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.

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.

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.

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.