egp report 2009-10 pdf creator

8/8/2019 EGP Report 2009-10 PDF Creator

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Empowerment Good PracticeProgrammeReport April 2009 to March 2010


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Contents

1. Executive summary ............................................................................. 32. The report ............................................................................................ 63. Background ........................................................................................ 64. Transition from pilot to extended programme ...................................... 7

5. Audit Commission - Place Survey ....................................................... 86. The work-plan ...................................................................................... 97. Local Authorities ............................................................................... 108. Working with the local authorities an overview ............................... 139. Networking and dissemination .......................................................... 1410. Training the workshops ................................................................. 1511. Councillor training ........................................................................... 1812. Summary of workshops delivered ................................................... 2113. The practitioner brokerage service .................................................. 2214. Bridging the Gap Event: .................................................................. 25

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1. Executive summary

The Empowerment Good Practice programme 2009/10 aimed to support localauthority officers and elected members to develop more empoweringauthorities by offering training and support to:

develop knowledge and understanding of empowerment principles andpractice to work towards improvements against National Indicator Four(the percentage of people who feel they can influence decisions in theirlocality)

develop facilitation skills and the confidence to use these

promote a culture of empowerment across local authorities

The programme aimed to target three local authorities which had selected NI4as the main beneficiaries and to offer a lower level of support for up to five

other local authorities.

The support on offer included training, facilitation, and mentoring support,based on the success of the pilot programme. In each case, support offeredwas tailored to the needs of the local authority.

Plymouth, North Somerset and Torbay were selected as priority areas andadditional support was offered in Poole, Bournemouth, Swindon, Torridge,Exeter, and later, South Gloucestershire, Bristol, Sedgemoor andGloucestershire.

A total of 13 workshops were delivered with 175 people attending, including

officers, members and community activists.Training topics includedCommunity Leadership, Practical Tools for Community Engagement,Facilitation Skills, Monitoring and Evaluation of Engagement and the Duty toInvolve. Facilitated events included a kick-start workshop for councillors, andinvolving people and making a difference for councillors and electedmembers

Sharing good practice between local authorities was another feature of theprogramme and a region-wide learning event entitled Bridging the Gapbrought together 37 participants from 27authorities and partner organisationsto focus on ways of enabling and empowering people who are seldom heardto have a voice. The event provided an opportunity for participants toexperience Open Space and included a session dedicated to co-ordinatingthe work associated with Connecting Communities and the Targeted SupportEmpowerment Fund (TSEP).

Following the confirmation of the TSEP projects we took the opportunity toremind local authorities about the programme using Government Office andEmpowering Communities contacts. Participating authorities were encouragedto use the EGP offer to complement their Connecting Communities TSEPwork.


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A significant amount of work was also carried out towards working withelected members and developing training for this group.

Delays to the publication of the Place Survey results, followed quickly by theannouncement of additional money from DCLG (which would become theTSEP) led to significant delays in the take-up of the programme and to overalltake-up being much lower than expected. In addition, we had deliberatelytargeted those authorities with the lowest NI4 scores. It may also have beenthe case that these were the authorities with the least capacity to engage withthe programme.

Recommendations:

Exclusively targeting the least well performing authorities may havebeen one of the factors that led to the relatively low take-up of theprogramme. We recommend that support be offered to a range ofauthorities during 2010. This will have the added benefit of enabling the

sharing of good practice through region-wide events.

We suggest structuring the 2010 programme so that all support isagreed in the first four months. This will enable local authorities andZebra to plan for delivery of the support over the course of the year.

The support which has had most impact has been

facilitating events which bring different groups of people together

training in facilitation tools and skills, enabling officers to be more

confident and creating in their approach to engagement.

We therefore recommend that the 2010/11 programme makes this typeof support available to more local authorities who could benefit from it.

Participants have identified a need for culture change within theirauthorities. We should explore ways in which we could expand theEGP offer to promote this.

Local Authorities have been keen to ensure that the EGP offer hascomplemented other empowerment work, although, in some cases thisimperative has led to the offer not being taken up, as other work has

slipped. The programme needs to be creative about the offer to enablea good fit with existing work whilst being aware and flexible as thatneed changes.

Progress has been made towards developing and delivering training forelected members in Plymouth and Bournemouth. The programme for2010/11 should build on this.


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The practitioner programme, in authorities where it happened was agreat success. However, take-up was low. In the light of othermentoring and support offers e.g. IDeA / CDF it may not be practical tocontinue to offer this option as a formal part of the programme.However, it would make sense for Zebra to continue to draw on theexpertise of the practitioner pool as part of the main programme asappropriate.

The value of region-wide leaning events has been in bringing peopletogether to share learn, providing space for reflection and forshowcasing engagement tools. Future events should be planned withthese objectives in mind.

Networking and linking up with other projects and agencies was animportant part of the programme. This should be continued wherepossible.


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2. The report

Following the success of the Empowerment Good Practice Programme pilotcommissioned by Empowering Communities from 29th September 2008 to31st March 2009 the programme was extended for a further year. This reportcovers the work activities carried out by Zebra Collective during the period 1stApril 2009 to 31st March 2010.

The programme was commissioned by Empowering Communities, the SouthWest Regional Empowerment Partnership (REP) with funding through theDepartment for Communities and Local Government and the South WestRegional Improvement and Efficiency partnership (RIEP)

3. Background

The impetus for extending the pilot programme came from the:

Success of the Empowerment Good Practice Programme pilot toidentify what worked well when supporting local authorities

Outcome of the Audit Commissions Place Survey results for NationalIndicator Four (NI4) the percentage of people who feel they caninfluence decisions in their locality

Additionally the Duty to Involve came into force for all best practice authorities(excluding police authorities) on 1 April 2009. The statutory guidanceCreating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities states:

The duty requires authorities to take those steps they considerappropriate to involverepresentatives of local persons in the exerciseof any of their functions, where they consider that it is appropriate to doso. It specifies the three ways of involving that need to be covered inthis consideration:

providing information consulting

involving in another way


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4. Transition from pilot to extended programme

The pilot programme worked with six local authorities supporting them to gaina better understanding of NI4 and Duty to Involve to enable participants towork towards improvements under this indicator.

With funding for the extended programme confirmed Zebra Collective workedclosely with Empowering Communities to agree a programme of work thatwould continue to best support local authorities in the South West region. Thesuccess of the pilot helped to determine what works well when supportinglocal authorities and this learning was used to inform the content of theextended programme.

It was agreed that the programme should focus on supporting middlemanagers, front-line staff and elected members with a responsibility forengagement and empowerment of those participating local authorities.

At this time there was uncertainty which authorities the programme should beoffered to due to the delays in the Place Survey NI4 results which were notpublished until June. This delay caused much confusion and made thetransition from pilot to extended programme difficult. We could not informexisting participants whether they could remain involved in the programmeand there was a lack of clarity about which other authorities to target.

However there was a strong indication that the outcome of the Place Surveywould show that some of the local authorities in the South West had a lowerthan average NI4 score.


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5. Audit Commission - Place Survey

The outcome of the Audit Commissions Place Survey results for NI4identified the South West region (excluding the Isles of Scilly) as having anoverall below average NI4 score of 26.6% compared with Englands overallaverage score of 28.9%.

Authority NI4 score 2009 NI4 score 2006

Torbay 21.2 25

Plymouth 22.2 27

North Somerset 22.3 25

S Glos 24.7 31

Bristol 24.9 29

Cornwall 26.6 29

Swindon 26.9 27

Poole 27.4 34

BaNES 27.6 29

Bournemouth 27.7 28

Devon 27.9 30

Somerset 28.4 32

Gloucestershire 28.5 32

Dorset 30.6 31

Wiltshire 31.9 29

NI4 Local Authorities in bold.

It was agreed that that the programme would target those areas most in need,as indicated by NI4 results. Accordingly, Plymouth, North Somerset andTorbay were identified as key authorities to approach.


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6. The work-plan

The extended programme aims to help staff, managers and elected membersincrease their skills and confidence to develop more empowering authoritiesby:

developing knowledge and understanding of empowerment principlesand practice

developing facilitation skills and the confidence to use these whenpeople disagree

promoting a culture of empowerment across local authorities

In discussion with Empowering Communities it was agreed that the workprogramme should be:

1. Deliver training in three key areas of Plymouth, North Somerset andTorbay

2. Provide supplementary training to consolidate work in Bournemouth,Poole, Swindon, Exeter, and Torridge and/or initial training to introducethe programme to other Local Authorities with NI4.

3. Develop practitioner links in three key areas

4. Facilitate two region-wide learning and networking events inpartnership with Working With Networks (WWN) project.

5. Design and deliver bespoke training package to support area-basedworking in two locations

6. Deliver councillor candidate training in Plymouth

7. Ensure that relevant agencies were aware of the programme.

8. Achieve maximum impact and value for money by working in a co-ordinated way with WWN and other complementary initiatives.

9. Final report written and submitted with learnings and recommendations


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7. Local Authorities

Zebra Collective contacted all local authorities throughout the extendedprogramme as identified by Empowering Communities with the three keyareas being; Plymouth, Torbay and North Somerset. All direct contact wasmade initially by telephone or email with follow-up visits to each authorityarranged. Contact was also made with GOSW Locality Managers to establisha means of an introduction to some of the identified authorities.

Plymouth City Council

Plymouth City Council had participated in the pilot programme and therefore agood working relationship had already been established with the lead officer.An initial meeting helped to establish an assessment of training needs andsubsequent planning and preparation was carried out to deliver fourworkshops, two on Community Leadership and two on Practical Tools forCommunity Engagement.

Those attending the first Community Leadership workshop were at middlemanager level. The workshop was well received and a report was producedwith recommendations arising from the day. The second of these had to becancelled due to low sign-up.

The Practical Tools workshops were primarily attended by front line staff withresponsibility for community engagement. These proved incredibly popular, soa further two were scheduled and delivered in February and March 2010.Oneof the participants on the Practical Tools course subsequently approached usfor advice about running a forthcoming consultation event more creatively.This led to the design and delivery of a well-attended World Cafe event which

met the organisers objectives and received excellent feedback.

A Community Leadership training programme for elected members was alsoplanned. This process was initiated during April 2009 by one of the councillorswho had attended a Community Leadership workshop for officers andmembers during the pilot. Learning outcomes were decided in consultationwith member representatives, and due to constraints on member time andavailability, the project was scaled down to a single workshop on the Duty ToInvolve in March 2010. Despite extensive consultation on both content andtiming only two people attended. One of these was the councillor lead onmember development who was impressed by the content and style of theworkshop and who, we hope, will continue to stress the significance of

developing Councillors' community leadership skills and the contribution thattraining opportunities can make to this.

Plymouth was also offered mentoring support via one of the engagementpractitioners who were recruited as part of the programme. The initial intentionwas for the practitioner to be made available to the person taking up a newpost of Engagement Champion. However, the recruitment of this post wasdelayed and the offer of a practitioner was not taken up.


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Additional support was provided through working closely with the lead officerto produce a briefing note on the Duty to Involve for staff at Plymouth CityCouncil.

North Somerset

Following initial contact was established via telephone a meeting with theLead Officer from North Somerset took place on 15th June 2009. The leadofficer was keen for North Somerset to be involved in the programme andasked for a facilitated session with the senior management team to get themto understand the importance of Duty to Involve, communityengagement/empowerment and working in a coordinated way.

However despite continued discussions the idea had to be abandoned in Julydue to lack of support from senior management. In further discussions NorthSomerset were offered the support of a practitioner but again they were not ina position to go ahead. By September it was clear that North Somerset wereunlikely to be able to take up any of the offered support during 2009/10.

Torbay

The initial approach to Torbay was made via a meeting between the localitymanager for Government Office South West (GOSW) and the Deputy ChiefExecutive for the Council and consequent to this a meeting between Zebraand key staff was arranged for 24 th June. Torbay Council sought to participatein the programme and asked Zebra to plan and deliver a communitypartnerships eventfor 100 elected members and community partnershiprepresentatives as a precursor to delivering training.

It was agreed that the event would take place on 17

th

October 2009, but Zebraheard nothing further. By early October the event had to be rescheduled for7th November and we held a meeting with a representative of Torbay Councilto clarify the aims and objectives for the event and agree a format. We alsodiscussed training needs, and established that our Practical Tools forEngagement workshop would be appropriate. On 12th October we attended acommunity partnership meeting in Torbay as preparation for the event and adetailed draft proposal was submitted to the Council.

The event planned for 7th November had to be postponed again, due to notenough people being available to attend. Several attempts were made toestablish a new date for the event to be held in December but we did not

receive a response until late November suggesting the 30th

January 2010 forthe event. Due to other commitments and time slippage the date wasrearranged for 5th February. Zebra received no further communication fromTorbay about the event and, to our knowledge, it did not go ahead.

At the same time it was important to agree some dates for the training thatTorbay had requested, to ensure that this could occur within the financialyear. Various dates were offered for March 2010, with two Saturdays beingagreed. At this stage, Torbay did not indicate how they would like the training


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days to be used and subsequent requests failed to elicit this, or any furtherinformation. By mid-February it became necessary to assume that thesedates were not being advertised and would not be required.

Gloucester County Council

Gloucester County Council was one of the authorities Zebra was asked toapproach following the decision not to pursue working with North Somerset.Zebra had met with representatives of Gloucester County Council inDecember 2008, at which time they had expressed an interest in theprogramme, but declined to participate as the timing was wrong. Weapproached them again in September 2009, with limited response. In Octoberthe Council confirmed that EGP support was not a priority for them.

South Gloucestershire

We also contacted South Gloucestershire in September 2009 and agreed todeliver two training workshops, one on Monitoring and Evaluation and one onCommunity Leadership in February 2010, with a request for further trainingafter that. The Community Leadership workshop had to be cancelled at shortnotice and postponed until April due to staff illness (Zebra).

Limited ongoing additional support was also offered to the authorities whoparticipated in the pilot phase. These included Exeter, Bournemouth, Poole,Torridge and Swindon.

Exeter

Zebra worked with Exeter City Council to develop a series of engagement andempowerment training workshops. Two of these, on Engagement andEmpowerment and Facilitation Skills were delivered for Area Liaison Officersand staff from partner organisations by Zebra in February and March 2010.Other workshops are being delivered by Exeter City Council staff.

Bournemouth and Poole

These are two separate, but adjoining unitary authorities. It was initiallyenvisaged that Zebra work in the area this year would be linked to, and followon from, a planned empowerment mapping exercise with these two authoritiesand both Authorities initially expressed a wish to continue to participate in theEGP. In Poole, this began to take shape as training work that wouldcomplement their application for TSEP money and be used to support work inthe Bourne Valley. The Poole training was set back by delays in the TSEPprogramme. Dates for November were proposed, but the training did notproceed.


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In Bournemouth a Zebra practitioner facilitated a kick start day for councillorsin May 2009 and an influencing and empowering workshop in February2010. These are detailed on page 21 of this report.

Swindon

Additional training or support was offered to Swindon Borough Council in June2009, but they did not take this up.

Torridge

Torridge District Council identified the following training needs through ourcommunication with them. Torridge officers were keen to be involved in theprogramme and to participate in joint events with other Authorities.

Equality & Diversity Training Help with developing a corporate community engagement strategy Practitioner support with developing a Customer Insight Framework

(including a Social Audit) Community Leadership Training (for councillors) Facilitation Skills (for councillors & staff?)

Zebra linked Torridge with a practitioner who offered the support detailed onpage 22 of this report.

Sedgemoor

In June 2009, it was suggested that Sedgemoor, a district of Somerset, would

benefit from EGP support. We contacted them in July, and arranged ameeting to agree a training and support programme. This was cancelled bySedgemoor, who decided that what the EGP could offer was a later piece ofthe jigsaw. They expressed a wish to access this support at a later date.

8. Working with the local authorities an overview

Authorities targeted to participate in the EGP were those with NI4 as anindicator who had achieved scores below the regional average for thisindicator in 2009. During the course of the year it became apparent that insome of these authorities, notably Torbay and North Somerset, a clear initial

intention to engage with the programme was not backed by the capacity to doso. This capacity was further compromised by the workload and uncertaintysurrounding the Targeted Support Empowerment Programme (TSEP),announced in June and agreed in November.

The TSEP coincided with the EGP in Plymouth, Torbay, North Somerset andPoole. We suspect that the EGP offer, which was significantly smaller in termsof both financial value and profile, became secondary to this and therefore alower priority for officers in some of these authorities.


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In addition, authorities sought to link the two support offers, making take-up ofthe EGP offer dependent on the outcome of their TSEP bid. We believe thatthis was one of the factors which led to repeated "putting back" of scheduledevents and in some cases the non take-up of the EGP offer as authoritiessimply ran out of time to take full advantage of the support on offer.

One workshop elicited the following recommendations for internal changeswhich would create a more empowering authority:

A culture of challenge within the authority, where it is possible for front-line staff as well as community members to question the way thingsare done, where such challenge leads to constructive dialogue andpositive change towards a more empowering authority.

Promoting the benefits of working together across departments, withpartners and with the community by demonstrating the evidence forthis.

Bigging us up letting people know, internally and externally, about

the good work that is already going on.

9. Networking and dissemination

During the course of the year we:

worked with the Working With Networks programme to shareinformation and develop an event

were represented at the Stronger Communities programme launch

presented progress of the programme to the Stronger CommunitiesDelivery Oversight Group meeting at GOSW

worked with the IDeA on member development

presented a workshop on Community Leadership at the CreatingExcellence conference on localities

worked with housing providers and other agencies in Barne Barton,Plymouth to prepare the ground for a community researcher project

contributed to the development of the Area Liaison Officer approach inExeter

liaised with the Community Development Foundation re Duty to Involvework with Local Authorities


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10. Training the workshops

The workshops offered during 2009/10 were based on those which had beensuccessful during the pilot project. In all cases, local authorities were giventhe opportunity to consider the learning objectives of the workshops on offerand to customise these to suit their needs. This happened in Plymouth, forwhom the Practical Tools workshop and Duty to Involve workshops weredeveloped; in Exeter where we offered an Engagement and Empowermentworkshop and a Facilitation Skills workshop aimed specifically at Area Liaisonand PACT officers and in Bournemouth and Torridge where bespoke sessionswere organised for councillors.

Community Leadership

This workshop asked participants to explore: What does communityleadership look like? What are the skills and tools required? How are othersdoing it?

Topics covered included:

Empowerment, engagement,consultation what do theseterms mean?

Ladder of participation Benefits and challenges of

taking an empowering stance NI4, Duty to Involve, CAA Participatory tools and skills

practice

Practical ways to promoteinclusion

Key definitions: subjective andobjective empowermentincluding the empowermentgap

Current research findings Examples of good practice


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Practical Tools for Engagement

This workshop presented engagement tools which encourage deliberationand which are straightforward to learn and use. It also emphasised theattitudes and skills required to use them well.

The learning outcomes for this workshop were to:

Understand theprinciples of effectiveparticipation

Know how to createengagementopportunities thatpromote empowerment

Have tried out a varietyof participatory tools forinformation gathering,prioritising, actionplanning and evaluation

Understand theimportance of excellentfacilitation skills to community engagement work

Know how to ask questions that promote change Have considered the diversity within and between communities and

thought about ways to make participation inclusive Decide how to use what they have learnt in their own work


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Facilitation Skills

This workshop presented the thinkingbehind effective facilitation, including tipson how to promote inclusion and deal withdifficult behaviour. It offered some of thetools and techniques that Zebra facilitatorsknow and trust and presented a draftmeeting outline for participants to takeaway and use.

The learning outcomes for this workshop were to:

Have a clear understanding of the role of the facilitator before, during

and after a meeting Be able to distinguish between process and content Understand the value base of facilitation Have some strategies for promoting inclusion in meetings Have some strategies for addressing conflict and other difficult group

dynamics Be able to use a meeting process that promotes participation and leads

to action

Monitoring and Evaluation of Engagement Work

The learning outcomes for this workshop were:

The purpose and value of monitoring and evaluation:

Understanding the terms and definitions

Different perspectives on Monitoring and Evaluation

Linking monitoring to evaluation - The planning cycle

Different monitoring and evaluation techniques and approaches

Techniques for gathering information

Designing a monitoring system

Different perspectives on evaluation

Identifying benefits and pitfalls of evaluation methods

The role and involvement of stakeholders Steps in conducting an evaluation

Opportunity to consider how to make use of the results, thinking about:

Accountability

Learning and Development


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11. Councillor training

A need for member development in respect of empowerment practice, theDuty to Involve and NI4 was identified during the pilot project. This need is

supported by a number of sources (e.g. IDeA, The Ideal Empoweringauthority: an illustrated framework).

Plymouth, Torbay, Bournemouth, Exeter and Torridge have all aimed toinvolve elected members in the EGP work. Specific support and training forelected members was developed in Plymouth and Bournemouth.

Plymouth City Councillors identified these training/learning needs:

Developing a 'job description' to clarify their role in terms of engagingand involving people

Clear and up to date information about engagement opportunities toenable them to signpost residents

Examples of good practice from other well performing authorities Reference to guidance from non-governmental bodies (such as CDF) The opportunity to discuss issues and concerns and to raise topics for

further exploration.

Following the initial workshop

It was generally acknowledged that - over the course of a year - thereare useful and less useful times to engage Members in information andawareness raising sessions, the most ideal time probably being June -December, omitting August.

It was suggested that the workshop could be developed for delivery aspart of the planned new members induction, possibly involving bothnew and more established Members to encourage learning throughsharing of experience.

The councillors requested that a case study be developed based on a'real life' councillor engagement experience - this could be led by thetrainer or by one of the more experienced Members. The purposewould be to draw out the engagement 'lessons', and fit with localauthority strategy, prevailing government policy and statutoryrequirements. It could also generate other 'stories' from attendees toencourage sharing and learning from each others experience.

The idea of including something around the idea of 'leadership' wasdiscussed - i.e. preferable and less preferable models, exploring whatkind of 'leaders' local councillors can chose to be

The need to consider the emerging 'Localities' model was alsoacknowledged - particularly given the changing times over the nextyear following the demise of Area Committees and the need to developalternative local engagement models

Zebra also worked with the Executive Members Leadership Programme at theIDeA, with a view to co-delivering workshops for front bench Councillors.


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Zebra's recommendations for topics to be included in this programmeincluded:

The difference between direct and representative democracy:recognising that these are not exclusive processes, the ways in whichthese complement each other, the role that elected members can playin promoting both

The demographics of voting: recognising that some sections of thecommunity are less likely to vote / talk to their councillor than others,exploring new ways to engage with all members the community.

The empowerment gap: some people are more confident that theirvoice will be heard and are therefore more likely to take advantage ofthe increasing number of opportunities for influence leading to a greatergap between those who do and don't have influence.

Highlighting less formal and more participatory ways of facilitatingmeetings e.g. cafe style tables, PA tools, small group discussion ratherthan traditional panel question and answer sessions

Understanding NI4, the Duty to Involve and what these mean forcouncils and councillors Some knowledge of Participatory Budgeting and how this has been

implemented in the UK The role of councils, including elected members in enabling co-

production and building community capital so that councils don't needto do it all


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Quotes from participants attending training courses

I was thoroughly impressed with the day. I have been on acouple of similar courses but learnt much more within thissession. I particularly enjoyed learning about the practical tools

and having the opportunity to work within a group to 'test themout'! I feel the course could have been longer than a day as Ifeel parts of the participation ladder and consultation processwere rushed through. For example, the analyzing part of theprocess. However, as a practical 'workshop' I feel I have comeaway with a better understanding of the tools and techniquesfor public engagement. I will also ensure we use some of thesetools during our next public roadshow.

If there is an extended course I would be interested inattending. My brain likes to know the whole process and thetheory behind it!!

I attended the Practical Tools forCommunity Engagement courseyesterday and thoroughly enjoyed itand found of great benefit to me for

my upcoming work in flood zones andcommunity engagement. Please passon my thanks to the Zebra Collectiveteam. Jamie Whitford-Robson

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the course

(Community Leadership). The content was great andthe interactive workshops were fantastic. I have beento a few change/communication/engagementworkshops over time but haven't come away asexcited and enthused as I was at the endof yesterdays session! Thanks again. LisaWoodman


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12. Summary of workshops delivered

Date Workshop title Local Authority Numberattended

07/05/09 Kick start Bournemouth 25

09/06/09 Community Leadership Plymouth City Council 15

17/11/09 Practical Tools forCommunity Engagement

Plymouth City Council 6


Plymouth City Council * 16

09/02/10 Elected Members - AFacilitated Session

Bournemouth BoroughCouncil

9

18/02/10 Monitoring andEvaluation

South GloucesterCouncil

13

23/02/10 Engagement andEmpowerment Exeter City CouncilOfficers and PACT 17

25/2/10 Involving people andmaking a difference

Torridge and TeignbridgeOfficers and Councillors

20

08/03/10 Duty to Involve forCouncillors






23/03/10 Facilitation skills Exeter City CouncilOfficers and PACT

7

27/04/10 Community Leadership South GloucesterCouncil

14

* including three community activists.


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13. The practitioner brokerage service

The practitioner brokerage service was firmly established during theEmpowerment Good Practice programmes pilot phase. Experienced and

skilled practitioners were recruited and matched with authorities requestingdedicated support on issues of community engagement. Throughout theduration of the pilot it was evident that authorities were choosing to work withpractitioners who could demonstrate previous experience of working within alocal authority setting.

To expand the pool of expertise and experience the process for recruiting newpractitioners began in May 2009. Three more practitioners were recruitedtaking the total of available practitioners to ten.

Torridge District Council and Bournemouth Borough Council made use of twopractitioners providing dedicated support to Councillors, Officers and policy

development.

Practitioner support: Bournemouth Borough Council

Bournemouth Borough Council took part in the pilot programme and hadbenefited from training and the use of a skilled practitioner. During the courseof the extended programme Bournemouth asked if there was scope for themto continue working with the same practitioner due to the positive workingrelationship that had developed. Andy Williams, Team ManagerSafer & Stronger Communities, Bournemouth Borough Council said:

We think she has done a fantastic job, initiating our project around

influencing decisions. Bringing her in as an independent advisor hasreally helped to kick-start the project and she has provided an impartialvoice which has helped to convince some doubters about the value ofempowerment work.

In discussion with Empowering Communities we were able to offerBournemouth follow on support from the same practitioner and an additionaldays training.

During the extended programme the practitioner worked with Bournemouth toproduce a draft Community Engagement & Consultation Strategyandfacilitated a Councillors Workshop on 9th February 2010 to:

Gather the views of thecouncillors in relation to theextent to which they felt theycould influence decisions inBournemouth's publicservices

Briefed elected members on the Influencing Decisions Project and theresearch results (about why the public feel they can't influence)

This workshopshould becompulsory BournemouthCouncillor


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Asked elected members to think about what they could do in their roleto improve it

Nine councillors attended with many saying they enjoyed the toolsand techniques used throughout the workshop.

Asked for a final evaluation of the input and impact that the practitioner hadhad on Bournemouths community engagement and empowerment agenda,Andy Williams said:

Alisons input was extremely valuable in developing our newCommunity Engagement & Consultation Strategy particularly inrespect of the workshop she ran for Elected Members in 2009 and theevent in February for our Directors and senior managers from the NHS.Alison was always well prepared and brought a fresh approach toengaging with these important groups, so that we could get over somekey messages and get valuable feedback on the work.

Practitioner support: Torridge District Council

Involving people and making a difference

At our initial visit with Torridge District Council in February 2009 during thepilot phase they identified they would benefit from having some dedicatedsupport and were keen to follow up on the offer of having a practitioner towork with them. However due to competing priorities experienced by TorridgeDistrict Council it took some time for them to be in a position to accept thissupport.

Torridge was matched with an appropriately skilled practitioner who visitedlead officers in September 2009 to establish their needs in more detail.Torridge continued to work closely with the practitioner to plan and deliver anintroductory consultation training to both officers and councillors.

The training titled Involvingpeople and making a differencetook place on the25 February2010 and was attended bytwenty people - a mix ofcouncillors and officers fromTorridge and Teignbridge. The

aim of the session was toexplore ways to involve peoplewith decision making, and tothink about how this could bedone in the future.


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Participants discussed the following issues:

Why involve people? What is thechallenge that we face and why is itimportant we give it a go?

What do you want to find out?What should we be involving peoplein and when should we do it?

Would you want to be involved?What methods can we use toencourage people to get involved?

What happened? How do we letpeople know what we have done?What if we dont like what they say?

An on the day evaluation exercise carried out by participants was positive withthe majority feeling the session was useful and that they would use what theyhad learnt within their own work in the future.

Kathy McCormack, PR, Communications and Consultation Manager, TorridgeDistrict Council said:

Those that attended the course found it very interesting and felt thatthe information shared concerning new ways of engaging throughinnovative, creative activities was particularly beneficial. Throughoutthe course of the afternoon it became apparent that officers and

members were thinking slightly differently about consultation andengagement and had opened their minds to how they could consultand engage instead of thinking of it as just a tick box exercise.

Hannah provided a new perspective and I feel that the course was aneye opener for officers and councillors alike. Hopefully in the futurethose that attended will challenge themselves to engage in a differentway and make gaining feedback and comments an interesting anduseful activity for all.


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14. Bridging the Gap Event:A regional event for local authority officers and partner organisations workingtowards engagement and empowerment in the South West

Bridging the Gap was held on Tuesday 19th January 2010 at HestercombeGardens in Taunton. The event attracted thirty-seven representatives fromlocal authorities and partner organisation.

The day provided a forum for participants to:

focus on ways ofenabling andempowering people whoare seldom heard tohave a voice

provide an opportunity

for all participants toexplore and resolvecurrent challenges inOpen Space sessions

enable participants to action plan the opportunities presented byConnecting Communities and the Targeted Support Fund and otherengagement initiatives in a dedicated session

Open space sessions held in themorning and afternoon provided anopportunity for participants to propose

workshop discussions on the issues,questions, and challenges important tothem as local authority officers andpartner organisations.

In the afternoon there was an actionplanning session for participants to focuson the opportunities presented byConnecting Communities and theTargeted Support Fund and issuesraised in earlier open space sessions.

"I attended 'Bridging the gap' inTaunton today. Congratulations onan excellent event!" JasmineSharma

Thanks for a veryinteresting day. NickClarke


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need to change the way they work or risk failing to address real issues andproblems effectively.Richard said that Denhams over-riding message was that regardless of class,race and beliefs or anything else: in every community there are no favours, noprivileges or no special interest groups - just fairness. Connectingcommunities is all about making sure local people have a fair say.

Event Evaluation

Evaluation forms were distributed at the event. These included bothqualitative and quantitative questions. Twenty-five evaluation forms werereturned and the responses to quantitative questions are summarised in thechart.

Acknowledgements

Zebra Collective would like to thank everyone who took part in theEmpowerment Good Practice Programme and for all the support we receivedfrom Creating Excellence, National Empowerment Partnership, SW RIEP,Working with Networks, Alison Hernandez and Hannah Sloggett.

This report was written by the Zebra Collective.

Zebra Collective

225 Marlborough HousePlymouthDevonPL1 4HQ

www.zebra.coop

Overall, w hat did you think of the event?

Did the event live up to your expectations?

What did you think of Razia Shariffs presentation?

What did you think of Richard Sheard's presentation?

How much do you f eel you have learnt from this event?

Did you enjoy the Open Space sessions?

How useful did you f ind the action planning session?

Did you feel there w as enough time to netw ork?

What did you think of the venue?

What did you think of the lunch?

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Average of evaluation scores (each question scored from 1-4)

egp report 2009-10 pdf creator

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