Community Empowerment Networks: Paradise Astray?

The publication of the Community Empowerment Fund (CEF) guidance, in July 2001, was heralded as a ‘new dawn’ for community involvement in governance, and, as such, was broadly supported throughout Central Government Departments, Local Authorities and agencies operating within the emerging regional government framework for the North East of England, such as, GONE and ONE.

Some of the ideas within the guidance had originated in a series of cross-sector Priority Action Teams established by the Cabinet Office when the first Blair government took office. It was seen by the senior civil servants promoting it, based within the Neighbourhood Renewal and Social Exclusion Units, as a means of government offices moving from their historic role as project and programme managers towards a knowledge management system of neighbourhood renewal. Local Authority officers saw the guidance as an opportunity to forge new partnerships with existing community networks while offering new community networks an enhanced status within an emerging regional government framework. All agencies viewed the guidance as a key component of a coherent strategy of social inclusion.

An important aspect of the guidance was the exploration of new forms of governance. It recognised that many community networks operate on the outskirts of centre-periphery relations. The guidance gave these networks the opportunity to move legitimately from the periphery by redefining the formal decision-making process within the emerging regional government framework.

Five years down the line, has this vision of ‘paradise’ gone ‘astray’?

Has the traditional Community & Voluntary Sector re-established its position as the primary Local Authority interface?

Have Local Authorities further retreated to the service procurement ‘bunker’ at the expense of the loss of the innovation of the 3rd Sector?

Have Local Strategic Partnerships had any significant impact on the base and superstructure of community development?

Has this been a ‘gooseberry and grape’ exercise? (You can shave the hairs off a gooseberry and it looks like a grape BUT it is inorganically incapable of becoming a grape!)

A 3rd Sector Regional Strategy Unit

Towards the end of 2006, I attended a number of Conferences where I attempted to progress the conept of a 3rd Sector Strategy Unit for the North East of England.

It seems to me, in the light of One North East’s Regional Strategy and Northern Rock Foundation’s reviewed policies, that the time for discussing this is now!

The start of 2007 should mark the beginning of a realistic discussion on the function, form and day-to-day activity of such a Unit. Maybe VONNE could take the initiative on this and establish a working group to discuss issues such as:

1. Why do we need a Regional Strategy Unit (RSU)?

2. How will this Unit relate to 3rd Sector organisations?

3. How will the RSU relate to other regional organisations?

This could act as a precursor to detailed discussions on staffing and resources at a later date. Would NRF be prepared to support such an initiative?

The Purpose of this Blog

I have established this Blog to promote the discussion of knowledge and information sharing issues in the Third Sector.

While I am often struck by the sector’s capacity for adaptability, innovation and change, I am also in awe of the inability to deploy, capture and transfer information and knowledge within the sector, in partnerships and across the wider boundaries of civil society.

We all know of the many constraints which militate against appropriate and effective sharing of knowledge, such as, patterns of procurement, long term funding etc. But we need to explore, disseminate and exchange knowledge on as many platforms as possible. I hope this Blog will go some way to progressing this!