London 2012 surprised many people. This was not just because our haul of medals far outstripped our expectations – though they did – nor that the country managed to pull off an event that arguably surpassed all other Olympics – though this is what many neutral observers claimed.
What shocked us was that thousands of people each day gave up their time for free to better and provide for their home city. Volunteering, not sport, was the true legacy of that energetic summer of 2012.
Fast-forward two years and we seem to be building quite nicely on the revelation that people actually care about where they live and are prepared to work for free to make it better. Marshalled and supported by the charity Nesta and the Cabinet Office, UK cities are embracing an innovative programme called Cities of Service that puts volunteers to work in ways most useful and productive for councils.
‘Cities of Service is about helping local government get better at mobilising the energy, talents and passions of people to make a real difference to local priorities,’ explains Philip Colligan, deputy chief executive and executive director of the Innovation Lab at Nesta.
‘It was started in 2009 by Mayor Bloomberg in New York and has since spread to cities across the USA, Spain and now the UK.
‘Like many approaches to mobilising volunteers, it starts with cities identifying priorities that matter and where volunteers can make a real difference. What’s different about Cities of Service initiatives is the focus on measuring results. Rather than measure how many people volunteer, they measure the impact those volunteers have. If volunteers are helping children learn to read, a Cities of Service initiative will measure the progress that children are making.’
In light of budget cuts, utilising a volunteer army for specified local authority tasks is no doubt an appealing draw many would like to get involved in, but Nesta is rolling the programme out in phases, with the first phase containing only seven cities.
‘We wanted to keep the numbers small in this first cohort so that we could provide lots of support and learn about what works,’ says Colligan. ‘In August 2013 we wrote to city councils across England to invite them to get involved. In September, we held an event at Nesta with Mayor Bloomberg and leaders and chief executives from 26 English cities to learn from the experience in the US and figure out how we would make it work in the UK.
‘City councils then submitted proposals explaining how they would implement Cities of Service in their area and the priorities they would work on. Though we had lots of great proposals we selected just seven to be in this first wave.’ Those cities are Bristol; Kirklees; Plymouth; Portsmouth; Barnsley; Swindon and Telford & Wrekin.
Plymouth Cllr Chris Penberthy, cabinet member for co-operatives and community development, says the council was thrilled to be chosen.
‘Our desire [is] to create a fairer Plymouth where people can influence and change what happens to their area and everyone does their bit. Being a City of Service means we can maximise the opportunities volunteering brings to help deliver this and to focus on the impact that volunteering can have,’ he explains.
The projects are all in their early stages, with ideas being developed with extensive support from Nesta. This brainstorming period will result in publicly published Service Plans – basically a blueprint of what will be achieved – in the summer.
‘The Service Plans will set out priorities, such as reducing social isolation or improving school age literacy, against which councils can measure the impact that volunteers have,’ explains Colligan. ‘We’ll be working closely with all seven to help them meet their goals.’
For four of the cities – Portsmouth, Plymouth, Barnsley and Kirklees – that Service Plan will become the responsibility of a new dedicated council employee in the role of chief service officer.
‘The experience in the US shows that the cities that make most progress are the ones who put service at the heart of their strategies to address important challenges and make it a leadership priority,’ says Colligan.
‘The role of the chief service officer is an important part of this. A senior officer, reporting direct to the leadership who works across the council to make sure that there are meaningful opportunities for citizens to get involved. The first four will be mentored by counterparts from the US.’
Unlike the people that will be part of the schemes, the chief service officer is not a volunteer.
Similarly, the schemes that are part of the Cities of Service model need administrative and organisational backing that also comes at a price.
Portsmouth, Plymouth, Kirklees and Barnsley have each received grants of £180,000 to fund the creation of a chief service office post and to support new initiatives, while the others have received grants of £30,000 to support new initiatives that mobilise citizens to make a difference to specific challenges.
This money has partly come from the Centre for Social Action Innovation Fund, but is also co-funded by Cabinet Office and Nesta with support from the Cities of Service coalition in the US and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Penberthy admits that Plymouth, ‘is also contributing some funding to support the projects’.
That admission – and the likelihood that funding, at least on the same level, for future councils to replicate the project is unlikely – will no doubt cause some council’s enthusiasm for the idea to wane, such is the tightness of budgets. But Colligan says the benefits are well worth the expenditure in helping councils meet their objectives affordably, in improving the cities and in introducing education and employment opportunities.
‘We want to see public services – in this case city government – get much better at mobilising the energy, talents and passions of people to make a real difference to local priorities. Also, there’s lots of evidence that people use volunteering to develop skills and build networks that help get them into work,’ he says.
That reasoning should be enough to persuade most councils to keep a keen eye on how phase one pans out.
If the seven councils meet their objectives and reap the rewards, then the point has been proved and Colligan should have no barriers to expanding the project across the UK, as he hopes to do.
If this initial phase fails to deliver, however, that job might be a tough one.
