COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT AND RENEWAL BILL - BEGIN THE DEBATE

28 June 2012

WORKSHOP A - Strengthening Community Participation: what should the rules be?

Facilitator: Fiona Garven, Scottish Community Development Centre

MORNING SESSION

 A widespread detailed dialogue is required to fully think through the concept and shape of potential duties

 This dialogue should take place in the general community development environment and amongst people with specific common bonds with specific contexts and concerns which need to be considered e.g. barriers to participation

 The notion of specific enforceable duties appeared to be fairly generally accepted

 Any new duties should build on existing rights to be consulted in related primary legislation e.g. community engagement in community planning, tenants’ rights etc. or implied in the Standards for Community engagement

 Perhaps legislation could promote and strengthen these by including auditing actions

 Development of duties and their implementation should be underpinned by a planned approach which builds capacity for meaningful engagement

 This may require further clarification of what community engagement, capacity building and community empowerment mean in a legislative context

 This should define both desired outcomes and prohibit inappropriate interpretations

 Implementation should be underpinned by evidence based research and evaluation activity

 Meaningful duties to empower communities must also address issues about how structures support or inhibit community empowerment in their structures, culture and operations

 Legislation could be very helpful in setting the direction of a robust culture of empowerment from which duties and implementation actions could follow

 Duties should animate and strengthen the requirements for agencies to adhere to national standards for community engagement and potentially community capacity building

 There may be considerable learning potential for community empowerment duties from the process of development of the Equalities act and its related general and specific duties Equalities and Human Rights Commission could advise in more detail about transferable experience

 If national standards are formalised they need to consider o Specifying detailed expectations of types of action in various contexts

o Clarifying monitoring arrangements

o Identifying and apply sanctions for non-compliance

 SOAs should be underpinned by transparent application of agreed empowerment duties in order to be viewed as complete

 Much of the discussion in the workshop hinged on whether there needed to be a process of formal regulation/ arbitration/mediation

 Although h the majority of participants seemed to think that there should be there was no agreed form of what this should look like

 There seemed to be agreement that such a system must be underpinned by principles of natural justice although these were not explored in detail

 Some participants thought that clear legal remedies were required to achieve this

 It was felt that structures and methods for participation were very important as this is where principles either stand or fall, including the importance of

o Levels of representativeness in localities,

o How engagement is related to on-going dynamic dialogue

o Differences in approach between work in neighbourhoods and with communities of interest.

AFTERNOON SESSION

Key points to inform the CDAS Response:

 Recommendation that community participation should be a Duty for public sector agencies, and the Duty must be about listening, engaging and acting together

 Missing in the Bill – need to create opportunities for workforce development and building capacity for engaging with communities among public sector staff. Recognition that this work is not resource-free and does in the short term demand significant resources

 National Standards of Community Engagement – are they being used? Who is using them? Have they been evaluated? Suggestion that Standards should be applied at the very beginning of any engagement process. Aligned to this is the virtuous circle of empowerment – start to work with communities at the planning stage not the implementation stage and continue on to the evaluation of impact of outcomes.

 Recommendation for a robust mechanism to challenge and scrutinise implementation of the legislation.

Individual contributions from workshop participants:  Build on good practice

 There is a disconnect between community priorities and Community Planning Partnership priorities

 Community organisations often experience Community Planning Partnership decision- making processes as being too remote and bureaucratic - would locality planning be more accessible and meaningful?

 Acknowledgement that there are existing structures and processes in place for community participation, but the majority are ineffective

 Role of local intermediaries – good example cited of West Glasgow Voluntary Sector Forum – ‘keeps us informed and connected’

 Need clarity about the areas of decision-making that community organisations can actually influence

 Reference to ‘Sustainable Communities Act’ in England – statutory responsibility for public sector agencies to engage with communities

 Senior Officers in public sector agencies do what they have to do. Their role is dictated to by performance management indicators, inspections and various other forms of monitoring and evaluation

 Creating an environment for positive change – we shouldn’t be dependent on the Bill and wait for it to be implemented. We should continue to press and lobby for change at every opportunity

 What’s the most effective way to cross reference with the CLD Guidance on Community Capacity Building?

 Work with communities of interest as well as geographical communities

WORKSHOP B - Community led service delivery and budgeting

MORNING SESSION

Facilitator: Calum Strang, Faith in the Community

(practical proposals for the legislation in bold)

Area 1: Tenants right to manage

 Tenant volunteers need to be resourced and supported, as capacity may not be there  An obsession with legislation may have an adverse effect on communities, who end up needing to be experts on legislation.  There are also language issues with the questions – e.g. “communities” and “right to request transfer of ownership”. The former can mean different things and the latter doesn’t seem to mean anything concrete. Meaning of empowerment depends on people’s reason for getting involved.  Groups unaware of possibilities with regard to managing housing stock. Need information and support and staff unavailable to do this. Capacity of staff an issue with housing associations, although legislation should cement a duty of care on providers to inform  Contradictions – we know that tenants know best what issues are and how to tackle them, yet we have a fear of handing over too much power.

Area 2: Community Service Delivery

 With regard to question 16 [in consultation paper], we are starting from a low bar with communities currently having no access to service delivery  Scottish Government Social Care Procurement Guidance is an example of what currently exists in terms of information and support  Joint commissioning needed, with clear definitions for partners  A capacity issue – can all communities be expected to do this?  Current Audit Scotland indicators are process driven rather than outcome driven  Community representatives lack capacity in planning  At the moment procurement is too concerned with ticking boxes and covering backs. There needs to be integrity of process.  Need to focus on communities taking charge of local issues rather than going for large tenders.

Area 3: Participatory budgeting

 Should pay attention to successful frameworks and evidence from elsewhere, e.g. Denmark.  Could we use social media to spread the word when involved in a PB process?  Legislation required to make PB mandatory, with ring-fencing similar to the idea of the 1% campaign  Should we legislate to give communities power to constitute themselves, both in terms of what defines community and how they are represented? At the moment there is an problem of self-appointed community representatives  PB needs to be an open, committed, inclusive process, and we need to think about how process might be manipulated (e.g. most popular groups with highest memberships winning rather than best idea). It also needs to be about community priorities.  At the same time, the process itself can have benefits for democracy and knock on effects.  Other challenges might be territorialism and gang rule, although the PB process might help make communities more cohesive  The private sector should be involved in these democratic processes, partly out of responsibility – possibly inputting resources

3 key things:

 Strongly agree with… the consultation’s overall move away from voluntarism towards citizenship  Would comment on or change… like idea of more local events around this consultation along with more information for people  Would add ... Nothing! AFTERNOON SESSION

Tenants Right to Manage:

 Is there a need for further rights for tenants/residents of RSLs? Feeling that RSL tenants/residents have higher levels of involvement/satisfaction with their housing services than Local Authority tenants/residents.  There is a need for broader influence over housing services and decision-making. Community-led Service Delivery:

 Need for appropriate mechanisms and need for a greater level of accountability – through Community Councils (and others – it is a mixed picture which includes Community Councils, Tenants Associations, Development Trusts, etc.). The mechanisms should recognise the different functions/roles of different community led and based organisations – the mechanisms should support challenge, greater community rights and responsibilities, and identification and delivery of local solutions  There are 2 key strands – opportunity to have a greater degree of local service delivery (where appropriate); opportunity to have an impact on the wider service system. Issues exist around the procurement system which currently works against this and should work for it. Participatory Budgeting:

 Need for capacity building first to lead to sustainable outcomes  Strategic direction should be to move from project-based spend to core budget decisions  To what extent is this desirable/feasible? Advantages of devolved budgeting lie in response to local need (how local?) but there are engagement/capacity issues and there are still statutory obligations on mainstream service providers.  The legislation should focus on establishing the conditions for partnership and staged/phased approaches to PB 3 key things:

 Strongly agree with… Devolved budgeting – but not the project-based model  Would comment on or change… Lack of emphasis on community capacity building  Lack of emphasis on targeting/tackling inequalities  Would add ... The public sector system should be the focus of change rather than breaking it down into constituent parts which creates division (them and us scenarios)

WORKSHOP C - Land and asset ownership Facilitator: Andy Wightman

MORNING SESSION

Starting Points:

 There is still a lot of cynicism around participation (particularly relating to Community Planning)  There is a lack of community engagement around land management issues  There is a lack of links to Development Planning legislation  There is a need for support to community groups to make informed choices  This presents a real opportunity for communities to take ownership of assets (not liabilities) Key Themes:

 Democratic structures don’t currently empower local communities  Culture change is required – specifically there should be a requirement on Local Authorities to build community capacity and support the community sector  Intervention is required to support different organisations with different functions (such as Community Councils, Development Trusts, Community Associations, etc.) to work together for common benefit of the community  Resourcing is required for community organisational development in order to ensure that community organisations have the requisite balance of skills/members and that they are dynamic and well-functioning  Information/communication – there should be a requirement for a ‘key person’ in the Local Authority who can liaise with community groups and work with them to make informed choices and work through processes  The current focus is on Local Authority asset transfer – there should be a focus on both public and private assets

AFTERNOON SESSION

1. Community capacities and structures  If community councils are to have a role they need to be ‘beefed up’ and reach more widely into the community.  Arbiters in decision making over who should have access to owning assets will be crucial and need to have a community perspective within the arbitration process.

2. Assets and transfer  Yes, asset transfer should be easier  Assets transferred should not be a stepping stone to those assets being lost to the private or commercial sector – there needs to be a protection that they remain available to wider community use and benefit.  It may be that a ‘right to use’ is all that is needed rather than a ‘right to own’  There are complications resulting from existing European legislation around ‘State Aid Rules’ a possible solution to this might be that those taking ownership of assets be given public body status e.g. a local partnership or consortium

WORKSHOP D - Unlocking community-led regeneration

Facilitator: Andy Milne, SURF

MORNING SESSION Key points to inform the CDAS Response:

The omission of Community Capacity Building (CCB) is a failing in the proposed Bill. Despite plans to cross-reference to CCB in proposed CLD legislation, this does not ensure that CCB is integral to the effective delivery of the Bill’s key components.

The Bill needs to be aligned with other legislation and national policies e.g. development planning, and ensure that the drive and support for community empowerment underpins the implementation of these policies.

We need to continually define who the community is we’re talking and referring to e.g. small geographical community of residents from a few streets, community of people with common identity or interests, community of local professionals and local people together. Need to keep re- stating the key characteristics of what constitutes a community

The Bill needs to address how best to help foster community spirit – this is key to community members wanting to get and stay involved in activities and decision-making processes. Aligned to this is the recognition of how best to help ensure more equitable sharing of power between communities and other vested interests in the public and private sectors.

Community members need opportunities to come together in community space/venues to discuss and explore what’s important to them. Appropriate legislation aimed at helping them access and maintain suitable premises would be helpful. There should be recognition that priorities evolve and emerge through discussion, debate and decision-making. Aligned to this is funding for support resources that help build capacity and release assets.

Community Councils have great potential, but are positioned in a weak place within local governance, have limited funds and not allowed to generate major funding and currently have difficulty in getting and keeping active members. Suggestion that they should be taken out of local authority structures, thus creating opportunities to thrive and progress.

Support should be aimed at ensuring adequate attention is given to what is actually being transferred to community organisations, especially with regard to transfer of buildings – are they assets or liabilities?

Individual contributions from workshop participants:

 If we’re not careful we’ll get stuck on transfer and ownership of land  Example in Easterhouse of buildings which were previously community facilities lying empty for many years  Need to look at first steps of community development - building blocks  Running community facilities depends so much on local people being prepared to volunteer their time, energy, ideas, expertise etc. People often have no time to participate in development processes that lead to influencing decisions. There is a need to identify the skills and expertise required to run services  Role of Council arm length organisations such as Glasgow Life  If Partnership Agreements are drawn up between community organisations and property owners they need to be adhered to and monitored  Too many bureaucratic barriers that prevent community members getting involved shaping and implementing local policies  Too many conflicts of interest that the various parties do not articulate that result in outputs and outcomes being undermined  Unequal power between community organisations and service providers is rarely acknowledged and addressed in positive ways  Community organisations need to be able to generate their own income  Community organisations running services need to be consistently accountable to the wider community  Bill is too much geared towards physical assets in communities and not enough about people being the assets of any community  Danger that ‘risk aversion’ in influencing community activity and results in limited positive change  Question posed: where would we like Scotland’s communities to be in five years’ time, what would this look like, what would the main elements be?  Decision-makers need to trust community members to take responsibility – illustrated by having keys to power and keys to community facilities!  We need to build on proven methods of effective community engagement in which we have many in Scotland  Island Community Buy-outs demonstrate that local people can generate major funding, handle it well and implement good policy and practice, which results in a better quality of life for all.

AFTERNOON SESSION

(practical proposals for the legislation in bold)

 Mention of Transformational Regeneration Areas. Strategic groups are currently comprised of representatives from Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council and Housing Associations (2 each). This is an example of how current mechanisms have too much weighting towards agencies at expense of communities.  There is too much focus on what money is available. Capacity needs to be built so that social assets can be released. We must facilitate change without prioritising cost.  Focus of Bill should be on inequalities rather than simply empowerment.  We need to change cultures and mind-sets within government, linking up planning and thinking. Legislation should somehow support this change in mind-set.  Following on from this, development has to start with local people, requiring a massive leap of faith. There are currently great difficulties convincing agencies of ideas such as assets and community development.  Communities need investment to create local employment around basic assets and land. Resourcing this was a reoccurring theme in workshop.  Do we really need ownership or just accessibility?  Language and values are crucial foundation for a Bill  Commissioning and funding organisations need to have more joined up approaches and understand the concept of social return on investment  Is there an opportunity in with this bill to create a meaningful policy statement requiring local authorities to apply an asset based approach? This would be more focused on releasing social assets and could include auditing and mapping assets, guidance and support  At the same time, if you look at things differently and think about public assets already being ‘owned’, legislation might better prevent public assets being taken away from public ownership. This would include laws against PFI.  Suggested that the above might be especially relevant with respect to sustainable resources such as water.  An idea to channel £9 Billion procurement fund to community asset management or ownership.  Some communities require support for owning assets  Community councils undervalued. Would benefit from developing action plans and working with each other, and also lack capacity.

3 key things:

 Strongly agree with… Participatory Budgeting  Would comment on or change… too much focus on physical assets and need to legislate where possible on social assets – see idea above about duties for LAs  Would add ... need for measurability and accountability as part of legislation. Another point re-emphasised here was a focus on inequalities

WORKSHOP E - A new role for Community Councils? Facilitator: Ian Law, Glasgow City Council

MORNING only

Key question: what role can Community Councils play?

Discussion mainly focused on the experience of Glasgow Community Councils, which may not be typical. In Glasgow Community Reference Groups are the main conduit for dialogue between Community Councils (and other community organisations) and the Council and its community planning partners. CRG meetings and their agendas are organised by Council officers and engagement feels tokenistic. The CRGs may well be disbanded this summer although there now seems to be a stay of execution. Involvement in the CRG (and in one case the local working group of service providers) is said to reach agreement on what should be done, but there is no evidence that this is actually delivered by the council.

It was acknowledged that while the experience of the Community Council members was that they had little or no power or influence, elsewhere (mainly in more rural areas) they have been more successful. The Trust established by Queens Park CC was cited as a successful urban example. Dennistoun CC has established an attractive website. Other points made:

 Elected members used to attend but no longer do so on a regular basis – Community Council boundaries are no longer contiguous with wards

 Very few people are interested in joining, attending or voting for Community Councillors

 Most Community Councillors are retired  Some communities do not wish for a Community Council to be established in their area: community-based housing associations are seen to do a better job in taking up community issues. Inverclyde tried to impose Community Councils but this was resisted by most communities

 The activities and achievements of Community Councils are not monitored or recognised – either at council level or nationally

 The language and procedures of Community Councils can be off-putting

 Councils allow insufficient time for consultation

 Power has to be accountable, and it is debatable whether Community Councils are any more accountable than elected members

There was a recognition that Community Councils could have a more significant role – more like Parish Councils in England – if certain conditions were met. They would need to be adequately funded, democratically elected and accountable, and have premises, staffing and the basic equipment needed to perform their role. They would need to be independent of the local authority in which they were located, rather than dependent on it. Unless and until Community Councils could evolve in this direction, the role they may be able to play in community empowerment is likely to be limited.

WORKSHOP F - How can we build capacity?

Facilitator: Barbara Allan, Stirling Council

MORNING SESSION

 Capacity building is needed not only for communities but also for decision makers so that they can respond appropriately to community identified needs. This should include an ‘enabling’ culture for statutory sector bodies to engage meaningfully with the communities they serve.  Communities themselves should be the arbiters of how they have been engaged  Resources are needed to ensure appropriate engagement – it’s not cost free  Communities need a real influence on spending  Increase use of community and voluntary sector organisations to increase reach.  Monitor who we do reach – issues of equalities need to be addressed – those who are currently unheard need to have a ‘voice’ that influences decisions  Community Capacity Building not the sole responsibility of CLD staff  Traditional means of engagement not inventive enough - needs greater creativity to allow people to challenge the status quo  Groups have a ‘right’ to community capacity building support  We don’t want ‘representative democracy’ we want direct influence  Where resources go need to be rebalanced e.g. costs of M74 compared to investment in cycle paths

AFTERNOON SESSION Many critical questions were raised at the start of the workshop: Is capacity important? Can we legislate for it? Is strategic guidance the right approach? How can we raise the value and worth of CCB? What is its role in empowerment? What else do we need to make it happen?

The Capacity for Change programme linked to the LEADER programme in Dumfries and Galloway was cited. Here, it was recognised that certain communities benefited by always bidding for development funds, while weaker organisations became even weaker. The programme was designed to build the capacity of the weaker villages to allow them benefit on a more equal basis – yet in some cases communities still declined to bid for funds after the capacity building intervention.

Any legislation would need to recognise the existence of stronger and weaker communities, and target support to the latter. There also needs to be trust and consistency – moving in and out of vulnerable communities is counter-productive as trust is dissipated.

Much CLD CCB work now focuses on supporting established community organisations rather than bringing people together in the first place. The programme now being taken forward by Inverclyde CVS to do basic door-knocking is an example of work to redress this issue. CCB needs to recognise the importance of getting people involved in the first place, and building organisational capacity.

But who are ‘we’ to decide which communities are disengaged? What sort of judgements do ‘we’ make? At what level, and with which communities should we engage, and what, if any, is the responsibility of government in all this? Ultimately there is no point in it unless communities benefit.

Turning to the forthcoming legislation it was recognised that CCB could and should bring to the Bill the notion of enablement – an awareness of opportunities and choices, the capacity to take over physical assets if required, and equalities. As presently constituted, CCB teams in CLD do not have the capacity to both encourage activism and support community organisations.

There is also the issue of the need to build the capacity of officers to engage effectively with communities – it can be an important role of CCB teams to speak to the ‘dinosaurs’.

Looking ahead, if the implication of financial austerity is that communities will need to do more for themselves, and if their ability to do so is unequally distributed, there should be a duty for government to support the capacity of the less advantaged communities. CLD has a duty to provide consistent support in communities to improve life chances and build stronger communities, with a responsibility to assess needs and respond accordingly.

There was also a discussion of whether there should be a requirement on public bodies to have a community engagement strategy, and whether it should include a duty to build community capacity. The general view was that this could be a good thing, but the engagement strategy must have a purpose and clear benefit to communities, and it would need to be scrutinised to ensure that community views had indeed been sought and considered. As the National Standards now appear to be ‘on the shelf’ in many cases, such a duty could stimulate better community-facing public services.

WORKSHOP G - Participation, equality and human rights

Facilitator: Douglas Guest, Equality and Human Rights Commission

AFTERNOON only  EHRC guidance on the Public Sector Equalities Duty is a potential template for the implementation of the CERB.

 Could be linked to equalities outcome indicators, which must be published in 2013.

 Lessons from equalities Legislation could inform the tactical development of regulation and legal remedies in the Empowerment Bill.

 Links between CERB and Equalities bill should be clear and explicit.

 This will require CERB to make provision for the needs of excluded groups with protected characteristics.

 In addition to classic equalities definition – should remember other issues e.g. digital exclusion in accessing participation opportunities and information required for real empowerment.

 A Human Rights approach should be used to underpin the right to be heard, the right to dialogue and the consequential right to be supported to organise in UN International treaty framework could be utilised to make these links.

 Equality of action and esteem are key principles amongst partners in empowerment- not currently the case in the planning system – should be explored in equality and human rights terms.

 The CERB should make clear statements about expectations for equality as a general concept in terms of relations between communities and powerful interests like developers.

 Equalities values and the needs of equalities groups as recipients and potential co-producers are currently undermined by procurement rules. Measures to resolve this should therefore be built into procurement aspects of the CERB

 The bill should embrace clear statement about equalities values and particularly highlight its intention to empower those who are currently voiceless for whatever reason.

 This requires bespoke Community Development solutions to deliver empowerment engagement and CCB for equalities groups.

 It also requires the needs of these groups to be integrated into generic Empowerment policy and practice in localities where practicable.

 The starting point should be that many equalities groups are currently excluded and disempowerment. Positive action in the bill and in subsequent practice will be required to correct this and create equality of opportunity and of outcome.

 There needs should therefore be actively and carefully considered when auditing empowerment and CLD needs. Thanks to David Allan, Elspeth Gracey, Stuart Hashagen, Janet Muir (all SCDC) and Mick Doyle (Education Scotland ) for these notes.