By Hywel Lloyd, OPM senior fellow
In the 18 August issue of the MJ, in the Whitehall – Inside View column, Mark Conrad thoughtfully highlights the importance of the communities strand of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) remit. Continue reading
By Robin Clarke, OPM fellow
People’s relationship with public services has been an increasingly strong theme in public policy over the past 20 years or so. There is agreement across the political spectrum that the age of paternalistic one-size-fits-all public services has passed its sell-by date and we need to develop a different more appropriate approach with members of the public playing a more active role rather than just being passive recipients of services. Continue reading
By Sarah Holloway, OPM senior researcher.
Since the RSA’s Connected Communities report last year, the buzz around social network analysis has continued to grow. Last week I attended a packed, beginners’ level workshop at Greenwich University, led by Professor Paola Tubaro, as part of this year’s Social Networks conference. On the back of that really interesting day, I want to share some thoughts on the value of this developing discipline. What potential benefits does social network analysis offer for public service and civil society research?
By Rob Francis, OPM associate fellow.
With a credit crunch, a recession, and now public sector spending cuts in train, most of the big, physical regeneration projects seen over the last 15 years have dried up. The local authorities, partners, regional and national agencies who were once sprucing up their neighbourhoods with new community centres, learning centres, children’s centres and the like no longer have the means to do so. Undoubtedly the impact of this will be a negative one in those areas crying out for better facilities.
But might that scarcity of resources also force us to get better at real, long-lasting social regeneration that goes beyond bricks and mortar? Continue reading
By Linda Roberts, OPM senior researcher.
Working with young people is something I find really stimulating and enjoyable. As such I jumped at the chance to be part of the OPM team responsible for the evaluation of the Government’s National Citizen Service programme. Little did I know that the fieldwork for this evaluation would involve me perched metres from a cliff-face! Packing a digital recorder, topic guides, notepad and consent forms, and dressed in suitable attire for ‘outdoor activities’, a family member kindly drove me the 30 minute journey down single track roads to the Lake District cottage, the location of the first week of NCS activities, to meet with one of the teams during the away residential.
Months of preparation had led to this point. Firstly we had had to identify which teams to visit. There are 11,000 young people taking part in the 2011 programme, delivered through 12 providers; selecting 12 teams for fieldwork was not easy, especially as we wanted to capture a range of experiences. Then we had carefully crafted the interview guides for strategic leads and team leaders to understand their experiences of delivering the programme. And of course we wanted to speak to the young people; we designed a 1.5 hour creative and interactive workshop to uncover their expectations and experiences of the NCS so far. Continue reading
By Phil Copestake, OPM head of research.
The Government’s Open Public Services White Paper published on Monday identifies the issues and questions it wants to answer over the course of the coming months, and the principles that will underpin its reform agenda. But when it comes to the role of local authorities and the place of employee owned mutuals, we all know the devil will be in the detail. As Nick Timmins writes in the FT today: ‘The white paper on its own changes nothing. Its success will be decided on how cleverly, vigorously and practicably its principles are applied.’
Like everyone else, at OPM we’ve been waiting for the Open Public Services White Paper with baited breath for many, many months. I say ‘everyone else’, but of course the rather muted coverage of the Coalition’s launch of its ‘comprehensive policy framework’ was to be expected. This is the Government setting a broad agenda and high level principles, rather than making specific policy commitments: it’s too wide-ranging for those. And policy frameworks are not exactly sexy, however comprehensive.
So with that said, what to make of it? In the day or so it’s been in our hands, OPM’s interest has focused on what the White Paper indicates for the future of local government, and what it has to say about mutuals. Continue reading
By Tim Vanson, OPM senior researcher.
Social capital is less of a focus for today’s policy makers; however, much of its principles underpin the Big Society. But OPM’s recent research within the Cantelowes ward of Camden shows that the issues with which social capital grapple are still highly relevant.
Social capital emphasises the social connections we make through our families, neighbours, workplace, and places of worship; and the norms and bonds of trust that encourage cooperative behaviour. In the late nineties the concept of social capital served as useful shorthand for capturing the attributes of a healthy community. It aimed to re-state the value of the ‘social’ in a period where Britain had seemingly become a more individualistic and less deferential society. Research demonstrated that higher levels of social capital are associated with better health, higher educational achievement, better employment outcomes, and lower crime rates.
We need to continue to take social capital seriously. Our work to measure and track social capital in Camden’s Cantelowes ward has revealed not only a useful set of indicators but also the broader ways that social capital has continuing relevance to current agendas. Continue reading
The Big Society bank may have, in the past, been somewhat misunderstood. Last year, as the threats of ever deeper local government cuts loomed, some said to themselves, ‘Ah well, at least there’s the Big Society bank’, hoping that its dormant account funds would be big enough to make up for the shortfalls.
There was a misconception that the bank, much like a benevolent fairy godmother’s coffers, would be able to offer grants and loans directly to the precariously positioned voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations that were set to lose local authority funding.
Recently, the Office for Civil Society approved an outline proposal for the Big Society bank, which is now set to open for business later this year. What is clear is that the institution that will emerge from months of negotiations won’t be able to plug all of the funding gaps, and will not even transact directly with front line organisations. But outline plans suggest the bank will have a valuable function in the long-term development of the social finance market.
So what do we know about the Big Society bank and how it will operate?
If the Big Society bank is successful, the UK will have a thriving social finance market, in which socially driven products tempt investors away from standard commercial investments.
One of the challenges for VCS organisations in getting a slice of any future social finance market will be evidencing their impact and demonstrating that they are using scarce resources efficiently. OPM’s evaluation team regularly supports VCS organisations to measure impact and efficiency as well as wider social returns on investment. We look forward to continuing this work with social investors and the VCS to help them make the most of what the Big Society bank will offer.
By Shelley Dorrans, OPM fellow, and Sarah Holloway, OPM senior researcher
It’s been a bumpy few days for the Big Society agenda.
Following David Cameron’s speech on Monday and the launch of the ‘Giving’ White Paper, Lord Wei announced that he was stepping down as the Government’s Advisor on the Big Society. The timing could not be worse. Critics have argued that the whole agenda is deeply troubled and the Shadow Cabinet claimed it is “descending into farce”.
But should we be so negative? After all, Cameron’s speech referred to a number of exciting plans designed to push the Big Society agenda forward, such as the Community First scheme and revisions to the government’s Green Book to make politicians consider the social impact of key policy decisions.
It seems easy to criticise but isn’t it possible that the Big Society’s seemingly greatest weakness – its ambiguity – could also be its greatest strength? After all, as many others have pointed out, the agenda isn’t necessarily anything new! The levels of community involvement and types of local activities that the government is seeking to encourage have been happening all over the UK for many years. As Cameron said in his speech:
“I didn’t invent the idea… It’s just how I describe all the many brilliant things that people are doing to help each other in our communities and it’s how I show my determination that we as a government should get behind people and encourage more of their commitment in every way that we can.”
I was lucky enough to work on a project several months ago for the Community Development Foundation (CDF), which really made me aware of the incredibly innovative and diverse ways in which people are being empowered to participate in community activities. And this work is nothing new either; it has been going on for years.
We evaluated a strand of the Take Part Programme, a two year initiative that aimed to help people build the skills, capacity and confidence to get involved in their communities and contribute to public services. The strand we evaluated was a Regional Champions programme, which designated individuals and organisations to distribute Take Part grant money to local communities, and offer ongoing support to help those communities make their work sustainable.
We spoke to the grant recipients as well as the Champions to understand the breadth of activities that people were involved in. Some areas had chosen to focus on specific groups, such as young people, resident’s groups or BME communities and others commissioned a range of activities including training around the electoral system and local democratic processes to the production of DVDs about local issues.
The enthusiasm and commitment of the Champions at driving these areas of work forward was very inspiring, and the findings from the evaluation were overwhelmingly positive; the Champions played a crucial role in raising the profile of Take Part and supporting community empowerment work within their regions by bringing together their local community contacts and working strategically with small grants.
I think the key message to take from this is two-fold: firstly, the ambiguity of the Big Society agenda could actually be a way of allowing different communities to make their own interpretations and to continue to undertake exciting and innovative projects, and secondly having a regional champion is an excellent way of raising the profile of the work and providing support for people at a local level.
Learning from Take Part suggests that there are two crucial ingredients for the success of the Big Society work: support from the government in terms of funding, and enthusiasm from local people. Plans for funding seem to have come some way through the launch of the Big Society Bank and initiatives like Community First, but securing the ‘buy-in’ from the wider public is still a big challenge.
Regional level mediation, like the Take Part Champions, could be a way of achieving this local buy-in. The government’s community organising scheme has the potential to fulfil this role providing the organisers are local, experienced and well connected.
You can read our full CDF Regional Take Part Champion evaluation report here.
By Kate Allman, OPM researcher
The Giving White Paper published yesterday sets out the Government’s plans to encourage and facilitative giving – a key part of achieving the Prime Minister’s goal of a Big Society. Whilst there is much to commend, there’s a significant gap around CRB checks which urgently needs to be addressed: it’s not whether you have a conviction that matters, but what kind of conviction it is. By taking a blanket approach to convictions, the Government risks cutting off many potential volunteers with directly relevant experience.
‘Giving’ is defined as either giving time (volunteering) or giving money (traditionally described as philanthropy). The White Paper outlines volunteering projects such as the Community Organiser scheme run by Locality, and the National Citizen Service (being evaluated by OPM as part of a consortium), and details government investment in various other philanthropic projects.
‘Giving’ contains many positive ideas and the aim to increase civic action and responsibility is of course desirable. The emphasis on financial investment will be welcomed by relevant organisations in civil society, and the case studies of volunteering projects are inspiring examples of innovative practice. However, the paper lacks detail in its solutions to overcoming the individual barriers to voluntary participation. Further work will be urgently needed to flesh these ideas out as the legislation progresses.
The paper reveals the government’s intention to reduce red tape to ‘common sense levels’, particularly in relation to the CRB check. They propose two ways to speed up the process for existing volunteers: i) by allowing the CRB to be transferable between organisations and ii) reducing the vetting and barring scheme to individuals that work in close contact with vulnerable people. These are both sensible suggestions for existing volunteers.
The paper does not, however, address the barrier posed by the CRB to many of those who do not currently volunteer, particularly those with a criminal conviction or who have had periods of homelessness (and therefore cannot provide addresses for their last five years). This is a particular issue not just because these are the people who could most benefit from volunteering opportunities but also because these individuals – precisely because of their backgrounds – could offer invaluable life experience to voluntary positions (such as ex-youth offenders becoming excellent peer-mentors).
For these individuals, the CRB check needs further rationalisation, to recognise that it is not the fact of a conviction but the nature of it which is relevant when applying to volunteer with ‘at risk’ groups. As it stands, the check stops some people applying because the implication is that a criminal record will undermine an application to volunteer. And it often does, as organisations can be reluctant to take on the risk themselves.
What is needed is a personalised process to examine the conviction or issue in reference to the applied position. This process should not just rely on common sense – which is not good enough when deciding who should work with children or vulnerable people – but neither should it rely on bureaucracy.
‘Giving’ does suggest examples of voluntary schemes that work to ‘empower’ communities but it does not explore barriers to individual volunteering in any detail or breadth. This White Paper is in danger of leading to policy that supports the same people to do more volunteering, rather than encouraging new people to get started.
You can read about the issues touched above in more detail in an earlier post.
By Linda Roberts, OPM senior researcher.
