Devolved governance - does it make a difference?

You can find out how devolved governance is helping communities in Wiltshire here:

 

http://areaboards.wordpress.com/

 

Eileen and the grit bin - now on the BIG screen!

 

Eileen comes to the big screen for the first time.

Community governance - making it work

Area Boards?  What do they do?
In 2009 the new unitary Council was launched with a commitment to decentralise and devolve services and localise democracy.  The County is made up of 20 community areas based on the local market towns and so 18 Area Boards were created to bring together the new unitary councillors, parish councils, partners and communities.  The Boards have budgets, delegated powers and dedicated officer support.  Despite initial scepticism from some, the Area Boards are now well established and delivering positive outcomes for local communities.  This post takes a quick look at some of the achievements: 

Supporting communities
The Area Boards have supported over 1000 community projects with funding, advice and other resources.  Over £5m of community funding has been awarded by the Boards over the last 3 years and this has levered in £10m in external funding.  Every £1 awarded in grant by the Area Boards levers over £3 in external funding. Some of the most innovative projects have been showcased at the VCS awards, with case studies and videos. Regular information is being circulated to voluntary and community groups through the Community Area networks, newsletters and social media sites.  Funding has been maintained for Wiltshire’s Community Area Partnerships and for the Wiltshire Forum of Community Area Partnerships (WfCAP) and this has delivered refreshed Community Plans in 16 Community Areas – saving the Council over £1m each year when compared with pre-unitary council-led process.  

Moving forward: work is currently underway to encourage successful community-led projects to be spread across the County using the Asset Based Community development approach developed in collaboration with Cormac Russell and WfCAP.

Sorting out local issues
Over 2,100 local issues have been referred to the Area Boards for action.  These have ranged from the straightforward to extremely complex and sticky local problems.  The Boards have used a variety of approaches to tackle these issues – many have been taken up by unitary councillors, some by local parish councils.  In many cases the Area Boards have used roundtables to find solutions to the trickiest problems.  Problems with lorry parking in Melksham is a good example of how services, councillors and residents came up with a successful solution.  78% of all issues referred to the Boards have now been resolved.

Moving forward: more work will be done to make local people aware of the role of the Area Boards and how they can help to solve local problems.

Open, honest decision making
Area Boards continue to attract large numbers of people to their local meetings. Meetings are relaxed, informal and welcoming and over 25,000 people have now attended meetings and events across the County. Agendas are focused on local issues and public participation is strongly encouraged with the public often taking part in the decision making process. Boards continue to experiment – using participatory budgeting, fairs, open days, vox pops, local surveys, video interviews and much more.  Boards are now focused on local decision making and are no longer perceived as merely ‘talking shops’ - 51% of agenda items now result in local decisions. Councillors are more visible and accessible than ever before, increasing democratic accountability and responsiveness.  Councillors have embraced the new approach, taking on lead roles, facilitating events, dealing with local issues, collaborating with community groups and working alongside residents.  The delegation of transport budgets has been extremely successful with local people now coming together to agree local priorities.  The process has also enabled substantial external funding to be levered into the local highways programme, as well as volunteer hours through the speedwatch and lorry watch initiatives. 

Moving forward: the Council will identify more service budgets and powers that can be delegated to the Area Boards and continue to experiment with new ways of working.

Involving the hard to reach
Area Boards have initiated and delivered a comprehensive social inclusion programme – Wiltshire Voices.  5 projects are complete and a further 9 are nearing completion.  The programme will be completed by April 2013.  The projects have involved face to face consultation with those who either cannot or do not engage with the Council through its normal channels.  The following groups have been included:

• Army families
• Stroke survivors
• People with learning difficulties
• Rural families living on low incomes
• Boaters
• Polish migrants
• Older people living in residential accommodation
• Blind and partially sighted
• People with dementia
• NEETS
• Roma travelling community
• Residents living on the Friary estate in Salisbury
• Deaf and hard of hearing
• Carers

Each project has included a video documentary, workshops and action planning at local level.  Already the first projects are yielding benefits for the groups.  For example, Army wives in Tidworth have set up a coffee club, crèche and a website with support from the Area Board and one of the group has been co-opted onto the Town Council.

Moving forward: each Wiltshire Voices project will continue at local level through a new action planning and challenge process.  Actions and proposals emerging from the consultation work will be presented to each of the Area Boards who will in turn encourage and help the community to develop local responses and projects.

Evidence based actions
Area Boards have initiated new evidence led approaches based on the new Joint Strategic Assessment (JSA) profiles.  Data from all public services is now broken down to community area level, enabling Area Boards, local services and communities to identify priorities that have previously remained hidden.  There are many examples – such as the poor level of dental health for children living in Salisbury – where the results have initiated local action.    The JSA profiles formed the basis of 18 community conferences across the County in 2011/2012 and from that the local community plans have been refreshed to include the priorities identified.  Area Boards have now refocused their funding priorities around the outcomes.    Some Boards have set aside ring-fenced budgets to tackle the JSA priorities.

Moving forward:  work will continue to strengthen the JSA profiles, adding more information as services begin to reconfigure their own data collection processes.  By the end of 2012 all local community area plans will have been revised to reflect the outcomes.

Communication and networking
12,300 people are now signed up and receive regular information from their local Area Board.  The launch of local social media sites, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts have further extended the reach of the Boards into online communities.  Youth Councils, Young Peoples’ Issues Groups (CAYPIG) and Youth Action Groups are now opening up new ways of involving and engaging young people in the work of the Board and involving them in civic life. 

Moving forward:  reaching more people and strengthening local networks will be a priority for the Boards over the next couple of years.  The ‘Year of Celebration 2012’ clearly demonstrated that people do turn out for community led activities and this provides the most effective way of engaging with local people.  Area Boards will target events, fairs, fetes and shows to reach out to a broader audience.  Building up use of the social media sites will also be a priority over the coming year.

A willing partner
Over 70% of parish councils now regularly attend Area Boards meetings and get involved with community area transport groups and campus boards.  Strong and positive relationships at this level have improved collaborative working and helped deliver more joined up responses to local issues.  Functions have been devolved to parish councils – some car parks, open spaces, allotments, buildings and on-street parking and waiting restrictions are examples.  Community area partnerships are now working effectively with the Area Boards; delivering community-led plans, local consultations and projects across the County.  Public service partners are engaging at community area level with excellent support from the Police, Probation Service, National Health Service, Fire and Rescue Service and external agencies such as housing associations, tenants groups, Government agencies (such as English Nature, Network Rail, British Waterways) and business groups.

Moving forward: the Council will continue to transfer powers, resources and decisions to local area to facilitate and encourage joint working at local level.  

Young people
Over £300k of funding has been delegated to the Area Boards to support young people to develop projects and activities.  Young people have developed their own projects, made bids to the Boards and taken part in participatory budgeting to decide how that budget should be spent.  Boards now have strong links to local schools, youth groups, CAYPIGs, youth councils and the new Youth Action Groups.  One Board has co-opted a member of the local Youth Council onto the Board.  In addition to the delegated budget, in 2011/12 around 75 community area grants were awarded to youth projects – around 20% of the total awarded by the Boards.

Moving forward: the Area Boards will support the development of the Youth Action Groups and encourage young people and local communities to develop local community-led youth projects and services.

 

 

The only known antidote to the Graph of Doom:

Eileen and the grit bin on Prezi

Untitled

Local government has changed.  Quite simply, public services can no longer be provided unilaterally – delivering effective policy outcomes is a collaborative process.  Collaboration brings challenges but can deliver tangible advantages and cash savings.  As the looming 'graph of doom' hangs over our future, successful councils will be those that can lead through the power of their collaborative influence.  Reducing the ever increasing gap between demand and capacity will require sustained collaborative action on three fronts - reducing demand, unlocking social capital and innovating around traditional service and functional models.  As difficult as this challenge appears, the scope for creativity and innovation, indeed its very necessity, brings with it an opportunity for local government to begin a process of reinvention.  And we don't need permission any more, a general power of competence puts us in the driving seat.

Here in Wiltshire, we have been focusing on creating an environment in which local people and local services can work together collaboratively to ‘co-produce’ solutions to local concerns.  We use the story of ‘Eileen and the Grit Bin’ to illustrate how this works. 

Eileen is 87 and lives an independent life in her own home, she is frail but can get by without support services.  Eileen lives on a hill and at the top of the hill Wltshire Council has put a grit bin.  When it is icy or when it snows, Eileen’s neighbours rally round and clear her driveway and the surrounding  pavement and they put down grit so that she can get about without risking a fall.   Eileen’s neighbours enjoy helping Eileen and this has extended to running her to the shops, picking up prescriptions, keeping her garden tidy and calling in regularly to check if she needs any help.  The Council’s role and financial input is minimal – a grit bin and some salt, but that small cost unlocks social capital that can be quantified in terms of hard cash.  And, the longer Eileen can continue to live independently with the support of her friends and neighbours the greater the saving for the Council and the NHS.

 

Eileen’s story is a simple illustration, but it serves to remind us of the importance of social capital in reducing demand and increasing 'services' provided to those in need.  The story also highlights the role of the Council - in this case a bucket or two of grit helped mobilise a community.  As financial pressures bite with previously unknown force, so inevitably the importance of good neighbours and volunteers will increase.  Wiltshire’s approach seeks to incentivise, encourage and mobilise the investment of social capital in the delivery of public goods through a range of co-production initiatives.

 

Eileen's story also helps to illustrate the importance of narratives in the social policy process.  Identifying opportunities for co-production requires a practical understanding of the needs of different people. Policy and decision makers can better understand and respond to local needs when these encompass individual narratives and stories like Eileen's.  Sure, this understanding is helped by the sharing of local service data, but it is the local narratives and stories that really bring this to life and gives it practical resonance for local people.  The Area Boards in Wiltshire have been challenged to seek out and document these stories by talking to different community groups in their own places and on their own terms. These narratives can inform local decision making, influence resource allocation and build understanding about issues that often remain hidden from public view.  There are many posts on this blog that describe how that works. 

Civic engagement is not a spontaneous phenomena.  People need to be invited to take part and provided with the resources and help they need to make their voices heard.  We need to understand what motivates engagement and how this can be facilitated.  We must value diversity, respect differences and accommodate minority views – but above all we must listen carefully and respond to what we hear.

I'm not setting out to justifiy a policy of austerity and I am not ignoring the moral and ethical dilemmas that exist.  But, from here it seems that we simply cannot afford to waste any more time dithering with redundant rhetorics.  

Living with Stroke: Wiltshire Voices

Here is the link to the latest Wiltshire Voices film made by Wiltshire Council and True Vision.

The film is an example of the way narratives can help inform the social policy process.

World's first Empathy=Action workshop: Intro



Roy

I had a call one morning in 2005, my Father in Law Roy was not well.  I rushed over to the bungalow and he was sat in his chair staring at the sunlight coming in through the window.  We didn’t know it but he had had a stroke.  We got him to hospital and we visited regularly, fully expecting him to recover and return to his old self.  Well that never happened for Roy and I think if I had seen this film before that day, life could have been a lot better for Roy.  None of us knew anything about Stroke, we had no idea how Roy was feeling, no idea of the time and effort it takes to regain speech and mobility.  Really, we had no idea how we could help him – we just did not understand.

 

 And, that is the whole point of these films and the whole point of the Wiltshire Voices project.  We want to raise awareness, spread the knowledge build up a better understanding.  We want to make changes to the way we do things so life can be better for the people who feature in these films and the thousands like them living across Wiltshire.

Wiltshire Voices gives us the chance to see things from a different perspective and to learn from those who sometimes find it difficult to speak up for themselves.  When you see this film, I am sure you will be greatly moved.  And in a way that is good because sympathy and compassion can get us motivated to do something positive.  Maybe that is enough in itself, but we want to use the films as a starting point for a campaign of action across Wiltshire.  And we can start that process here this afternoon.

Before we watch this fantastic film, I would like to tell you very briefly about the day I attended one of workshop sessions in Warminster Library.  We met up with the Warminster Stroke Club and I sat on a table with a small group.  We started our introductions and it was clear that one of the group - Bill - had real trouble with his speech and seemed frustrated that he could not take part in the discussion.  I kept trying to bring him into the discussion to make him feel part of the workshop but I could see that he was not comfortable.   Then one of the participants started to talk about how he didn’t like going out because some people assumed he was drunk.  At that point, Bill nodded and pointed passionately at the speaker and we all knew this was something that Bill felt very keenly himself.   From that point on, Bill was able to join in the conversation and we were able to ask Bill if the points made struck a chord with him – and he would nod and point when someone said something that he felt strongly about.  After the workshop had finished I sat and had a cup of tea with Bill, and when we left he shook my hand and pointed at the team and clapped his hands. 

That moment really has stuck with me.  For me, it shows that empathy and compassion can change the world just a little bit.  Because for Bill, he was able to influence this film and get his voice heard – perhaps for the first time.Thank you all for coming, enjoy the film and the workshop session.