Values into Action

- lessons for community development and sustainable regeneration.

We are a English Midlandsbased social business. Ourgoals are:

To provide high quality services tailored to people’s needs and preferences

support which helps people to live fuller lives

neighbourhoods which are better places to live.

fch: the organisation

Neighbourhood Management

The fch approach

Anticipating National Strategy Anticipating National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewalfor Neighbourhood Renewal

Pilot neighbourhood initiativesPilot neighbourhood initiatives• Anti-povertyAnti-poverty• Sustainability of neighbourhoodsSustainability of neighbourhoods• Service deliveryService delivery

Building capacity Building capacity Enabling communities to have Enabling communities to have

greater impact on decisionsgreater impact on decisions

Neighbourhood Management

The Way Forward

New Government initiatives for joint

working

Community-led approaches, not

short-termist approaches of the past

Most effective strategies engage

at all levels

fch Locality Teams provide nucleus for

such strategies in its key neighbourhoods

Sparkbrook, Birmingham

Among most deprived areas in the UK

First housing action area in Britain, 1975

Inner city partnership programme funding

for the area in 1980s

Urban Action Plan for the area (1995),

developed by Birmingham City Council

SSTARI Regeneration Initiative (1996)

Designated health improvement area

Local Service PartnershipA Community Vehicle for

Sparkbrook

Involves fch, Focus Housing

Group and Birmingham City

Council

Specially established body

delivering a range of services

Involves local community in

running multi-function

services

Inadequate communication between

agencies

Agencies not well integrated with

SRB Partnership

Facilitating Childcare Project

Quality of Life Project (CURS, 2000)

research demonstrated need for better

co-ordination of regeneration activities

Background to LSP

Local Service Partnership

Objectives:

• To obtain accurate information and views from the community about the neighbourhood

• To develop a suitable mechanism that meets local needs and addresses issues of decline

• To establish a model of neighbourhood community involvement

Structure

• Board comprises 4 local community representatives (including schools and businesses)

• 5 local residents

• 3 landlord representatives

Consultation involved tenants and service users of fch and Focus

Identified need for capacity building

Role of capacity building to develop, later to include prioritisation and budget reviews

Emphasis on active involvement of tenants, rather than local councillors

Community involvement in the LSP

• Enables effective and inclusive involvement of the community in establishing the LSP

• Local community mapping exercise and developing database of local groups

• Enables groups to access training, employment and funding opportunities

• Identifies opportunities for joint working by social landlords in providing “street services”

• Aims to build capacity of wider community, not just social housing tenants

• Transferable model of community empowerment, if developed successfully

Community facilitator project

Lessons learned to date

Contending with other City Council priorities

• Some activities overtaken by politics of whole stock

transfer

• Provides useful information to shape future City

proposals

• Confirms the need for holistic view of service

provision

Financial viability

Three -stage process

Multi-landlord v single landlord experiences

Involving frontline staff

Evidence - anecdotal v. empirical

A paradigm shift

•UK Government expects cultural shift in attitudes of staff in statutory and local agencies

•Could take up to 10 years for local strategic partnerships to include genuine community representation

•Statutory agencies vulnerable to overnight changes in political leadership and direction

•Local Agencies in a better position to sustain this shift

Conclusions

Effective Neighbourhood

Management must… recognise that holistic

working is resource intensive and needs time to develop

not create structures which are set in concrete at the outset

recognise the need for informal as well as formal structures - the “weak” tools of persuasion and knowledge building as well as the “strong” tools of regulation