Hyndburn SRB6 Final Evaluation
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Executive Summary Hyndburn SRB6 Final Evaluation Prepared for: Hyndburn Borough Council Prepared by: URS Corporation Limited October 2008 Hyndburn SRB 6 Evaluation Report EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Hyndburn’s £8m eight year SRB6 Programme People of Accrington and Church Together (PACT) was an opportunity to empower local partnerships, groups and individuals to address deprivation issues prevalent at the time of the submission of the bid. Community, voluntary, public and private sector representatives were closely involved in both the bid development and programme management of SRB6. In 1998 Hyndburn was ranked as the 76th most deprived English district. Within Hyndburn, Central ward was in the worst 7% of English wards, and Springhill and Church wards in the worst 8% nationally. 1 These three wards became the target area for the SRB6 Programme. The severe, multiple deprivation impacted directly on residents in the target area in a number of ways. Education attainment was low and skills of the workforce low; 44% of the workforce had no qualifications. People in employment experienced low incomes, with an average annual wage of only 78% the national average. Poor housing conditions were prevalent. Violent crime rates and burglaries were higher than the County averages. Combined, these factors contributed to poor physical and mental health of individuals with the standard mortality ratio in Hyndburn particularly influenced by heart disease and respiratory problems. To address these multiple issues, the PACT Programme took a wide ranging approach. Regenerating Hyndburn People of Accrington and Church Together (PACT) was a real local community driven regeneration programme which built on a number of pre-existing partnerships and strategies: • Hyndburn FIRST (which in the early years of the Programme incorporated Hyndburn Council’s regeneration services) which also facilitated the Community Action Partnership (CAP). The CAP was established to secure ERDF Objective 2 Priority 4 support but developed a wider regeneration role and became the local regeneration forum for Central, Church, Springhill and Barnfield wards. The CAP developed a local regeneration strategy, which was at the heart of the PACT programme. • PROSPECTS Foundation, which was responsible for developing and implementing Hyndburn’s Local Agenda 21 Sustainability Action Plan. PROSPECTS was based on locality groups, including a panel for the Church area and had a good relationship with the CAP in Central and West Accrington. • Accrington, Church and Great Harwood Partnership, the local element of the County Council’s Building Better Communities Programme. The partnership identified additional priority issues to complement the CAP strategy. A PACT Board was established to deliver the SRB6 programme representing these partnerships, and public, private, voluntary and community organisations. Hyndburn Borough Council was Accountable Body for the programme and provided programme management, technical support and Board facilitation. The Board had responsibility for approving projects, allocating funding and overall delivery. It was a strong community led approach. Community representatives were particularly influential in securing Project Phoenix in the bid which has been a key element of the programme. 1 1998 Index of Local Deprivation Page No 1 Hyndburn SRB 6 Evaluation Report The overall aim of the SRB6 Programme was to enable individuals and groups in one of the region’s most deprived communities to increase participation, improve competitiveness and overcome social exclusion. The original bid set out four strategic objectives, which remain valid for Hyndburn (and in particular the three wards of Church, Central and Springhill) today: • Improving community participation and access to opportunities for personal and shared development; • Improving competitiveness and facilitating business start ups, including community businesses; • Improving health and well being through early intervention and improving access to information, treatment and services; and • Improving the natural and built environment. An application was made to the North West Development Agency for £12.1m SRB6 funding in 1999. In a highly competitive arena, Hyndburn successfully secured £8m. Since 1999, 80 projects have been supported by SRB6 in Hyndburn and the full allocation has been used to help alleviate the level of deprivation and improve social inclusion. A Final Evaluation was Undertaken to Assess Progress and Impact In June 2008 Hyndburn Borough Council commissioned URS Corporation Ltd to provide an independent evaluation of the PACT SRB6 Programme. The scope was to explore the impact of the investment to ensure that public resources have been used effectively and achieved the anticipated impacts, to identify lessons for future regeneration and recommendations for future activity. The evaluation involved face to face and telephone consultations with 15 key stakeholders and delivery partners, focus groups with the PACT Board, 14 members of Bullough Park Residents Association, seven Activate project beneficiaries, West Accrington Residents Association and users of the Health Outreach project. In summary our evaluation found the SRB6 programme has delivered a number of key successes and supported a number of good practice projects. Community partnership and engagement has been at the heart of the regeneration programme, both at a strategic level through the Board but also at project level. This delivery arrangement is one of only a few examples nationally with such strong community ownership and has undoubtedly been a contributory factor to the overall success of SRB6 in Hyndburn. Progress Against the Strategic Objectives Overall, our evaluation suggests changes in key secondary data sets mask some good progress and delivery on the ground. For example, in 2007, Hyndburn as a district is relatively more deprived than it Page No 2 Hyndburn SRB 6 Evaluation Report was in 2000 according to the Index of Multiple Deprivation.2 However, the rank of local concentration is particularly revealing. Hyndburn’s deprivation is concentrated into relatively small areas – or areas of intense deprivation. Our evidence suggests that the SRB6 programme has helped limit the decline. Furthermore, some impacts are not yet realised in the data available (some of which dates back to 2005 or even the 2001 census). In broad brush terms, deprived wards have experienced a fall in rank, with less deprived wards improving theirs. We set out a summary of progress against the four objectives below; • Improving community participation and access to opportunities for personal and shared development. While the SRB6 programme has made significant progress in improving community participation, participation and engagement has been at the heart of the programme with strong involvement in the bid development and delivery through the Board. Agencies are also working together well in partnership, for example Sure Start hosts a number of other services and provides links with agencies such as Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Domestic Violence Forum (HARV) and the Women’s Centre.3 Projects such as Activate have developed good relationships in communities and have built up trust over time.4 Because of these relationships, other organisations and stakeholders have been able to use this as a link into the harder to reach target groups. Projects such as Young Carers have made efforts to support harder to reach clients and have worked with partner agencies to strengthen their understanding of Young Carers to help provide a more holistic service. While the programme has also helped increase capacity of the third sector, securing grant based funding remains a challenge for many (particularly smaller) organisations. • Improving competitiveness and facilitating business start ups, including community businesses. The enterprise gap between Hyndburn and the region has fallen since 1999. The programme has performed well in terms of its enterprise outputs, over-achieving against targets for new businesses created and new businesses surviving for one year. This has helped to contribute to the decline in the enterprise gap. Projects such as East Lancs Moneyline and the Business 2 Hyndburn has moved up the rankings since IMD 2000. Although IMD is not directly comparable across years, IMD 2007 provides a better reflection of deprivation than IMD 2000 as the methodology has improved and includes a lower level of analysis than 2000. 3 The Women’s Centre provides one to one counselling and advisory services, personal development courses and training/support, which specifically addresses women's issues as they work to enter (or re- enter) the employment market. 4 Activate was a project aimed at improving peoples’ health and well-being as well as supporting them to enter (or re-enter) the labour market. It was delivered by K2 Development Services. Page No 3 Hyndburn SRB 6 Evaluation Report Development Assistance Programme have provided valuable support to Hyndburn’s businesses and individuals wanting to set-up their own company but struggled to secure finance. The Council is also continuing to take active steps to foster business growth and start-ups. Following a successful Pennine Lancashire bid for £23.4m of Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) funding, in April 2007 Hyndburn and its neighbouring district councils and partners began implementing the LEGI No Limits programme. No Limits incorporates business start-up and growth finance, mentoring, community enterprise