Download as PDF: Making Sense of: Community Engagement and Empowerment

Following an increasing policy focus on community engagement and empowerment over the last 5 to 10 years, a new Duty to Involve came into force for all local councils in April 2009. As well as the policy thrust, effective community engagement and empowerment makes sense for councils as it helps to build trust and to improve community relations. Three CAA Green Flag authorities (Lewisham, Wiltshire and East Riding) have been undertaking a range of innovative approaches to develop active citizens, strengthen community groups and improve their partnership working. These have included Area Boards and Local Assemblies, a Resource Advisory Group, long term relationships with the third sector and a Young Mayor programme. As a result increasing numbers of local people and partners have been involved in more devolved budget setting, service planning and agenda setting.

Essential Knowledge – What is community engagement and empowerment?

Community empowerment is the process of enabling people to shape and choose their local services so they can influence the way services are delivered. Community engagement refers to the practical techniques of involving local people in local decisions, especially reaching out to those who feel remote from public decisions. Community engagement and empowerment activities can range from involving communities in the planning, development and management of services to tackling the problems of a neighbourhood such as crime levels, drug misuse or the lack of play facilities for children. By people and government working jointly, community empowerment should result in more people being able to influence decisions about their communities and more people taking responsibility for tackling local problems.

The vision for empowering communities was set out by the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett MP, in two key speeches: the Scarman Trust Forum Lecture on 11 December 2004 and the Edith Kahn Memorial Lecture on 11 June 2003. Furthermore, in 2005 in Strong and Prosperous Communities, the Government set out its vision for local democracy based on the premise that local action by empowered residents and local councillors would improve the quality of local services and provide the foundation for strong and sustainable communities. More recently from 1st April 2009 a new Duty to Involve came into force which required all local councils to embed a culture of engagement and empowerment.

Councils have to get better at engaging with their communities for three reasons. Firstly, under the government’s empowerment agenda from April 2009 councils have a new duty to inform, consult and involve their stakeholders. The comprehensive area assessment (CAA) approach means that councils are judged on how well they work with partners to engage their citizens and improve the local area. All three main political parties share a belief in giving more say and power to local communities. Secondly, engagement can help Councils to improve their reputation and build trust among their residents, to demonstrate that they offer value for money and keep their residents well informed. And lastly, the effective communication that engagement requires is fundamental to promoting better community relations.

There are three key ingredients to community empowerment. Active citizens who are people with the motivation, skills and confidence to speak up for their communities and say what improvements are needed. Strengthened community groups with the capability and resources to bring people together to work out shared solutions. Partnership with public bodies who are willing and able to work as partners with local people.

By being awarded CAA Green Flags Wiltshire Council, East Riding of Yorkshire LSP and the London Borough of Lewisham show exceptional performance in empowerment and engagement to the benefit of their local residents.

What works?

Wiltshire’s Area Boards

The formation of Wiltshire as a unitary authority from 1st April 2009 created a very large rural authority. The bid for unitary status was clear in identifying a concern that such a large authority would require a localised governance structure to avoid the risk of being or being seen as a remote and unrepresentative organisation. As an area Wiltshire already had a very strong track record in disseminating learning through the National Beacon Scheme and through its role as a National Empowerment Champion. In creating 18 Area Boards across 20 areas Wiltshire aimed to:

• Decentralise local decision making to the community level in line with the concept of subsidiarity.
• Help the successful LSP to connect further with the local level which also involved a commitment from the Wiltshire Constabulary to realign their boundaries.
• Engage local people and build a sense of resilience by allowing communities to set their investment priorities for the finite resources

Established by Wiltshire Council but multi-agency in approach, each of Wiltshire’s 18 Area Boards has a Community Area Manager – a senior appointment with a multi-agency remit. With many ways for residents to become involved each Community Area Network has about 500 individual and organisational members signed up. The key policy document is the Area Boards Handbook which draws in recent academic learning on participative democracy and acts as a guide for all those involved in Area Boards. Unlike traditional area committee structures each Area Board operates like a mini-LSP. The Area Boards decide spending priorities with about £5 million devolved from Wiltshire Council over the next two years. The Area Boards also shape and prioritise mainstream service delivery across the public sector.

Each Area Board meeting is attended by a cabinet member and the theme of the meeting is structured around the appropriate members lead responsibilities such as transport or education. The meetings allow cabinet members to learn about local needs and concerns, discuss issues with a wide range of parties and, importantly, to agree publicly when action can and will be taken immediately. The Area Boards and Community Area Partnerships have also been used as a mechanism to consult on the development of local planning policy through their Local Development Framework and on local health priorities through the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.

The Area Boards bring together relevant local partners to discuss and agree area solutions to the problems. Involving senior officers from organisations such as the Wiltshire Constabulary, NHS Wiltshire, Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service and the Ministry of Defence, asking the rate payers of Wiltshire for additional funds is generally seen as a last resort. One example of this is the extension of the Community Payback Scheme (offenders undertaking community service sentences) to support local projects linked to local community plans. In using £2.8 million of Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA) Reward Grant to respond to the credit crunch and to tackle LAA priorities at the local level, the Area Boards were challenged to decide what actions they would want to do locally using their multi-agency remit.

The Community Area Managers are developing expertise through training with local authority departments and partners such as NHS, innovative academic partnerships, pilot approaches and development workshops, individual learning and collaboration with equalities and diversity team.

The LSP brings together the statutory agency partners to focus on the local priorities form their integrated intelligence and to set the top down challenge. Joint Strategic Needs Assessments are completed across the 20 Community Areas to help focus on priorities using evidence rather than consultation alone. The Area Boards are supported by an electronic community issue monitoring system which focuses on highlighting more strategic issues like vandalism and graffiti rather than the location of potholes. In this way, over 100 issues a week are referred to the Boards. The approach also helps to identify emerging and widespread themes which demand a more strategic response such as concerns about rural speeding. The online issue monitoring goes beyond normal consultation mechanisms by publicly tracking the response to each individual submission. For example, a review of Area Board structures achieved 1,000 responses in just five days.

Wiltshire’s Speedwatch Scheme

The community issue monitoring system across Wiltshire recorded an increasing level of concern about rural speeding. Rather than each individual approaching the police directly the Area Boards were able to act as the first point of contact. Evidence was collected from the PCT, police and highways authority to look at the nature and extent of the problem. If a MetroCount wire identified speeding problems enforcement action could be taken or a local Speedwatch scheme established. The Speedwatch scheme requires the local Community to have six local volunteers trained by the Neighbourhood Police Team who monitor speeds for two weeks. Warning letters are sent to offenders with the effects then re-assessed and again 12 months later. If necessary a Speed Indicator Device (SID) will be installed. By the autumn of 2009 23 Speedwatch sites had been set up and many other sites assessed. As a result police resources were freed up and additional equipment was purchased through funds from the Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA). Some of the speeding motorists were identified as local residents. In the long term the hope is that the number of lives lost in road traffic accidents, each costing the public purse £1.5 million, will be reduced.

Progress is measured against two national indicators: NI 4 (percentage of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality) and NI 7 (environment for a thriving third sector). Over 10,000 local people have now signed up to be involved with the work of the Boards through local community area networks and over 6,000 local people have attended Area Board meetings in Wiltshire. This is still less than 5% of local residents and the Council has committed to a programme of public engagement experiments, with each Board challenged to develop new ways of involving local people during 2010/11.

While the Area Boards have only been in operation since June 2009, an earlier 12 month pilot tested the new ways of working. This found that people responded to small things such as being welcomed at meetings, using round tables and having members spread across tables to prevent a feeling of them and us. In the future, there is a desire to take this further by using member visits and videos to connect with residents in their everyday places – sheltered housing schemes, day care facilities, schools, shopping centres for example.

The Area Boards have been used as a mechanism to deal with sensitive issues and hear the views of vulnerable community groups. For example, meetings were held with residents of Wiltshire’s canal networks at a local public house where they raised serious concerns about the way public services responded to their unique needs. As a result of this informal contact, the community felt confident enough to come along and present their views and concerns to the Bradford on Avon Area Board.

Wiltshire Council has given the Area Boards significant delegated powers even if these are within their existing budgets. For some Council officers who were used to making their own decisions it has been a challenge to deliver the culture shift needed to more fully involve the Area Boards in those decisions. As a result Wiltshire Council has adopted a protocol that requires officers to self assess whether a decision should be referred to an Area Board.

The Area Boards have been able to lever in substantial external funding from regional empowerment programmes and the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership. The Boards have also been able to use their delegated to lever local funding, achieving a return of £5 of community investment for every £1 they spend. Staff and support costs are not insignificant, but are believed to be broadly neutral compared to staffing levels under the old two-tier system in Wiltshire.

For the future while public awareness of Wiltshire’s Area Boards has reached 40% there is more to do engage with the remaining 60% of local residents. The Area Boards also have potential to be even more inclusive and involve an even wider cross-section of the community. For issues that run across local boundaries several Area Boards have been developing collaborative arrangements and more fluid governance arrangements and the Council has already reviewed its arrangements to build on the progress that has been made so far.

East Riding of Yorkshire Resource Advisory Group

The Comprehensive Spending Review of 2007 meant that East Riding of Yorkshire had to achieve savings in how they and their partners delivered the challenging new Local Area Agreement priorities set by their Local Strategic Partnership.

In February 2008 the East Riding LSP Board decided to establish a Resource Advisory Group to look in detail at the resourcing of the Local Area Agreement and to develop more robust service planning. The group was to be composed of key public sector chief executives and finance officers. The aim was to develop a shared approach to making efficiency savings, to align financial planning between organisations which have different budgetary cycles and to develop a common understanding of budget setting.

The Resource Advisory Group has an agreed work programme which covers joint area financial planning and value for money reviews for specific service areas. The work programmes have provided a very clear focus on resourcing issues and helped requests for additional funding to be made at the right stage of the budgetary cycle. A joint review of the substance misuse service has been completed. Reviews of the youth offending team and the community equipment service have been commissioned and are progressing.

Resource Advisory Group Review of Substance Misuse Service

East Riding’s Resource Advisory Group initially reviewed their Substance Misuse Service which is delivered by partners including the Council, NHS East Riding of Yorkshire, Humberside Police and Humberside Probation Service. The detailed review looked at value for money performance and ways to offset a predicted 21% reduction in funding. As a result delivery of the service was re-profiled with efficiency savings of £250,000 identified. The approach resulted in a real openness from partners to look at the problem, to identify solutions and to debate alternative service delivery options. Despite these financial constraints East Riding has been improving the impact of this service at a rate of 5% above the national average.

Most of the Resource Advisory Group co-ordination work is completed by the Council and its Principal Partnerships Performance Officer. Particular care is taken in agenda setting and effective minute taking by the Council’s Committee Services. Papers are issued ten days in advance of the Resource Advisory Group meetings to ensure that work is completed between the meetings. There has also been a range of ad hoc seminars involving service managers which has allowed each partner to explain their future financial pressures. This has allowed partners to address what normally would be unintended consequences. For example the fire service felt they would could plan for more home fire safety visits should the local PCT actively look to reduce the length of hospital stays. The Resource Advisory Group has also allowed organisations with different geographical areas of operation to work more closely together.

The Resource Advisory Group reports to the LSP Board and operates within agreed terms of reference which gives the group a clear role. The representative from partner organisations has to be their Chief Executive or key financial officer (e.g. Director of Finance). Meetings take place every six weeks and one week after the main LSP Board meeting.

The Resource Advisory Group has been able to achieve improvements in joint service delivery. All partners’ business plans are now more aligned to the Community Plan so they are more able to jointly support the priorities for the area. There has been more joint commissioning (e.g. of children services) to achieve more impact with fewer resources. Data quality protocols have been agreed between agencies and a joint customer insight project has received Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership and Communities and Local Government funding to bring together and analyse data from many partners.

A high level of trust has developed between the partners with good attendance at the Resource Advisory Group meetings. There has been high levels of commitment in terms of the consistency in the attendance of group members (or their substitutes) and by consistently acting as decision makers during the meetings.

In many ways, with its full service review approach, the Resource Advisory Group has been a forerunner of what has been adopted in the total place initiative. The Resource Advisory Group has allowed partners to achieve more with less and sharpened up their targeting of efficiency savings.

Extensive communication and consultation with those on the group has been necessary for the Resource Advisory Group to operate well. All group members are fully consulted and briefed prior to each Resource Advisory Group meeting so there are no surprises at the meetings and progress takes place between meetings. They have also been effective at cascading information and issues back into their own organisations.

A wide range of Council and partner staff have been involved in the Resource Advisory Group. The LSP Manager has been effective at getting good levels of involvement across all seven partner organisations. The Council’s business development team has been responsible for value for money reviews and analysis. The partnership performance group has looked at data sharing issues. The LSP’s communications group has looked at the alignment of campaigns and the pooling of marketing resources. There have been joint approaches to equality issues.

A narrow focus has been important. The Resource Advisory Group’s purpose has been made extremely clear in its terms of reference. This has allowed the group to avoid looking at issues that do not have a financial component.

In the future the Resource Advisory Group has much more scope for developing joint working and service integration. Partners will be able to use the Resource Advisory Group to respond jointly to their financial constraints. There will be more budget alignment and more pooling of resources. With its first service review completed and partners fully on board Resource Advisory Group has now moved centre stage to local delivery planning.

Community engagement and empowerment in Lewisham – Local Assemblies, the Young Mayor and the Third Sector

The London Borough of Lewisham and, since 2001, the Lewisham Strategic Partnership, which is chaired by the executive mayor, have had a long standing commitment to community engagement and empowerment. Over the last twenty years, the Borough has developed various innovative approaches to neighbourhood governance, civic engagement and localised service delivery that has been ahead of policy. With a long history of working with their third sector Lewisham was the first authority to have a compact with their voluntary and community sector. With a directly elected Mayor since 2001, the Borough has been operating a Young Mayor’s programme since 2003. More recently, following a Lewisham Mayor’s Commission which looked at empowering and engaging communities in 2006/7, the Borough created 18 Local Assemblies.

Lewisham’s long term relationship with its Third Sector

Lewisham actively engages with and builds the capacity of its third sector. Lewisham provides £5 million of grants to a local community and voluntary sector made up of about 1,000 organisations. There is also a faith fund for the 200, mainly Christian, faith organisations together with dedicated faith engagement officers. The grants programme was redesigned three years ago. A new monitoring programme introduced as a capacity building tool for organisational development. As well as good practice events training is provided by the community and voluntary sector.

Lewisham a took a conscious decision to split the ‘stronger’ from the ‘safer’ element in their LSP’s ‘safer and stronger’ theme to ensure a strong representation from their local third sector. The stronger partnership is chaired by the Director of the Voluntary and Community Sector and there are five LSP members from the third sector. Lewisham Council also funds two posts in Voluntary Action Lewisham to manage networks and forums and run elections.

Lewisham Council has a social enterprise development fund and operate a school for social entrepreneurs. Sixteen mainly young local people graduated from the social enterprise school on 22 March 2010.

Lewisham’s Young Mayor

In 2003 Lewisham was the first borough to introduce an elected young mayor and this year’s young mayor is 16-year-old Jacob Sakil. With one fifth of Lewisham’s population under 16, the Young Mayor is democratically elected every year through Lewisham’s schools and colleges. The approach has been successful with turnout increasing each year. Each young mayor has about £25,000 to spend on priorities and, by providing a strong voice for young people, is actively involved in the Council’s service planning and marketing activities. The Young Mayor is supported by a Youth Advisors’ Group and a Young Citizens’ Panel which link to the local young people’s forums and networks in addition to the school councils.

Lewisham’s Local Assemblies

During 2006/07, a Mayoral Commission on Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods with cross party participation reviewed area engagement in Lewisham. One recommendation was to set up a universal offer of engagement through the creation of 18 Local Assemblies to replace the existing Area Forums. Each assembly:

• has the support of a ward co-ordinator, based in the council’s Community Services Directorate, with direct links to the wider strategic aims and executive functions of the council and its partners;
• has a online presence to provide an established means of communication and information sharing;
• can develop their own agenda and set up to five priorities for each ward;
• adopts a ‘Charter’ setting out what the assembly can expect in terms of the Council’s response to issues raised, information about local services and events, the role of local councillors and the administrative support that will be provided. The Charter also describes the Council’s expectations in relation to the extent to which the assembly is representative of the local community;
• is chaired by one of the three ward members and meets up to four times a year and is open to anyone who lives works or learns in the ward; and
• has a coordinating group composed of volunteers from the assembly (which must include one elected member and one representative from a local voluntary and community sector group) which meets to plan assembly meetings, develop agendas and move assembly business on. These groups often have representatives from the safer neighbourhood panels, RSLs and others active in the area.

The operational budget for Local Assemblies is around £670,000 a year excluding ward budgets and involves 13 Council officers. A locality fund of £10,000 per ward is provided with an additional £50,000 one-off grant being made to each assembly during 2008-09 and 2009-10 . The Local Assemblies have focussed on a range of issues including anti-social behaviour, improving green space, highway improvements and improving activities and facilities for young people. The Local Assembly coordinating group volunteers play a key role in co-ordinating groups working with the Councillors to plan assembly meetings. The Local Assemblies Link Officer Group is a group of senior and operational officers from across the council, police and PCT charged with providing assistance to strategic development issues and the delivery of the assembly action plans. The group is a forum to successfully manage assembly expectations in the progress of large and small issues. The group is an essential communication tool helping to raise the profile of assemblies across the council and with partners. Lewisham has also used the Local Assemblies to undertake participatory budgeting in three wards (Bellingham, Blackheath and Evelyn). Participatory voting event methodology is used at all assemblies.

All of Lewisham’s community engagement and empowerment activities are measured against NI 6 (Participation in regular volunteering) and NI 7 (Environment for a thriving third sector). Against NI 7 Lewisham achieved the highest performance in London and the fourth best in the country. In 2008/9 just under 4,200 people attended Local Assemblies with high levels of satisfaction:

• More than 84% of people report that Local Assemblies help them to understand more about local issues.
• More than 56% of people agree that Local Assemblies allow them to influence local decisions.
• More than 73% of people agreed that the Local Assemblies helped to build positive relationships between local people.

Lewisham put their success down to consistent support over a number of years, avoiding being diverted from their engagement focus and ring fencing their grant aid budgets. Lewisham also decided to mainstream programmes after the end of funding programmes such as the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund which focused on the 88 most deprived communities in England between 2001 and 2008.

Lewisham calculate that for every £1 they provide in grant aid to the third sector about £5 of contract value is secured by these organisations from the statutory sector. Lewisham produce a community engagement framework to provide guidance when carrying out community engagement exercises and to ensure it is carried out to a consistently high standard.

Relationships between the Local Assemblies and the Council’s service areas is on the whole strong, with few service areas proving difficult to engage. While engagement with the Safer Neighbourhood’s Team is particularly strong Lewisham would like to increase service based collaborations in the future. While the initial focus of Local Assembles has been on issues about young people, environment, reducing anti-social behaviour and traffic increasingly health issues are now being considered. As the format of Local Assemblies remain less attractive to young people (who make up only 7% of attendees) parallel youth forums have been set up to feed into the Local Assemblies. This is helping to increase young people’s participation.

As Lewisham has been pursuing a wide range of innovative community approaches for many years the ethos is now embedded in the organisation. There is also substantial appetite for involvement beyond the opportunities provided by Local Assembles. While the approaches do provide a platform for community activities and civic amenity groups the relationships have become much more constructive over time. In the future Lewisham would like to further extend engagement of the community beyond priority setting for 2010. There is an on-going challenge in engaging people outside meetings, a format many residents do not want. Online technologies offer part of the solution (e.g. Love Lewisham allows residents to report enviro-crime such as fly tipping through a mobile phone application).

Subject to the same directly elected mayor being returned in the local elections in May 2010, Lewisham expect their commitment to their local third sector and working with residents to co-produce services to continue in the future despite the difficult budget decisions that lie ahead. With all political parties engaged in the concept, Local Assemblies will be a permanent feature in Lewisham in the future. Lewisham will continue to actively consider what further devolution is possible.

Lessons

There are some common themes running across the initiatives undertaken by East Riding of Yorkshire Council, the London Borough of Lewisham and Wiltshire Council to develop active citizens, to strengthen community groups and to make partnerships more financially effective – all the key ingredients for community engagement and empowerment.

Being innovative. All the authorities are explicitly innovative in what they are trying to do. They tend to lead the policy world rather than respond to it. In becoming leading and innovative authorities they have been able to secure discretionary and additional funds from a number of sources.

Getting the small things right. It is important to get the small things right to develop trust and commitment. For engaging residents in Wiltshire this means providing a welcoming and open environment which fully supports the desire for a meaningful dialogue. For partners in East Riding working together to agree budgets and discuss joint service planning this means having well run meetings, clear agendas, professionally minuted decisions and achieving consistent attendance by decision makers.

A clear and action orientated focus. Partnership working around financial issues in East Riding has been successful due to a very clear remit agreed in their terms of reference and the focus on progress taking place between meetings.

The widest range of engagement and a desire to go further in the future. Wiltshire and Lewisham would like to expand their engagement further in the future and reach out to the widest possible community whether it is about involving more young people or connecting to people in sheltered housing. Online and mobile applications are seen as ways of helping with this. East Riding has worked hard to involve a wide range of Council and partner staff in their resource planning and service review activities. Extensive communication and consultation is a common feature.

Wider benefits have been achieved from the engagement approaches. The authorities have been able to use these engagement and partnership structures to experiment with participatory budgeting, engage more effectively with vulnerable community groups such as gypsies, improve joint customer intelligence and consult on local planning policy. Going forward the engagement and partnership structures developed by the three authorities will help with making difficult decisions about budgets and service levels.

Culture is challenged. There are cultural challenges with the development of new empowerment and engagement structures as a degree of power and decision making responsibility has to be given up. For authorities such as the London Borough of Lewisham, with a long standing focus on innovative engagement approaches, the engagement culture is now permanently embedded in the organisation. For newer organisations such as Wiltshire Council they are working actively to manage the culture change required when decisions are increasingly being made by their Area Boards rather than by Council officers.

Strong senior level commitment and consistent resourcing. With an elected mayor since 2001 Lewisham has had a strong champion for community engagement. They have also ring fenced budgets and mainstreamed activity when discretionary funds have come to an end.

Further information

• CLG – Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill (2008)
• CLG – Active Citizens, Strong Communities – progressing civil renewal (December 2003)
• CLG – Civil Renewal: a new agenda (June 2003)
• Evaluating Wiltshire’s Area Boards
• Wiltshire’s Areas Board – The Handbook
• Wiltshire Area Issue Tracking
• You Tube: Wiltshire Ambition (Video)
• East Riding LSP
• Lewisham Young Mayor FAQs
• Lewisham LSP
• Love Lewisham