packages for Young People who Require More Choices and More Chances’, which appear to demonstrate many links with community learning and development.

Citizenship Survey

The Department of Communities and Local Government has released headline findings from the Citizenship Survey of England, covering April-December 2008.  The findings are divided into three sections covering:

• empowered and active communities
• community cohesion
• prejudice and discrimination.

New Books

Two new books from the Policy Press may be of interest:

In “Searching for Community: Representation, power and action on an urban estate” Jeremy Brent “asks the vital question 'what is community anyway?'. Is it an answer to social problems or an illusion to be dismissed?”

David Donnison, one of the elder statesmen of British and Scottish social policy, has published “Speaking to Power: Advocacy for health and social care” in which, based on the Scottish experience, he argues the need for the development of a new kind of advocacy, working alongside disadvantaged and disenfranchised citizens and service users, helping them find and express their voice more powerfully and more effectively

Community Leadership

The Urban Forum has published a new research report called ‘Leading Lights: Research into councillors and third sector representatives in community leadership’, which includes recommendations to strengthen relationships between the two groups to address the major differences in perception that exist. 

Events:

A Fairer Road to Recovery - The Role of the Third Sector

Thursday 18 June 2009, 1.30pm to 4.30pm, The Edinburgh Office, 16 Forth Street, Edinburgh £25+VAT (member) £50+VAT (non member). Buy one place, get one place free

This Economic Development Association Scotland (EDAS) event will take a fresh look at what the 'third sector' can deliver in tackling the impact of the recession.
For more information, click http://www.edascot.org.uk/event.php?id=64 . To book online, click http://www.edascot.org.uk/events_contact.php?id=64 .

Community Engagement: Improvement, Empowerment and Local Decision Making

Edinburgh, 23 June 2009, prices from £149- £249 plus VAT.

Holyrood Communications, supported by the Scottish Community Development Centre are staging this conference about engaging with communities as a fundamental responsibility of government agencies, councils, health boards, police and other public bodies. Contact: Holyrood Events, phone: 0131 272 2133 e-mail  website

Communities and Policing

1st September 2009, West Park Conference Centre, Dundee

The theme for this year’s Annual Conference of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) will be "Communities and Policing: evidence and innovation in Scotland", with presentations from leading academics and practitioners within Scotland. The Keynote Speaker will be Professor David M. Kennedy, Director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York. His work focuses on strategies for assisting troubled communities, and he is widely respected for his ground-breaking problem solving police exercises aimed at serious youth violence
See: http://www.sipr.ac.uk/events/SIPRConference2009.php

The Scottish Learning Festival 2009

23-24 September 2009 - SECC
The Scottish Learning Festival is the largest annual education conference and exhibition in Scotland. The main theme for this year's event is Curriculum for Excellence: Making the Change. New for 2009 is the Scottish Youth Work Village. The Learning Festival is free to all involved in education and organised by Learning and Teaching Scotland and Emap Connect.[ website ]

April 2009

Measuring What Matters

Presentations from the March conference on ‘Measuring What Matters’ run by CDAS and partners are available here.

They include the following, and may well be of interest to people who were unable to attend the event:

• Measuring wellbeing and sustainable welfare –why it matters: Nic Marks, New Economics Foundation
• The Genuine Progress Index in Atlantic Canada: Ron Colman, GPI Atlantic
• Measuring local wellbeing in Scotland: Colin Mair, Chief Executive, Improvement Service
• The National Performance Framework: Maureen Bruce, Head of Performance, Scottish Government Strategy and Performance Division.

Valuing Young People

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop, MSP, today (27th April) launched ‘Valuing Young People: Principles and connections’. This provides new guidance and principles underpinning how all agencies in Scotland can help young people to fulfill their potential. The Scottish Government says “it will help schools, teachers, community groups and other agencies work together to involve young people in decision making and provide more joined-up services”. A diversity of supporters and partners were integral to its drafting and delivery. The key principles are, in summary:

“We will work together to:

• deliver services that reflect the reality of young people’s lives ...
• work with local partners to address barriers and gaps ...
• recognise and promote young people’s positive contribution to their communities, and as national and global citizens
• involve young people at an early stage … in developing services and opportunities in the context of community priorities.”

Voluntary Action Scotland

The new umbrella body for Scottish Councils for Voluntary Service has elected its first board and decided on the name ‘Voluntary Action Scotland’. Seven national and four regional representatives were elected to sit on its board. More details

Passing judgment on Community Empowerment Plan

Local People Leading, who were involved in drafting the recent Scottish Government/ COSLA Community Empowerment Action Plan, have produced a document analysing how far their ideas have been incorporated. They welcome many aspects of the plan, but also make critical comments including:

• “No reference or even recognition (?) of the need for a specific community sector development strategy.”
• “The CEAP contains very little which falls under the heading of double devolution and even this statement sets community responsibility within the context of achieving Single Outcome Agreement outcomes which the community may or may not have had a strong influence in shaping.”

Understanding the Third Sector Support Infrastructure in Scotland

The Dynamic Inclusive Communities Forum aims to inform the Big Lottery Fund on supporting an infrastructure in which healthy and vigorous voluntary and community activity can occur. It has commissioned EKOS to undertake a mapping study of the third sector support infrastructure in Scotland. The study will be completed by summer 2010. For a copy of the briefing paper, e-mail carolanne.quigley@ekos.co.uk.

Initial discussion workshops for third sector organisations have been scheduled on:
28th April  - Spectrum Centre, Inverness - 1.15pm to 3.15pm
29th April  - Christian Centre, Perth - 1pm to 3pm
30th April  - Europa Building, Glasgow - 10am to 12noon
5th May  - Aberdeen Foyer, Aberdeen -11.30am to 1.30pm
 6th May  - Thistle House, Haymarket, Edinburgh - 3pm to 5pm
 7th May  - Citizens Advice Bureau, Dumfries - 1pm to 3pm
There may be some places left at these sessions. If you are interested, contact Lorna on 0141 353 1994.

Partnerships between Community and Voluntary Sector Organisations and Anticipatory Care

NHS Health Scotland will lead a programme of work in 2009 / 2010 to support the development of partnerships between community and voluntary sector organizations and Anticipatory Care (AC) programmes in Scotland.  The anticipatory care model currently being piloted is the Keep Well programme. Two key aspects have been identified: 

1. Working with community and voluntary organisations and groups to improve the uptake and reach of Anticipatory Care among people from ‘harder to engage’ segments of the community.
2. Developing referral and improving access to the broader range of health and wellbeing services and resources provided by community and voluntary organisations and groups.

A consultation is being undertaken on a paper outlining the proposed plan of work.  To view the consultation paper, click here.  (If asked for a password, just press ‘cancel’ and proceed)

Volunteers' Week

This year is the 25th anniversary of Volunteers' Week, the UK's annual celebration of volunteers and volunteering. It takes place from Monday 1 to Sunday 7 June. To find out more and get involved, visit www.volunteersweek.org.uk.

Freedom of Information and the Voluntary Sector

 New resources to support the voluntary sector in using Freedom of Information (FOI) laws have been launched by the Scottish Information Commissioner.  The resources include a web-portal for voluntary sector organisations with advice and guidance on how to make use of the FOI ‘right to information', and an enquiry service providing one-to-one support.  Find out more here.

Websites

The website for the new CLD Standards Council is now up and running at http://www.cldstandardscouncil.org.uk/.

Local People Leading, an alliance of national networks and community groups in Scotland that has been created to campaign for a strong and independent community sector has launched a new website at http://www.localpeopleleading.co.uk/ .

The Poverty Alliance has comprehensively revised and re-designed its website at http://www.povertyalliance.org/. This month it has added two new briefing papers, on unemployment in Scotland and on the intersection of gender, ethnicity and poverty in the UK.

Publications

Community Development in local authorities
The Community Development Foundation has published a short summary of research looking at what role community development teams play should in local authorities, and what structures teams are most effective in.

It lists the types of structure that currently exist in England:

• Corporate – centralised model
• Departmental – with corporate responsibility model
• Departmental – service specific model
• Fragmented model
• Contracted model

and identifies some key factors for effective structures.

Community renewable energy toolkit
The Scottish Government has published a community renewable energy toolkit  to help community groups to develop renewable energy projects.

Governance and Leadership of the Third Sector
The report of a research project into the leadership and governance practices of Scottish Third Sector organisations, along with presentations and discussions from the event at which it was launched, is available here.

The report concludes that generally speaking, boards do seem to be performing fairly effectively, but some areas require attention, and the critical ones relate to:

• The relationship between the Chair and the Chief Officer
• The Chair’s role in encouraging peer appraisal of board members and evaluating the performance of other board members
• The Chair encouraging feedback on his/her own performance.

The research was carried out by Cranfield University School of Management with input from research partners: ACOSVO (Association of Chief Officers of Scottish Voluntary Organisations), OSCR and the SVA (Supporting Voluntary Action) programme.   

Changing for Good
The ‘Every Action Counts’ programme in England and Wales has published a guide to how to put sustainable development into practice inside community organisations by planning. It provides guidance on research, who to involve, assessing what you are already doing, and drawing up an action plan.

Muslim communities
The Department of Communities and Local Government has published a series of reports on ‘Understanding Muslim Ethnic Communities’. The reports cover thirteen different communities in England originating from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Turkey. A summary report provides an overview.

Connecting Civil Society
The European Network of National Associations has launched a (very short) joint EU election manifesto ‘Connecting Civil Society’ which has been written in partnership with national umbrella groups in 14 countries. It aims to promote a shared vision of the needs of voluntary, community and non-profit organisations across Europe.

Events

Better Health Connections: Health improvement through local intermediaries
Thursday 30th April 2009, Novotel, Edinburgh Park

A joint SCVO/Voluntary Health Scotland conference which offers an opportunity for Councils of Voluntary Service and Volunteer Centres to come together with Community Health Partnership Managers and Community Planning Partnerships health improvement lead officers. The conference flyer is available here and the booking form is here.

Political Literacy
Thursday 14 May 2009, 10am - 3.30pm, Verdant Works, West Henderson's Wynd, Dundee DD1 5BT

A free training event for tutors and organisers working with adult and community groups. WEA and CLAN Edinburgh have extended and updated their Resource Pack on the Scottish Parliament with support from Learning Connections and will launch the pack at this event. Further details from Elizabeth Bryan, WEA, Edinburgh (0131 225 2580).

CLD Managers Scotland annual conference
2-4 June, Carnoustie Golf Hotel, Carnoustie, Angus

The theme of this year's CLD Managers Scotland conference is 'Challenging Leadership - theory and practice'.  For a copy of the draft programme, email cldconference@angus.gov.uk , or call Angela Dunlop on 01307 476341.

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Please keep sending me items for circulation to other CDAS members

Peter Taylor

Policy & Development Consultant,
Community Development Alliance Scotland,
56, Turnberry Road
Glasgow G11 5AP
0141 586 7588
peter@pdtaylor.com