Empowered communities implementing the White Paper

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Empowered communities implementing the White
Paper

• Charles Woodd - Community Empowerment Division

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Strong and prosperous communities

• The aim of the Local Government White Paper is
  to give local people and local communities more
  influence and power to improve their lives.
• It is about ..rebalancing the relationship
  between central government, local government and
  local people.
• Ruth Kelly, MP
• Secretary of State

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Securing participation the new Best Value duty

• Under the new Best Value duty, authorities will
  be required to take steps, where appropriate, to
  ensure participation of local citizens by
• Informing them
• Consulting citizens and communities
• Involving them in designing, delivering or
  assessing a service

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The structural context for community engagement

• Sustainable Community Strategy
• Local Area Agreement
• Local Development Framework
• A strategic framework for commissioning
• Statement of Community Involvement
• Asset management strategies and plans
• Compact with the voluntary and community sector
• Neighbourhood management and governance

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A strategic approach to community engagement and
empowerment

• Two dimensions to community engagement and
  empowerment
• Creating more opportunities
• Building capacity, in both local government and
  communities, to take advantage of those
  opportunities

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Three starting points.

• Blueprints no recipes yes
• Diverse responses in unique localities
• The limits of top down planning learning through
  trial and error and shared experience

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OPPORTUNITIESStrengthening the role and
representativeness of councillors

• Commission on Councillors, looking at
• recruitment
• retention
• recognition
• Reporting in November 2007
• Community Call for Action
• Overview and Scrutiny Committee

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OPPORTUNITIESRepresentative structures

• Representation on the LSP
• The proposed health-related LINks local
  involvement networks
• Other service-based bodies
• Top-down devolved structures eg area committees
  and forums

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OPPORTUNITIESNeighbourhood management and
governance

• Parish and community councils
• simplifying and extending process of
  establishment
• extending well-being power to Quality parishes
• Neighbourhood management
• Local charters, perhaps based on neighbourhood or
  parish planning
• Residents networks, forums etc

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OPPORTUNITIESCommunity management and ownership
of assets

• Quirk Review
• - corporate approach to asset management
• - asset transfer to communities as a serious
  option
• - greater awareness of powers and good practice
• Tenant management
• - review of Right to Manage regulations

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BUILDING CAPACITYBuilding capacity in local
government

• Community engagement as an improvement priority
  within the emerging National Improvement Strategy
• Training councils and other LSP partners as
  commissioners in the broad sense
• Learning provision for councillors as well as
  officers

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BUILDING CAPACITYBuilding capacity in
communities

• Learning for active citizenship and citizen
  governance www.takepart.org
• Better co-ordination of community development
  Community Development Challenge report
• Neighbourhood/community level infrastructure
  Firm Foundations (Home Office 2004)
• Good practice guidance, online information
  including www.togetherwecan.info

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BUILDING CAPACITYBuilding capacity in the third
sector

• ChangeUp/Capacitybuilders support for the third
  sector infrastructure
• National specialist networks eg on asset-based
  development
• Community Assets Transfer Fund grants to
  facilitate asset transfer to communities

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Guidance and support

• Statutory place-shaping guidance
• Guidance package on Community Call for Action,
  Overview and Scrutiny and LINks
• Good practice guidance on community empowerment
  LGA led
• Quality assurance for community empowerment
  practice national and regional consortia
  (developing from May 2007?)

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Questions

• What do you want from national good practice
  guidance?
• What mechanisms are there for learning and
  sharing across the region? What would add value?
• What mechanisms already exist in local areas for
  developing a strategic approach to community
  engagement and empowerment?

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Contact details

• Charles Woodd
• Community Empowerment Division
• Communities and Local Government
• Charles.woodd_at_communities.gsi.gov.uk
• Tel [phone]