(C)all
me old fashioned, but the very essence of why have an LSP
should be debated as
the first step to ensure what is in place
is focused on outcomes for the People
of Croydon.
- Nathan Elvery,
CEO, Croydon Council;
email to
author 7 August
-
Tuesday 11 November sees the first meeting of the new Stronger Communities Partnership (SCP)
Board of the Croydon Local Strategic Partnership. It will comprise 5
Councillors headed by the Cabinet Member for Safety and Justice as Chair (Mark
Watson), the Council’s Chief Executive Nathan Elvery, the Borough Police Commander,
the Chief Executives of Croydon Voluntary Action, BME Forum and Commitment
(business sector)), 6 members of the Voluntary Sector Alliance, and
representatives of faith(3) tenants and residents associations (4), Safer Neighbourhood Boards (2), Youth Parliament
(2), Youth Council (2), and the Chairs of SCP Sub-groups. The tenants and residents
associations members will be chosen as at meeting on Monday 3 November.
The
approach taken by the administration has been top-down. There was no series of
consultation meetings to discuss the initiative. If the Croydon LSP is to be a
genuine partnership then all sectoral groups should have been involved in
deciding what is the best way to reform it, rather than tweaking existing,
maybe inadequate mechanisms.
It
will be interesting to see whether on 11 November the draft terms of reference
will be amended and membership categories changed.
The
fact the Chairs of sub-groups will be members of the Board suggests that they
need not be members of other categories on the Board. It is not clear what
these will be and how their memberships will be determined.
Croydon
TUC has requested representation in its own right since its member trade union
branches involve about 30,000 people in the Borough. The heritage organisations
are not involved in their own right despite their importance in helping to
safeguard the building environment that local communities value.
The
role of the SCP Board is to oversee and co-ordinate the development of Croydon’s
communities agenda by:
- Setting the overarching
vision and strategy for social cohesion in the borough.
- Holding other partnership groups
to account where their work has an impact on the communities agenda.
- Oversight of the work of
its sub-groups.
It
will meet a minimum of four times a year and hold an annual conference; all of which
a wider community audience can attend and take part in.
There
are a number of key issues that past experience with the way partnerships have
operated need to be considered in the initial discussion on 11 November and
worked on over the following months.
Workload. The workload
on members will be very heavy since they have to be able to understand the work
of the other sections of the LSP. This means that Nathan Elvery’s promise that
reports are in plain English should be a top priority that must determine all
reports written for all the partnership bodies.
Intellectual
Approach.
The members will have to develop an ability to think laterally, to develop an
understanding of how different services and issues interact on each other, to
think outside the box of their own particular sectoral interest so they take an
overview, to develop a critical analytic approach and to develop the confidence
to challenge what professionals, Councillors, Chief Executives and officers are
telling them.
Equality
of Status. It
needs to be clear that even though they bring different levels of resources to
the table, every sector is an equal partner. The Councillors, the Borough
Commander and the Chief Executives must avoid seeking to dominate, and must
work to encourage active participation by the representatives of each sector.
Representation
of Umbrella Groups.
The CVA, CBME, Croydon Commitment, the Youth Parliament and Council should be
expected to demonstrate on a regular basis the work they have undertaken to
encourage more organisations and individuals to become involved in their work,
so they increase their representative nature. There are a considerable range of
differences between their roles, the levels of funding, their organisational
ability to do community development work. There can also be problems involved
between such organisations and the many voluntary and community sector
organisations which are not members of them.
The
Neighbourhood Perspective. If there is to be genuine and effective
representation of all groups, especially listening to and taking account of community
needs and views expressed at the neighbourhood level a major question has to be
how can views of residents, businesses, local organisations and service providers in each neighbourhood be
taken into account. Neighbourhoods have a range of organisations including
community and voluntary ones running activities and providing services, and
faith groups. There is a strong case for the development of Neighbourhood
Forums, and Neighbourhood Committees comprising the local ward Councillors and
representatives of the range of organisations.
Unorganised
Neighbourhoods.
Many neighbourhoods are not represented by tenants residents and business groups.
A major component of the Board’s work must be to develop a community
development strategy to help the setting up of neighbourhood organisations
delivered independently of any SCP member organisations.
Small
Businesses.
There may be a large number of small businesses in different areas which are
not members of Croydon Commitment or but may be members of local business
forums. Thought needs to be given to how these are able to participate.
Representation of SCP on other LSP Partnership bodies. How will it be represented across the other specialist partnerships and
at the overall LSP level? The danger is that these will be dominated by the
Council and the statutory agencies with no effective equal voice from
communities.
Training.
Partnership working is a very difficult and onerous responsibility of everyone
concerned. It is too easy just to slip into each partner thinking in silo
mentality ensuring they tick their own organisational boxes. Members need to
spend time preparing for meetings. They need training in partnership working.
This is not just the case with new people but also for those who have been involved
in the past as a refresher on basic principles. The training also needs to
focus on reducing the potential for misunderstandings between SCP members based
on the use of specialist jargon, and of words which mean different things in
different service/sector contexts. In particular the meaning of ‘neighbourhood’,
‘local’, and ‘community’ will differ. These need to be discussed so a common
definition is agreed.
SCP
Budget.
If the representatives of the non-statutory bodies are to be convinced that the
SCP is truly a partnership and not an off-shoot of and dominated by the
Council, the SCP must have its own budget and employ its own support staff
which are accountable collectively to the whole membership of the SCP. The job
description of the SCP support staff should make it clear that their prime
duties include:
·
effective
servicing to facilitate partnership working
·
alerting
the SCP to problems being created by any of the partners which could undermine
the achievement of the strategy or undermine partnership working
·
having
a responsibility to facilitate effective involvement and equal status for the
voluntary community, resident and faith sectors.
Members
Support Resources.
Those members of the SCP who are essentially volunteers and are not involved as
part of their paid employment (like the CEOs) or allowances (Councillors),
could find their involvement expensive. This could put some people off taking
part. The SCP budget should include financial support to voluntary members for
their travel, unpaid time off work, home computer and printing costs.
Timing
Of Meetings.
The first SCP Board meeting starts at 5.30pm. This will mean that some
voluntary members will have to leave work early. Unless meetings are held later
then some people may be unable to put themselves forward to be representatives.
Mediation.
There will be conflict between some SCP member organisations and sectors that
will need to be mediated. Members will need to develop a mature approach to
continue to work together on some matters while being in active disagreement on
others. Public service provider members need to recognise that one of the
functions of the community sectoral groups is to challenge what they are doing.
Background Note
As its Policy
Development Officer I advised British
Association of Settlements & Social Action Centres members and others in
2001 and 2002 on the establishment of Local Strategic Partnerships and
Community Empowerment Networks (CENs). I then did some work with the five CENs involvement
in the economic development partnership on Tyne and Wear. I then assisted the
working establishment of the CEN in Wandsworth including its first involvements
at the LSP table.
On
7 August I sent Nathan Elvery a note in which I said ‘My guess is that with the past history and changes of the LSP in Croydon and the change in personnel it would be sensible to get back to first principles so everyone understands what LSPs are about and could achieve and the need for the VCS to be treated around the table even though it is not as well resourced as other partners and other partners find its diversity and numbers difficult to comprehend’
I drew attention to the Local Government
Association’s guidance to LSPs and the engagement of the community and
voluntary sector, which I was involved in drafting, Building effective LSPs ( (May 2001) and Learning from LSPs (March 2002). As I still have the second one in
pdf format on my computer I provided Elvery with it, copied to Cllrs Newman and
Watson and the CEO of CVA.
The
pdf is available from me at sean.creighton1947@btinternet.com
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