CLD and Sustainable Development

A variety of material from the conference ‘Learning to work together for our future: How Community Learning and Development can help us achieve a sustainable future’ that was held by CDAS and partners on 13 February is now available on our website .
This includes:

• Presentations by Keith Brown MSP, Professor Jan Bebbington and Duncan Simpson
• Presentations from the practice example workshops
• Summaries of discussions in the workshops on future action, which will now form the basis for taking forward ideas for the future Action Plan for the rest of the UN Decade for Sustainable Development
• ‘Postcards to the Minister’ suggesting one key action, which many participants completed.

Community Empowerment Action Plan

The Community Empowerment Action Plan drawn up by a working party led by the Scottish Government and COSLA was launched on 23rd March. Although it perhaps contains little in the way of headline-making new announcements, it places ‘community empowerment’ (as opposed to ‘community engagement’ alone) firmly on the policy agenda. It emphasises that “empowerment cannot be given to communities by others. Communities must decide the level of empowerment they want and how to get there themselves”.

In a lively presentation which apparently bore only limited relationship to the prepared text, Minster for Housing and Communities Alex Neil may or may not have actually said: “The Scottish Government believes that the people of Scotland can, and should, take more control over the things that affect their lives. Our communities, both urban and rural, are a rich source of untapped potential, creativity, energy and talent and the process of Community Empowerment is how we can help to release that potential. … There is no one size fits all model of community empowerment but local people doing things for themselves can sometimes be the best way to achieve positive changes. The launch of the action plan will ensure that any community that wants to make its own future has an invaluable resource in the shape of a one-stop shop of best practice examples and advice.”

Significant features of the Action Plan include:

• A commitment to work to overcome barriers to community asset ownership
• A Participatory Budgeting pilot focused on tackling Anti-social behaviour to be established by autumn 2009m across 3 Community Planning Partnership areas
• A new training programme for local government elected members on community empowerment and engagement
• A set of twelve case studies from around Scotland, with more details to be published later

The Plan does not actually use the often discussed term ‘community anchor organisation’, but it does emphasise that “The formation, existence and development of, democratic, inclusive and competent community groups, is key to community empowerment. These are the groups who provide the focus for community led action. They are around for the long term and have strong ties into the wider community. They will take many forms: Development Trusts; community based housing associations; community councils; registered tenant organisations; community forums …”

The Plan includes a substantial statement on ‘How community capacity building supports community empowerment’, emphasising the specialist role of Community Learning and Development workers as well as others. It also has a section on Community Planning Partnerships which appears to state much more clearly than before that their role is not just to allow ‘engagement’ in their own affairs, but to build capacity, promote empowerment and ‘think about the part that communities themselves can play in delivering outcomes’.

New look for Community Councils

On the same day the Scottish Government launched a new Model Scheme of Establishment of Community Councils and Code of Conduct for Community Councillors. These are expected to provide a frame of reference and basic standard of what can be expected from any Community Council or Community Councillor.

Community engagement and anti-social behaviour

The Scottish Government and COSLA have jointly published a statement ‘Promoting Positive Outcomes: Working Together to Prevent Antisocial Behaviour in Scotland’. They emphasise the message that “prevention, through meaningful community engagement, gives us the best chance of success”.

Community engagement is presented as one of four major pillars of the approach. “Agencies need to capture community voices, utilise community intelligence and realise that communities can offer useful insights when it comes to understanding community dynamics, identifying problems, developing workable solutions and judging the success of outcomes. … The National Standards for Community Engagement have not been sufficiently embedded in local approaches but should be the foundation upon which community engagement activities are based”.

An “ASB Sphere of Community Engagement” is presented, based upon Arnstein’s ‘Ladder of Participation’ “adapted to outline the different levels of community engagement from the extreme stage of no community input through consultation and participation to citizen empowerment, where the community make their own decisions on issues that affect them”. “There is no ‘one-size-fits all’ approach to community engagement in relation to ASB. However, by engaging with communities early; giving them a say in the development of local strategies, the direction of resources, and the outcomes to be delivered by community sentences; ensuring victims and witnesses are supported; and ensuring communities are well informed about evidence and action, we will help to ensure communities retain a sense of pride for their area and engage actively in its upkeep.”

New ‘Third Sector Interfaces’

The Scottish Government is continuing to consult Volunteer Centres (VCs), Council of Voluntary Services (CVSs) and Local Social Economy Partnerships (LSEPs) about the idea of establishing new ‘third sector interfaces’ (copy of letter). Funding of the existing networks will end in March 2011, but it is hoped that new arrangements will operate, in pilot form at least, for the year 2010-11.  Precise responsibilities are to be decided locally with Community Planning Partnerships. However, these should in principle be no different to the existing range of functions of CVSs, VCs and LSEPs, but with a stronger focus on the single outcome agreement as the key document for the area.

Learning programme to support and improve practice in engaging with communities

The Community Empowerment Action Plan reaffirms the commitment to investing in an integrated programme to develop skills and capacity in community engagement.  The Scottish Government is currently setting up a programme to develop a range of learning materials and programmes based on “Better Community Engagement: A Framework for Learning”.

The model for delivery of this project is a national development programme which will operate through a small number of local demonstration projects. For further information, please contact the community engagement team.

Planning to Act DVD and events

Planning Aid for Scotland has launched a new ‘Planning to Act’ DVD, showcasing an arts-based workshop for young people. Community artists and planners collaborate to deliver workshops introducing broad planning concepts, presenting town and country planning as exciting and relevant and showing young people how they can be involved in the future of their communities. To view the DVD go to the website. For information on holing a Planning to Act event in your area contact Planning Aid for Scotland: phone: 0131 220 9730, e-mail: rachael@planningaidscotland.org.uk .

Social Return on Investment

The Scottish Government has launched a project to develop, promote and support the use of a standard form for measuring social return on investment (SROI). SROI is a way in which an organisation can look at what it does, measure the difference that activity makes to people’s lives, and tell a robust story about that difference or impact. It uses financial comparators or ‘proxies’ to report on the impact made.

The project is being run by a consortium led by Forth Sector and SROI UK. It will be taken forward between 2009-2011 and aims to:

• develop widespread awareness and knowledge of SROI among third sector organisations, funders, commissioners and accounting bodies;
• promote the increasing adoption, acceptance and use of SROI as a reporting method by third sector organisations;
• support increasing numbers to have the ability and understanding to take forward SROI on their own behalf;
• enable third sector organisations to demonstrate their impact clearly;
• assist funders and commissioners to make more intelligent investment or purchasing decisions;
• increase the accessibility of SROI for all parties; and
• ensure that the SROI methodology is robust, while taking on board the best of other impact measurement methodologies, such as social accounting.

The project will develop a programme of seminars, workshops and pilot studies, together with an interactive website, indicator bank and training programme.

Publications and websites

Report by HMIE on Inspection and Review 2005-2008
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) has published ‘Improving Scottish Education 2005-2008′, a document that reviews and comments on the provision of education in Scotland across most sectors over the last three years.
In relation to CLD, the report highlights its strengths as being:

• Strong commitment to equality, inclusion and fairness with examples of innovative and effective work with disadvantaged individuals and groups.
• Learning programmes that are flexible and tailored to meet the needs of learners.
• Good quality of youth work and the relationships with young people.
• The high degree of responsiveness to the needs of adult learners.
• The improvements made in community capacity building
• Partnership working remains a strength in the sector.

The report notes the following aspects for improvement in CLD:

• Demonstrating the outcomes of CLD provision and tracking improvements over time.
• Ensuring that planning is needs-led and outcomes-focused.
• Leadership of people and partnerships (in half of the authorities).

Building on “Working and Learning Together to Build Stronger Communities”
Learning Connections has made available a set of PowerPoint slides about the November 2008 joint statement on community learning and development by the Scottish Government and COSLA. They are designed to be used by partners for presentations on the Joint Statement in a range of settings (but might be useful just as a quick reminder for yourselves on what the statement is about).

Police consultations on strategic priorities
The report ‘Priority Setting in Scottish forces: consulting the public’ results from a thematic inspection by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland into the use of public consultation by Scottish police forces when setting their strategic priorities. It recommends that:

• • All forces should develop a consultation strategy, or review their existing strategy
  • Each force should have a central database to maintain the details of consultation activities
  • All consultation exercises should be evaluated and guidance on evaluation should be provided
  • Forces should move away from postal surveys to face to face consultation in communities.

Poverty and Social Exclusion
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion is now in its 10th annual edition. Overall it reports a picture of stagnation with little improvement on most indicators – past improvement has stalled, become undone, deteriorated of just not changed. The report is available online. It is complemented by a comprehensive website (www.poverty.org.uk) which provides updates to graphs, more analyses and links to other relevant sites. Separate information on Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and ethnicity is available on the website.

UK 13th in new National Accounts of Well-being for Europe
Results from the first ever attempt to produce National Accounts of Well-being are given in a new report and website. ‘National Accounts of Well-being: bringing real wealth onto the balance sheet’ presents the most comprehensive international analyses of well-being ever produced. The UK fares poorly on combined measures of social and personal well-being managing only 13th of the 22 European nations surveyed.  People in the UK aged 16-24 report the lowest level of trust and belonging anywhere in Europe, perhaps the result of the development of a highly individualistic culture in the UK.

Mental health indicators for Scotland
The first systematic assessment of the mental health (mental health problems and mental wellbeing) and associated contextual factors in the adult population of Scotland has been published.

A number of ‘contextual’ indicators are included, some at individual level, and some at community level, which include indicators of Participation, Social networks, Social support, Trust and Safety.

This report, ‘Scotland’s Mental Health and its Context: Adults 2009’ and a briefing paper  covering the key points from the report, are available on the ScotPHO website by clicking here or on the NHS Health Scotland website by clicking here.  The associated data file can also be accessed from the ScotPHO website.

Recession Resources
The Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector has collated a list of useful resources to support the voluntary sector during the current recession.  These resources were produced by a range of organisations including SCVO, the Institute of Fundraising and the TUC.

Interactive Evidence Library for the Third Sector in Scotland
The Interactive Evidence Library has been developed by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) and is funded by the Scottish Government. It is an information resource whereby research into Third Sector issues in Scotland can be easily browsed, accessed at speed and stored for future reference.

Creating Confidence
Dr Carol Craig’s keynote speech to this year’s National Youth Work Conference, on ‘Creating Confidence: The Challenges and Opportunities’ can be downloaded here.

Kitchen Table Sustainability
‘Kitchen Table Sustainability: Practical Recipes for Community Engagement with Sustainability’ (by Wendy Sarkissian with Nancy Hofer, Yollana Shore, Steph Vajda and Cathy Wilkinson) claims to be a “practical guide [that] distils decades of wisdom from community planning, engagement and sustainability practice internationally into a userfriendly and engaging book that is both inspirational and packed with hands-on tools”. Available for £19.99, a preview can be seen here.

Community Leadership and Representation
The Community Development Foundation (CDF) have made available a summary of a report on ‘Community Leadership and Representation’. Findings include:

• Communities are better represented by more than one person, not a single community leader.
• Effective community leaders are identified from and by local people.
• Credible community leadership requires that legitimacy is maintained in the eyes of the community, i.e. leaders are not drawn away from the community and into the Town Hall.
• Participatory approaches to involvement provide a route to engage a wider range of community voices.
• Greater flexibility is required within community involvement structures to ensure local people’s views do influence agendas and decisions.
• More meaningful interaction between communities and public authorities and partnerships may be achieved through greater mutual understanding of ‘how things work’ – i.e. how the council works and how the communities work.
• Dialogue can be improved through encouraging community-level debates initiated by community leaders and ensuring ongoing discussion between local people and authorities.

Empowerment: Sharing Policy and Practice
Presentations and reports are available from CDF’s conference on empowerment last autumn, focusing largely on practice and policy in England.

What Works in Enabling Cross-Community Interactions
The Department of Communities and Local Government has published a report on perspectives on good policy and practice focusing especially on interactions between ethnic communities.  It discusses seven ‘obstacles to interaction’:

• People’s comfort in their existing relationships and lack of time
• The role of fear in inhibiting interaction
• Poorly-designed interventions
• Poorly skilled (or unconvinced) staff
• “Because they don’t want to!”
• The negative impact of funding and political dynamics
• Wider structural and cultural factors

It looks at some ‘dynamics which enable interaction’

• Creating spaces and networks which enable interaction
• Understanding and designing the process
• Supporting, training and sustaining the activists
• Creating a conducive context.