PDF – Inspiring & Supporting Partnerships North East RIEPs

The issue:

The North East Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (RIEP) has set itself an ambitious target – for the North East to become known as the English region that is most effective at partnership working.  With the recent round of local government reorganisation, there has been a reduction in the number of councils in the region from 25 to 12. This change offers an opportunity to recast and strengthen partnership working and ensure it is sufficiently robust to meet the challenges of the economic downturn, new Local Area Agreements (LAA), Multi Area Agreements (MAAs), and Comprehensive Area Agreements (CAA). 

In early 2009, the North East RIEP began to engage members of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and other partnership structures in a campaign to inject new energy and enthusiasm into the region’s partnerships.  From these discussions, the RIEP has developed a multi-stranded support programme comprising various different activities.  

This case study outlines plans for this support programme, focusing in particular on one element – the development of a new self or peer partnership assessment tool. 

What you did:

There are already numerous different partnership self assessment tools available. However, partners in the North East felt that existing tools didn’t give sufficient emphasis to the attitudinal, behavioural and cultural issues that time and again had been revealed to be the true blocks to effective partnership working.  Partners in the North East wanted to develop a new self-assessment approach that was firmly rooted in these aspects of partnership working and became the new standard against which practice could be assessed. 

The development of the self-assessment approach

One of the other strands of work in the North East’s partnership support programme is the development of a network of partnership champions. These are people from all sectors who have a successful track record in making partnerships work and are recognised by others as bringing vital skills, qualities and behaviours to their role.  To find these champions, the North East RIEP asked a number of people for their advice and nominations, including LSP chairs and coordinators, and local authority and other public service chief executives. Across the region and from a range of sectors, over 50 partnership champions were nominated. 

The RIEP hopes to support the champions to actively and visibly promote good partnership skills and behaviours and act as catalysts for change in the region.  It has also been using the champions to help develop the new self assessment tool.  On the 7th of May 2009, the RIEP invited all nominated partnership champions to an event at Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service’s headquarters in Washington, facilitated by a Local Improvement Advisor.  

The purpose of the day was to celebrate the champion’s contribution to partnership working, identify the behaviours and attitudes which are vital to successful partnering and discuss how the champions can support better partnership working across the region.  

Forum Theatre group Dead Earnest helped to stimulate discussion by acting out a humorous scenario of a fictional partnership meeting and inviting the audience to contribute their observations about why and in what respects the dynamics of the meeting were problematic. An Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach was used to explore the characteristics of strong partnerships and how positive emotions can be used to drive continuous change. 

In parallel with the champions’ workshop, staff at the RIEP carried out a desk review of existing partnerships standards and tools.  Findings from both streams of work helped to inform a new partnership self-assessment and improvement approach, based on organisational development (OD) principles.

The approach will involve the development of an on-line 360-degree feedback tool. This will enable partners to rate themselves and their peers on a key behaviours identified by Partnership Champions and others as vital to partnership success.  

Piloting the approach

Partners in the North East recognise that self-assessment, on its own, will not be sufficient to ensure positive change.  For this reason, it is envisaged as the starting point for conversations between partners about how they want their partnerships to operate in future and areas in which partnerships might need to develop.  Using the approach will help to inform decisions about what capacity building interventions might be needed in future.  

Partners recognise that the style and quality of facilitation employed in the improvement process will be important in determining its impact.  The plan is to recruit and thoroughly prepare Local Improvement Advisors to fulfil this role. 

In order to test out and validate the partnership behaviours and culture self-assessment and explore how best it can be used in practice, partners in the North East are carrying out a pilot in Sunderland in the early months of 2010.  Findings from this exercise will inform the refinement of the offer to partnerships.

Further information

Emily Sweetman – NE RIEP Programme Manager

0191 261 3919 (direct line & voicemail)
emily.sweetman@northeastcouncils.gov.uk

Web: http://www.northeastiep.gov.uk/

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

This case study looks at how Essex County Council involved local partners and local communities in deciding the priorities for its second-generation local area agreement (LAA).

The case study focuses on:

• how public views fed into LAA planning through the Essex Strategy
• how Essex opened up different channels of communication between the county Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) and its partners to both gather and disseminate information about local priorities from around the county
• the benefits of setting district-level baselines and targets for the new LAA, in terms of providing a more appropriate, localised response to local priorities

The study includes the views of Duncan Wood, Head of Community Planning and Public Engagement at Essex County Council, who had overall responsibility for the public consultation aspect of the LAA’s development. It also includes feedback from Kevin Nunn, the Partnership Delivery Manager at Essex County Council, on how the county LSP sought to engage its district partners.

The issue

The first Local Area Agreement (LAA) in Essex was seen, in general, as a top-down process. Those involved in the first LAA at the council have since admitted that this was probably a fair assessment. They blamed – to a certain extent – the rush to finalise the LAA’s development against tight government deadlines to produce something quickly.

One of the main problems with this approach is that Essex is a very large and diverse county – with communities in the Greater London Urban Area and rural communities in much of the north of the county. The broad-brush approach to the first LAA did not adequately reflect the diversity of issues that different communities in Essex face.

When it came to the consultations for the second round LAA (2008 – 2011) the council wanted to try and build in local priorities – from local partners and people – from the outset. This would ensure that the LAA went as far as possible to meet the needs of local communities.

Who was involved

Some of the key partnerships and partnership bodies involved in this work are:

• Essex Partnership. This is the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) for all of Essex. It directs and oversees progress on the local area agreement
• The Essex Partnership Forum. This is the over-arching partnership body that brings together partners and district LSPs from across Essex
• District LSPs. Essex is divided into 12 local government districts – each with their own LSP. These LSPs bring together partners at a more local level, developing Sustainable Community Strategies and working on local-level implementation of the LAA.

What they did

There are two aspects to Essex’s bottom-up process for developing its second round LAA:

• engaging local people
• engaging local partners

Engaging local people

Essex captured a lot of public opinion on priorities for local action in its preparation of the Essex Strategy 2008-18. This sets out the key goals for improving the quality of life in Essex over a ten-year period.

Essex used the public consultations from the Essex Strategy to inform its development of the second round LAA. These consultations included:

• analysis of existing survey data
• focus groups
• online consultation
• public meetings
• consulting the voluntary and community sector (VCS)
• consulting special interest groups

Analysing existing data

While preparing the Essex Strategy, the council already had a large amount of survey data that could be analysed. There was also the local information captured by the sustainable community strategies that many of the 12 district LSPs had prepared. This data gave a good starting point to identify what people across Essex thought were the most important things to make their area a good place to live, and what most needed to be improved.

Focus groups

Focus group work was conducted by external, independent consultants in each district. The focus groups had to be independent to allow people to express their views freely. These sessions asked people what they thought were the most important issues that should feed into the Essex Strategy and the new LAA.

Slightly later in the process, as the Essex Strategy had passed its first draft, there were more focus groups, one held in each of the county’s five primary care trust (PCT) areas. These groups built on previous focus group work and results.

Online consultation

The county council gave residents the chance to fill in an online form to give views about what they thought was important. This resulted in between 600 and 700 additional responses.

These responses represented a growing number of people who will use online techniques and social media to engage with local authorities. In many of these cases, previously these people’s voices and opinions would not have been heard.

Public meetings

A series of public meetings were held around the county to allow people to drop in and express their views. Duncan Wood, Head of Community Planning and Public Engagement at Essex County Council, explained that these sessions varied in quality:

“In truth, many of these sessions were dominated by stakeholders and interested members of the public. But each one looked at a different issue and they were valuable.”

Consulting the voluntary and community sector

To broaden the scope of the consultation, the county council wrote to every voluntary or community sector organisation it could find in the Essex LIFE Database (Local Information for Essex).

This included special interest groups such as the:

• Older Peoples’ Planning Group
• Partnership Network Forum – which represents a coalition of disabled peoples’ groups
• Racial Equality Council
• Essex Equality and Diversity Network

In this way the council used voluntary and community sector groups as a conduit for public views that might otherwise have been missed.

Engaging local partners

One of the key changes to the way Essex developed its second round LAA was the way it encouraged partners across the county – notably the 12 district LSPs to:

• shape which indicators to include in the LAA
• set their own district-level targets

Channels of dialogue between county council and local partners

A website was set up for Essex Partnership to allow it to communicate with its partners (and the public) and keep them updated on progress with both the Essex Strategy and the LAA.

Essex committed to making quick updates to the website so that people had an accurate idea of how the LAA was evolving. For instance, when officers returned from LAA negotiations with the Government Office, decisions on targets would be added to the relevant documents on the partnership website and publicised, often within days.

In addition, Essex prepared a weekly e-newsletter to keep partners and interested stakeholders up to date with progress on the LAA. This newsletter was open to anyone to subscribe to.

Essex set up an email address for all partners to send in their suggestions on indicators and targets for the new LAA. This email was publicised in the weekly e-newsletter and was open for all partners and interested parties to use.

Essex developed a system for logging, sorting and feeding back on all the suggestions it received. Eventually, it published a ‘Response to consultations from the first draft of the LAA’ on the Essex Partnership website, which outlined its reasons for choosing some indicators over others.

The Essex Partnership website

As the second round LAA has evolved, partners have grouped themselves around six key themes:

• Essex Economic Board
• Sustainable Essex
• Children’s Trust Partnership
• London Olympic and Paralympic Games Partnership
• Safer Essex Partnership
• Community Wellbeing and Older People’s Board

Increasingly, Essex have used these thematic partnerships to feed back important information from partners.

Developing local targets

Most baselines and targets in the second round LAA differ from district to district. These represent a radical departure from the first round approach, which had county-wide targets. Local targets mean district LSPs can respond to the direct needs of their population more appropriately – without having to reach county targets that may not bear in mind an individual district’s starting point.

Starting projects early with loaned finance

During the first round LAA, partners had access to ‘pump-priming grant’ from the Government to fund LAA action plans. This grant was not available for LAA2.

Before embarking on the second round LAA, Essex County Council decided to loan Essex Partnership £18 million whilst it waited for the performance reward grant money from the first LAA to come through. This ensured that project work could start as early as possible. This has helped focus partner discussions on LAA action plans and greatly improved partnership working as a result. Partners have been able to discuss plans for action in the knowledge that they have real resources at their disposal.

As Kevin Nunn, Partnership Delivery Manager at Essex County Council, puts it:

“What you’ll find in other LSPs is that they’re now having conversations about how to spend their performance reward grant because they’re about to receive it from the Government, whereas we’re already spending ours.”

The impact

Aside from the obvious impact of making the whole process of LAA planning more transparent – through new channels of communication between council and partners – the major impact has been how local LAA targets have created a more nuanced approach to Essex’s priority issues.

In breaking baselines and targets down district by district, Essex has not only managed to create a more detailed and realistic picture of what’s happening across the county, it has found a way to improve the way it tackles particular problems.

For example, compared to the national picture, Essex as a whole performs reasonably well in regard to young people ‘not in employment, education or training’ (NEET). Nevertheless Essex decided to adopt LAA targets for skills and education, as these issues influence other indicators. In gathering baseline information about NEETs one district – Tendring – stood out as having a high level of young people NEET compared to the rest of the county.

As Kevin Nunn says:

“We were able to say this area has a huge problem and a long history of resources going in and not really tackling the problem, and that’s why we chose to focus on that area in our ‘total place’ work.”

Similarly, consultation around the new LAA process revealed that one primary care trust (PCT) had been very effective with commissioning services to tackle teenage pregnancy, whereas the performance of other PCTs was less effective. Essex has started discussions with the successful PCT on how to roll out a county-wide program to tackle teen pregnancy.

The new approach has meant that districts LSPS have more leeway to tailor local action to local need, which should mean better services for local people.

At a county level, the impact for Essex Council has been improved engagement with partners, which has meant that partners are building indicators and targets around the new LAA into their own corporate plans and targets. The impact being that everyone engaged in the new LAA is starting to work in the same direction.

Barriers, challenges and lessons

Essex encountered several challenges during the new LAA development process. Some of these centred on which voices or opinions to include in the LAA.

Inclusion vs prioritisation

Public priorities were a key determining factor in whether a priority should be included in the LAA. However public priorities often differed from the priorities identified by the Government Office – the latter tending to focus on issues where data showed poor performance.

In deciding on priorities for the second round LAA, Essex Partnership had to weigh up the priorities of central government, through the Government Office, those of the public and those identified by over 50 local partners. Not all proposals could be successful.

In addition, vocal partners on local LSPs made proposals that could not translated into readily available indicators or did not reflect areas of public priority or poor performance.

Essex tackled this by keeping partners up to date at all times with how the LAA was evolving, and why. For instance, when it came to the consultations on which indicators to choose, the partnership published ‘Response to consultations from the first draft of the LAA’, which set out the reasons for the decisions it had taken.

The relationship between the County LSP and District LSPs

In deciding to heavily involve local partners in the planning of the new LAA, Essex still faced the awkward question of how much control the county LSP should have over the partners it distributed grants to.

As Kevin Nun puts it:

“Local authorities are always complaining about central government setting too many controls over money that’s given to local authorities, and you want to avoid the same situation locally where local partners are saying: “Wait a minute! Now we’ve got the money that’s been dished out you’re imposing controls on us.””

Essex tackled this problem by choosing to work with a ‘mature partnership relationship’ approach – with minimal control from county level on local partners’ activities. Once the project has been agreed on, Essex trusted the relevant partners to deliver without requiring detailed monitoring information.

Going forward, Essex envisages two particular challenges it will have to overcome, both of which centre on the high expectations that partners have of this new approach.

Continuing the good work

Essex has set a high standard for engagement of both partners and the public in developing its second round LAA. This has set a precedent for future decision-making around the Essex Strategy. Essex will need to ensure that it continues to involve people just as much if not more in other decision-making processes that affect how the Essex Strategy is put into action.

Limits to what local data can be used for

The new approach to developing the LAA has allowed more localised data than ever before to influence decisions on LAA indicators and targets. However, this has increased demand for the availability of even more granulated data. Going forward, expectations about the availability of local data and its statistical validity will need to be carefully managed.

Conclusion

Essex’s new bottom-up approach to developing its LAA has been described by one partner as the ‘dawn of a new era’. It puts partners and customers firmly at the centre of a cohesive, inclusive relationship across Essex. It also allows more localised data to feed into the LAA planning process, which brings to light district-level issues that might otherwise have been glossed over. The challenge for Essex now lies in continuing this good work and living up to partners’ expectations of continued engagement and an ever more localised articulation of priorities for action.

The local authorities in Leicester and Leicestershire have a multi-area agreement (MAA) covering economic and employment issues. It was signed in January 2009. They are considering extending it to cover housing. This study looks at the factors influencing the decisions they will take in considering a housing-related MAA. It will be updated later, if and when the new or revised MAA goes ahead.

The issue

Housing is seen as being integral to the economic prosperity of Leicester and Leicestershire. There will be significant housing growth in the sub-region over the next twenty years. This will include more housing in Leicester City and a number of sustainable urban extensions adjoining Leicester and the main towns in the county. These new developments should be attractive and well-integrated in terms of transport, employment and leisure opportunities.

In the past, growth of the urban area around Leicester has been problematic. The city has tightly-defined administrative boundaries within which most of the available non-protected land has already been developed. Expansion into neighbouring districts has caused disagreement, notably in the case of an eco-town, south-east of the city (for which a bid was made in October 2007); it was favoured by the city council but opposed by the county council.

With a change in political leaders, there has been an improved atmosphere for collaboration. One outcome from this was the initial Multi-Area Agreement (MAA). The original MAA was signed in January 2009 and focuses on economic and employment issues. It says that ‘there is a strong case to include transport, housing and the environment because of the impact that these themes have on sustainable economic growth’. Extending the MAA to cover these areas is an issue now being actively considered, with a target date of April 2010 to decide whether to proceed. This case study focuses on the housing context and potential content of a revised MAA.

What they did

The local authorities have put in place an accountability framework for strategic planning and collaboration to implement the MAA (see below), at the top of which is the Leicester and Leicestershire Leadership Board. The Leadership Board held its first meeting in October 2008. It has seven members: the leaders of the city council and county council and one district council leader chosen by the districts; representatives from the HCA, East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) and the voluntary and business sector. The role of the Leadership Board is to approve the sub-regional strategy, including the MAA, and to endorse a sub-regional investment plan. The Leadership Board has no direct decision-making powers and decisions have to go back to the constituent bodies. There are also quarterly meetings of all the leaders in the county council area with all the districts involved.

As well as steering the MAA itself, the board links the two LSPs (Leicester Partnership and Leicestershire Together). Below this member-level board there is an officer Co-ordination Group.

Housing is one of five strategy and performance groups – the Housing, Planning and Infrastructure (HPI) Group. This is chaired by the Chief Executive of Harborough District Council. The HPI will lead on any housing-related MAA if the targets relate to housing growth, and the HPI is already the established mechanism for sub-regional consideration of housing development issues.

Already within its remit is the Growth Fund, a strategic housing and planning project funded through RIEP (Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership); together with some EMDA funding and the single conversation with the HCA. A County Housing Board is also being set up (early 2010) to bring together work on housing development, housing support and strategic housing services with a particular focus on delivery of an Improvement Plan addressing issues indentified in the Comprehensive Area Assessment.

A decision will be made soon as to whether to take forward a housing-related MAA. If it does go ahead, it is likely to be confined to strategic housing issues, with performance assessed against the two key indicators (NI 154 and 155). Depending on negotiations with government, the aim would be for the new MAA to go ahead from April 2010.

The impact

The immediate impact of the framework was to improve collaboration between the authorities – this is now generally agreed to be much better than before, especially from the viewpoint of the second-tier district councils which previously found it more difficult to get their voices heard in the dialogue between the two first-tier authorities. The HPI is chaired by a district representative, and the other second-tier districts are all represented. There is an issue about engagement and communication, however, with planning professionals predominating within the HPI membership and strategic housing and heads of housing less directly engaged.

The collaboration framework is also now seen as important by senior elected members and by the respective chief executives – it has achieved a status which was not achieved by longer-established inter-authority mechanisms (for example, a long-standing chief housing officers’ group).

The good experience of joint working on the current MAA has meant that the partners are well-advanced in dealing with economic issues, understanding needs and developing a good quality commissioning strategy. Economic issues are also seen as the driver of strategic housing issues. This provides a strong base for a housing-related MAA.

In housing terms, the HPI group which will lead on the housing aspect of the MAA is already well-placed to do so because of its other work.

Lessons

The authorities had hoped the current MAA would produce more flexibility about use of resources than was actually achieved. Whether they go ahead to extend the MAA to cover housing will therefore depend on their judgement of what more it will enable them to deliver, in addition to what is already possible through the strategic co-ordination arrangements now in place.

It remains to be seen if central government will ‘bring to the table’ a wider range of concessions and flexibilities about funding programmes relating to housing that would be attractive to authorities in sub-regions such as Leicester and Leicestershire. For example, one ‘ask’ might be whether decisions about numbers of housing units can be devolved from regional to sub-regional level.

Despite having a good sub-regional mechanism in place to deliver housing strategy in partnership with government agencies, it is still vulnerable to changes in government policy. The Growth Fund has been cut, even though the budget had been fully committed up until 2011/2012. This has led to ‘decommissioning’ of projects, with an attempt being made to share equitably the impact of the cuts.

The value of the current framework (possibly strengthened by extending the MAA to cover housing) will be seen over future years, as access to capital funding becomes more difficult. A key test will be whether the framework survives when it becomes the mechanism for allocating a much smaller pot of resources, with some areas inevitably being cut more than others.

Further information

Mandip Rai
Strategy & Partnership Manager
Sub-Regional Support Unit
Leicester City Council
New Walk Centre
Leicester
LE1 6ZG

telephone: 0116 2527312

email: mandip.rai@leicester.gov.uk

RAF Marham in West Norfolk employs almost 5,000 people, takes up around 90 per cent of places at the local village primary school and is a major consumer of local goods and services. However, until three years ago, contacts between the base and the surrounding community were largely ceremonial. To improve its local links, the base adopted a more outward-looking approach and took up a seat on the local strategic partnership (LSP). One of its representatives now sits on the LSP management group and has established a wide and growing range of bilateral contacts. These have improved the range of local services available on the base, at the same time, extending the base’s contribution to the local community and local economy as employer, consumer and provider of training opportunities.

The issue

National

British defence resources have become increasingly stretched in recent years with substantial engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government has emphasised the importance of ensuring that adequate support and services are available to military personnel and their families. This was formally recognised with the publication in 2008 of a command paper from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), ‘The Nation’s Commitment: cross-government support to our armed forces, their families and veterans’.

This paper summarised some of the issues facing service personnel and their families in the 21st century. It described what is already being done and set out a range of measures for the future. The importance of integrating or reintegrating returning service personnel has long been recognised: soldiers coming back from the First World War in 1918 were promised ‘homes fit for heroes’.

However, the MoD paper argues that, in some ways, the issue is more important in today’s climate:

“Those who might join the armed forces have aspirations and expectations that are higher than ever. Their families are more complex and often find it harder to accept the demands of service life. Routinely moving our forces around makes it harder for them to achieve home ownership and exercise choice in their lives.�

The paper insists, “…the essential starting point is that those who serve must not be disadvantaged by virtue of what they do� and it includes a range of proposals to achieve this ambition.

• Service personnel and their families will have an improved access to social housing.
• Children in service families will not suffer disadvantage in the allocation of school places because of their family’s mobility.
• Members of service families will not have to wait longer for hospital treatment when moving to a different base. Previous waiting time will be taken into account with the expectation that treatment will be within national waiting time standards.
• Local authorities and their partners on local strategic partnerships (LSPs) “should consider consulting … representatives of service personnel� in the development of sustainable community strategies (SCSs) and local area agreements (LAA).

Issues at RAF Marham

The Marham Wing is one of the largest and busiest in the RAF, operating four squadrons of Tornado GR4 aircraft in the attack and reconnaissance roles. In addition, the station is home to a number of other key support units. Almost 5,000 people work on the base, which makes it one of the largest employers in West Norfolk with an annual wage bill of around £85 million. In an otherwise largely rural district, the station exercises considerable influence on the local economy and on the demand for, and provision of services. This is recognised in the borough’s community strategy, which points out that:

“The station is in the first year of a 10-year, £947 million defence industrial partnership with BAE Systems as the prime contractor to deliver engineering support for the Royal Air Force’s entire Tornado aircraft fleet and, as such, is driving up the area’s skills profile.�

The base is valued not just as an employer, but also for the spending power it brings to the local economy, the business opportunities it offers to local firms and as a source of recruitment – many of the local council’s employees are the partners of service personnel at the base.

The station’s child population indicates its significance locally:

• There is an average of 100 births a year in families stationed at RAF Marham, which constitutes half the local total. It is unlikely that maternity facilities at the local hospital would be maintained without this level of births.
• According to the Officer Commanding Base Support Wing (OC-BSW) – which looks after, among other things, personnel, station property and amenities, and community relations – more than 90 per cent of the children at the village junior and infants’ school are connected to families on the base.

Until recently, the station’s links to the wider community were limited to largely ceremonial occasions. As a consequence, its understanding of the opportunities – and limitations – local service provision offered were also limited. Although a variety of service provision is available on station from the RAF directly or from dedicated charities, it is not exhaustive and was not well integrated with mainstream provision. This led to both gaps in provision and duplication.

Family support – Social work support of the specialised kind needed by service personnel and their families, dealing with the stress of combat situations, is available through the Soldiers’, Sailors’, Airmen’s and Families’ Association (SSAFA). According to the OC-BSW, the local authority regards the SSAFA support as being sufficient to deal with all the issues that are part of its statutory responsibility. But this may not necessarily be the case: for example, if there are child protection issues.

Children’s centre – A children’s centre has recently been established on the base at a cost of £1.2 million, paid for by the RAF Benevolent Society. The centre is primarily used by service families, although there is some access for non-service children. However, it has not proved possible to secure support from or involvement with the local SureStart. This is a good example of the misunderstandings that can arise because of the size of the forces’ presence. Because the RAF Benevolent Fund have paid for the build of the centre, SureStart believe it is well founded. They are reluctant to change their structure and support mechanisms. According to the OC-BSW, “The provision of charity money has meant that other agencies are loath to assist.�

Leisure amenities – A range of leisure activities and clubs is available on the base, including a social centre with a bar and cafe. None of these amenities, however, receive any public funds: all are either self-funded or supported through service charities.

Access to council services – As with all military establishments, RAF Marham makes a payment to the local councils (of around £1 million per year) as the equivalent of council tax, but until recently they had no idea what services that payment entitled them to, or who to ask. For example, until recently they handled their own rubbish bin collection – unaware of their rights from the council.

Medical services – All the on-site medical services are provided by the RAF, including a doctors’ practice. However, the primary care trust (PCT) is currently considering locating a dentists’ surgery there, following an initiative by RAF Marham to bring them onto the base. This surgery will be ‘outside the wire’ and therefore accessible to non-service personnel.

What they did

In the past, a combination of tactical necessity and RAF culture maintained barriers between the base and the local area, residents and agencies. Security requirements imposed through the cold war (when RAF Marham had been a nuclear base) and then the threats of IRA terrorism meant that the base and its personnel had to keep a low profile.

Three years ago, the then OC-BSW initiated a systematic programme of cooperation between the base and the local community. As the borough council chief executive put it, “They adopted a more outward-looking approach which we warmly welcomed�. Among other things, this included a seat on the West Norfolk Partnership, the district LSP. The OC-BSW has subsequently argued successfully for the station to have a seat on the partnership management group.

The presence of the RAF Marham representative has been of great assistance to the partnership. There is currently limited representation from the private sector on the LSP – just a representative from the chamber of commerce. So the presence of someone who is effectively running a large ‘business’ – with engineering, commercial and residential property, logistics and personal services interests – brings a valuable set of skills.

RAF Marham’s presence on the LSP has also helped the base to ’up its game’, as the OC-BSW put it, partly because of what happens at the partnership meetings. Also, and perhaps mainly, because of the contacts that the LSP has provided, it has helped them to “know what they don’t know� and develop bilateral relationships – for example, with the local college, the PCT, police and local authorities.

The station’s approach has been based on two key principles:

There has been clear recognition that involvement with the local community is a two-way street and that RAF Marham must invest in the local community if it is to benefit from what the community has to offer.
Building productive relationships requires a community development approach.
This has involved extensive programmes of consultation with the whole RAF community on the base. The station website describes how this has been conducted:

“Over the last three years, numerous questionnaires, surveys and focus groups have taken place in order for us to ensure that we have an individual, bespoke assessment of our community’s needs, wants and aspirations. This assessment is key to the successful integration of RAF Marham within the local community.�

But the station has also focused on the needs of the wider local community, for example through involvement with the parish plan. The base has also organised a ‘Pride in Marham’ campaign to help develop positive relationships between the station and the local community. The objectives of the campaign are to:

• improve communication
• promote community involvement
• create links with the community businesses and local volunteer groups
• offer advice on improving the environment
• raise standards and promote best practice
• provide quality service
• engage hard-to-reach groups
• continually monitor and evaluate services to improve efficiency.

Some of the activities generated by the campaign include:

• community clean ups
• environmental education projects
• healthy lifestyles
• citizenship
• anti-social behaviour
• recycling.

The borough is also trying to ensure that it takes into account the needs and aspirations of people associated with the base. Its second ‘Quality of Life’ survey, set for October 2009, sees a plan to increase the sample size in Marham to ensure the survey captures the views of service personnel and their families. Since the first survey in 2007, Marham’s community development team have been helping the LSP with their response to the issues raised.

The impact

The partnership coordinator is in no doubt that RAF Marham has raised its profile and there is a much greater recognition of the role that it plays in West Norfolk. This recognition provides opportunities for RAF Marham both now and in the future. However, he also points out that the consequences of the higher profile may take a while to generate results. That said, a variety of tangible impacts are in evidence:

• In 2008, RAF Marham was granted honorary Freedom of Norwich. As the city’s website says, “Giving them rights to march and parade through the city, the honour is in recognition of the close historic ties between Norwich and Royal Air Force Marham and the continuing contribution it makes to the life of the city.�
• In 2009, the Borough of Kings Lynn and West Norfolk launched a ‘Heroes Welcome’ campaign. As the leader of the council says, “We all depend heavily upon the work of our military forces and these, by and large, young people are a significant part of our community. This is a simple but sincere gesture of gratitude for the difficult tasks we ask them to undertake and an expression of a warm welcome to West Norfolk�. The campaign also offers tangible benefits to service personnel and their families through free access to a number of council amenities and discounts from a growing range of local traders.
• Access to information: the borough maintains an information point on the base to signpost personnel and their families to local services.
• Partnership officers provide a signpost to the right people to talk to about services.
• A mobile library provided by the county now visits the base – a far better option than the very limited library facilities provided on-site before.
• There is involvement in decisions about all strategic changes within the district.
• There are improvements to the road system on the base, benefiting all aspects of the business.
• There have been minor improvements to the pavements and kerbs around the base – minor issues but with a huge benefit to families.

The lessons

For the OC-BSW, the key to success in the process of integration is to demonstrate reciprocity: if the base is to benefit from its links with the local community it must also invest in it. Certainly, RAF Marham does a great deal for the local community. For example:

• Volunteers from the RAF personnel on the base run a variety of amenities/clubs for local young people.
• Those volunteers, however, are regularly away on missions. The base is seeking volunteers from local civilians to help run the clubs in return for having access to them. The result, it is hoped, will be a partnership approach that cements relationships between the military and civilian populations.
• There is some access to the children’s centre for non-service personnel.
• RAF medical personnel at the base are qualified to train others as GPs and are training junior RAF doctors as GPs.
• Without the custom provided from RAF Marham, the local hospital’s maternity wing would probably not survive.
• The base is working with local schools and the college to address its sophisticated skills requirements – especially in the field of engineering. The future of the base at Marham is guaranteed until at least 2025 and so can provide employment opportunity like no other in the district.

From the perspective of local public sector agencies, the key issue is to ensure continuity. According to the council’s chief executive, the strength of the relationship between the base and the wider community at present is a result of the enthusiasm and commitment of the current representative on the LSP. However, officers normally only serve two-year tours of duty, so the present incumbent is likely to be moving on shortly. A key lesson, therefore, is to ensure that the engagement of military bases with the LSP continues despite any personnel changes. The relationship needs to be institutional rather than individual.

The impact of relatively high turnover goes beyond the relationship with the LSP representative. Other ranks only serve four-year tours, so the whole base population is constantly changing. Local councils and other service providers need to undertake continuous re-marketing to recognise the high turnover that characterises service bases.

That marketing needs to recognise that military personnel, coming from an ordered hierarchical working environment, may not understand the intricate and arcane processes and relationships of public sector partnerships. There is, therefore, an important educational and signposting role for council and LSP staff.