Neighbourhood Renewal

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT

 

GOVERNMENT POLICY INITIATIVES

 

·                     urban and rural renaissance

·                     roll-back neighbourhood deprivation

·                     reduce poverty

·                     raise educational standards

·                     improve health equality

·                     reduce crime and order

·                     improve housing conditions

·                     create a culture of life-long learning

·                     promote e-society 

·                     reduce unemployment

·                     develop a highly skilled workforce

·                     improve transport

·                     tackle discrimination and racism

·                     promote cultural diversity and community cohesion

 

KEY UNDERSTANDINGS

 

·                     Renewal must be people and community centred

·                     No-short-term fixes.

·                     Join-up planning and delivery across discrete policy areas through partnership.

·                     No two places are the same. Communities have different needs, different strengths and different aspirations.

·                     No ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach; strategies must be tailored to each area and its people.

·                     People have right to be involved in deciding how their town or city develops.

·                     Real, sustainable change will not be achieved unless local people are in driving seat right from the start.

·                     Everybody should be included. Exclusion closes benefit of their contribution.

·                     Past Government policies and delivery of services contributed to continuing disadvantage and decline of many neighbourhoods into disadvantage.

 

CHALLENGES

 

How to:

 

·                     map how everything links together

·                     identify the challenges to the way they work

·                     decide how they can make a positive contribution

·                     re-think how their role fits in with those of others

·                     re-think the way they spend their budgets  

·                     their staff and ruling committee members to be open to new ways of working and thinking

 

GOVERNMENT POLICY DELIVERY REFORMS

 

·                     Elected mayors or cabinets of leading Councillors

·                     Community Strategies

·                     Local Strategic Partnerships

·                     Enhanced role of Government Offices

·                     Regional Development Agencies - economic regeneration

·                     Learning & Skills Councils -  post-16 education and training

·                     NHS reforms e.g. Primary Care Trusts

·                     Public Service Agreements and targets

·                     Devolving power to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

·                     Enhancing role of Regional Assemblies (derailed)

·                     Community cohesion

·                     Local Area Agreements

 

URBAN WHITE PAPER

 

·                     Links physical/environmental & social/economic elements to attempt successful regeneration.

·                     Framework for action.

·                     Shows how Government initiatives fit together.

·                     Urban Summit February 2005

 

Vision

 

·                     Urban areas offer high quality of life and opportunity for all.

·                     People shape future of community, supported by strong and truly representative local leaders.

·                     People live in attractive, well kept towns and cities which use space and buildings well.

·                     Good design and planning reduce noise, pollution and traffic congestion.

·                     owns and cites create/share prosperity, investing to help all citizens reach full potential.

·                     Good quality services meet needs of people and businesses.

 

COMMUNITY STRATEGIES

 

·                     Aim to improve economic and social and environmental well-being of area.

·                     Outline vision for regeneration and improvement of quality of life of area.

·                     Provide integrated approach to sustainable economic, social and physical development

·                     Proper assessment of needs and availability of resources

·                     Allow local communities to articulate their aspirations, needs and priorities; consultation

·                     Co-ordinate, focus and shaping actions of Council and public, voluntary and community and private sector organisations to meet community needs and aspirations

·                     Action plan identifying short-term priorities and activities contributing to  achievement of long-term outcomes

·                     Arrangements for monitoring action plan implementation

·                     Periodic review of community strategy & report progress to local people

 

NEIGHBOURHOOD RENEWAL STRATEGY

 

·                     To reverse poverty and disadvantage of hundreds of neighbourhoods in England

·                     ‘A New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal. National Strategy Action Plan’ (January 2001) - developed by Social Exclusion Unit

 

 Key barriers to achieving real change:

 

·                     failure to address problems of local economies

·                     failure to promote safe and stable communities

·                     poor core public services, such as health, education, etc

·                     failure to involve communities

·                     lack of leadership and joint working

·                     insufficient information and poor use of it


Most disadvantaged neighbourhoods:

 

·                     have more than two in five people drawing means-tested benefits, three-quarters of young people failing to get 5 good GSCEs, homes which are empty or hard to fill, high crime and unemployment rates

·                     are in all parts of the country, north and south, rural and urban, inner-city and edge of cities, and across all housing tenures.

 

Long-term goals:

 

·                     In all poorest neighbourhoods, to have common goals of lower worklessness and crime, and better health, skills, housing and physical environment.

·                     To narrow gap between most deprived neighbourhoods and rest of country.

·                     10-20 years to achieve these goals.

 

Key Approaches:

 

·         Attack core problems of deprived areas, like weak economies and poor schools.

·         Harness power of all sectors to work in partnership.

·         Focus existing services and resources explicitly on deprived areas.

·         Give local residents and community groups central role in turning their neighbourhoods around.

·         Tackle deprivation and social inclusion through ‘bending’ main Departmental programmes including those of the police and health services, to focus on the most deprived areas.

·         Make better use of existing budgets more appropriately targeted and delivered.

 

The 88 Areas

 

·                     88 urban and rural local authority areas were designated as priority areas for receiving Neighbourhood Renewal, Community Empowerment and Community Chest Funds.

·                     Not the 88 most deprived.

·                     Mechanisms to join up locally and empower communities: Community Strategies, Local Strategic Partnerships, Neighbourhood Management, and the special funds. 

·                     Mechanisms for national and regional support, inc. Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, Neighbourhood Renewal Teams in the Regional Government Offices

 

PUBLIC SERVICE FLOOR TARGETS

 

·                     To help reduce the gap between the poorest areas and the rest of the country.

·                     Indicate what the priorities should be at local level.

·                     Make sure that where public services are failing, they get better

·                     Government Departments have these through Public Service Agreements (PSA)

 

Original Public Service floor targets:

 

·                     Education. Increase the % of pupils obtaining five+ GCSEs at trades A* to C (or equivalent)

·                     Employment. Increase employment rates.

·                     Crime. Reduce the level of crime.

·                     Health. Reduce the life expectancy gap.

·                     Housing: Improve the quality of social housing.

 

Revised and new targets:

 

1.    Reducing smoking: to 21% or less; to 26% or less for manual groups (by 2010)

2.    Reducing early deaths from cancer (6% closing the gap), heart disease and strokes (40% closing the gap) (by 2010)

3.    Reducing under-18 pregnancy rate by 50% (by 2010)

4.    Reduce the proportion of young people not in education, employment and training by 2% through focus of lowest attaining pupils (by 2010)

5.    Child development

6.    Achieving better results in high crime areas (reduction by 15%+ by 2007-8)

7.    Increase employment rates for lone parents, ethnic minorities, people aged 50+, those with lowest qualifications and those living in local authority wards with the poorest labour market position (by spring 2008)

8.    Significantly reduce the difference between the employment rates of disadvantaged groups and the overall rate (by spring 2008)

9.    Bring all social housing into a decent condition with most improvement in deprived areas, and for vulnerable households in the private sector

10.  Liveability - making public spaces cleaner, safer and greener and improvement of the built environment in deprived areas (measurable by 2008)

 

·                     From April 2005 Departments have a new PSA requirement: to tackle social exclusion and neighbourhood renewal

 

MAINSTREAMING

 

·                     Re-allocation of mainstream resources – changing spending patterns to target the most deprived areas

·                     Focussing policy on poorer areas

·                     Reshaping services to reflect local needs

·                     Joining-up services, programmes and targets

·                     Learning good practice from pilot projects

 

GOVERNMENT MACHINERY

 

Neighbourhood Renewal Unit

 

·                     Oversees the National Strategy.

·                     Based in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

 

Government Offices

 

·                     Assisted the process of establishing the priority Local Strategic Partnerships.

·                     Accredited priority LSPs.

·                     Mediated disputes between different sectors involved in LSPs.

·                     Made arrangements for establishment of  Community Networks to engage in the priority LSPs.

·                     Contracted organisations to administer Community Empowerment, Community Chest and Community Learning Funds for priority LSP areas until these funds merged together and given to the local authorities to administer from April 2005.

·                     Key role in agreeing Local Area Agreements.

 

LOCAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

 

·                     Had to be established in 88 Neighbourhood Renewal local authority areas.

·                     Set up in non-Neighbourhood Renewal areas.

·                     To involve public sector agencies, private business, voluntary and community sectors.

·                     Prepare and implement Community Strategy.

·                     Bring together local plans, partnerships and initiatives.

·                     Work with local authorities that are developing a local Public Service Agreement.

·                     Approve, develop and deliver neighbourhood renewal strategy.

·                     Specialist partnerships and strategies have to adapt to Community Strategy.

·                     Seek to change the way main stream services deliver.

·                     Expected to have major role in Local Area Agreements

 


 

COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT NETWORKS

 

·                     Part of National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal.

·                     Mechanism to enable community and voluntary sector organisations and local residents and community members to have strong in Local Strategic Partnerships.

·                     Community Empowerment Fund provided money to set up Networks until merger into funds handed over to local authorities to administer.

 

Elements

 

·                     Outreach, especially to excluded communities.

·                     Build awareness of opportunity chance to express views and directly influence service providers.

·                     Pull together views of community and voluntary sectors, and those of community members and residents.

·                     Support for identifying key issues and developing solutions.

·                     Procedures for choosing community and voluntary sector members of LSP

·                     Participation of community and voluntary sector members in sufficient numbers on LSP, for which they might need training and other forms of support

·                     Provide link between LSP and community and voluntary sectors and community members and residents

·                     Offer community members and residents way of accessing LSP

·                     Encourage and provide opportunities for communications and networking between groups

·                     Disseminate information and advice about training, skills and good practice

·                     Draw up plan for using CEF taking into account needs of most deprived neighbourhoods and marginalised communities and priorities for action set out in Community and Neighbourhood Renewal Strategies

 

Criteria for effectiveness

 

·                     Build effective relationship between sector and LSP

·                     Include full range of community and voluntary sector groups

·                     Reach out to those excluded or not represented by any community body

·                     Build on existing community and voluntary sector networks and partnerships

·                     Have accessible and consistent methods of accountability through reporting back

·                     Use members’ time and resource effectively avoiding partnership burden

·                     Be accessible to all, inc. disabled people and those whose language is not English

·                     Be well-structured and impartial

·                     Continuously review appropriate membership as Network and LSP evolve

 

Uses for CEF - Examples

 

·                     Outreach work to make sure awareness of opportunities for participation and encouragement to take them up.

·                     Ongoing training and support for sector members of LSP.

·                     Two way dissemination of information about LSP process and about specific issues.

·                     Communications – e.g. newsletters, web sites, notice boards, regular meetings.

·                     Support for development ideas, initiatives and contributions to strategic planning process that come from community itself (consultations, meetings, surveys, etc)

·                     Meeting costs incurred in participation in work of Network, inc.

-          travel and subsistence

-          costs of training

-          childcare

-          stationary, telephone, stamps

-          compensation to organisations for release of staff and volunteers to actively participate in Network

 

NEIGHBOURHOOD RENEWAL ACTION PLAN

 

The National Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy Action Plan envisages that a local neighbourhood renewal strategy should:

 

·                     set out an agreed vision and plan for positive change in as many neighbourhoods as are in need of renewal;

·                     have the agreement and commitment of all the key people and institutions who have a stake in the neighbourhood, or an impact on it; and

·                     clearly set out a local strategic framework for action that responds to neighbourhood needs and puts them in the context of the area as a whole.

 

The Action Plan outlines 5 steps in developing a local neighbourhood renewal strategy.

 

·                     Step 1: Identify the priority neighbourhoods.

·                     Step 2: Identify and understand the problems of priority neighbourhoods. What are the baseline statistics? What are the key problems? How have they changed over time? What are the causes?

·                     Step 3: Map resources going into property neighbourhoods. How much time and money do organisations including community and voluntary groups spend in the area? What other assets exist – volunteers, buildings, facilities, organisations, community groups or networks not currently involved in regeneration?

·                     Step 4: Agree on what more needs to be done. Agree goals and make commitments e.g. to: set targets; change the way existing services work; introduce new services; join up services; expand existing services; try Neighbourhood Management; consider the most effective use of assets; rationalise activity; bid for new money/explore new flexibilities with central Government

·                     Step 5: Implement and monitor agreed action: implement agreed changes, monitor changes in outcomes and ways of working, adapt strategy in response to risks and opportunities.

·                     Step 5 leads back to Step 1 to see whether the action has sufficiently achieved change so that the neighbourhood no longer needs to be a priority neighbourhood, or requires another process through steps 2-5.

 

UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS OF NEIGHBOURHOOD DECLINE

 

·                     The processes that create decline into deprivation of neighbourhoods and their concentration of social excluded residents are complex.

·                     They include the effect on the individual residents.

·                     Often they experience a process of personal impoverishment, a drastic impoverishment of their sense of well-being with adverse effects on physical and mental health.

·                     This aspect of the ‘spirituality’ of human beings needs to form part of the analysis of why particular neighbourhoods are deprived, and what may be going on in others to push them into the downward spiral into decay.

·                     The concept of the process of ‘impoverishment’ seems to be missing from the National Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy, but is usefully given its due in a handbook commissioned by the European Commission: ‘Rapid Appraisal Method of Social Exclusion and Poverty (RAMSEP)’ by Emanuel Mastropietro. (CERFE/European Commission 2001).

·                     RAMSEP definition: ‘Social exclusion is the process produced by the accumulative and interaction between each other of various social and environmental risk factors, which tend to push human beings exposed to it and affected by it toward a state of poverty. Social exclusion is therefore a process of impoverishment.’

·                     The Project suggests that :

o   due to the set of risk factors there is an impoverishment process taking a non-poor individual down into poverty

o   poverty involves a loss of identity, or a loss of wide-ranging control over the environment

o   different forms of deprivation produce different ways of reacting to poverty

o   different reactions to deprivation suggest different areas of poverty, the three main ones being: (a) transitional or intermittent, (b) overall condition of suffering, (c) extreme poverty involving a radical loss of control over one’s existence

 

Risk Factors

 

The project has identified 13 risk factors (some examples of detailed indicators are listed against each).

 

1.            Habitat. These include dwellings built in inappropriate areas, overcrowded areas, dwellings, continuous/deafening noise for long periods, pollution, toxic substance sin the ground, low presence of parks, green area

2.            Health. Level of availability of services, incidence of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, illegal abortions, incidence of mental illness and physical disabilities, alcoholism, drug addiction

3.            Work. Unemployment: general, youth, long-term; under-employment; employment locations not protected by trade union

4.            Intelligence. Quality of educational services, level of cultural infrastructure, school drop rate, difficult of access to training, incidence of unemployment among those with school qualifications and degrees

5.            Crime. Level of existence and maintenance of street lighting; police presence; hooliganism and vandalism; juvenile delinquency; bullying; crimes and thefts usury; drug dealing

6.            Gender. Rape and sexual harassment, prostitution, adult women at home, discrimination in workplace, prejudice against single mothers

7.            Family. Level of under 5s and youth provision, incidence of families separated by divorce, domestic violence, large families, one-parent families

8.            Communication. Network of public transport, road network condition, internet cafes/points, newsagents/vendors, post offices

9.            Public Administration. Emergency services, responsive of local government, health and other service agencies

10.          Institutional Disorder. Discrimination, abuse of police authority, political conflict, emigration abroad, illegal immigration, conflict between immigrants and resident population, benefit stigmatisation, existence of cultural mediators/translators in public offices

11.          Social Security. Income support, support for homelessness, elderly, employment is dangerous/unhealthy conditions (e.g. building sites without protection), employment without accident and illness insurance

12.          Social abandonment. Non profit services of social assistance and home care, self-help groups, elderly people living alone, vagrancy and homelessness,

13.          Consumption (non-essential goods). Malls, shopping centres, travel agencies, high tech shops, meeting places, gyms and swimming pools, exclusive shops

 

Types of Poverty

 

RAMSEP suggests that there are three types of poverty:

 

·                     Intermittent/transitory: borders on non-poverty

·                     Overall poverty: involving serious lack of resources, use of survival strategies, and optimism, weak social ties

·                     Extreme poverty: involves resignation so that there is less control over the environment and evidence loss of identity

·                     Individuals react differently to their deprivation. RAMSEP suggests that reactions involve different levels of loss of control of identify, caused by

o   intensity of material deprivation – low availability of goods enjoyed and/or basic services benefited from

o   loss of engagement in informal social networks and with formal social networks

o   lack of will and capacity to act.

·                     It ‘is often possible to enter a vicious circle of impoverishment due to an illness, due to the lack of professional help, due to unstable housing conditions, due to a high crime rate in the areas, etc’.

 

Life-Histories

 

·                     An important set of information about the process of impoverishment alongside the more traditional statistical analysis (e.g. using the Census) is the use of life-histories to illustrate the way the risk factors have affected people, and people’s reactions to their impoverishment.

 

Effective Interventions

 

·                           ‘Knowing the intensity with which social and environmental risks occur in a given area (social exclusion) and investigating the ways in which these social risks impact on the lives of individuals (individual social exclusion profiles) therefore allows us to collect basic information in order to plan an efficient, relevant poverty prevent policy.’ (RAMSEP Project)

·                           ‘An effective policy to combat poverty requires preventative actions aimed at blocking the process of impoverishment. This action will be linked on the one hand to supporting any inadequacies in services (health, education, housing, communication, social security, etc.) and on the other hand to improving their quality.’ (RAMSEP Project)

·       &nbs