The Local Government White Paper stressed the need for councillors to have closer connections to communities and recognised the vital role of local community groups in involving residents in decision-making.
Activists welcome the sentiment, but reserve judgment as to whether it will be translated into action.
They view lack of detail on community engagement in the subsequent Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill and lack of funding for grassroots bodies as obstacles. Leaders of small voluntary organisations that are already under pressure fear they could, in fact, be expected to put in more time and effort with less resources at their disposal.
Research by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) on Linking Elected Members and the Local Community More Effectively Through the Local Government White Paper highlighted the highly variable nature of relationships between individual councillors and community organisations across the country. While links are strong in some areas, one community group representative said there are tensions when councillors feel threatened by strong community leaders.
Another said: ‘There can be a tendency by some community groups to perceive the council as the root of the problem, not the solution.‘
A common theme expressed by interviewees in the CLES research was uncertainty as to where funds were coming from to build capacity to take on the enhanced role promised them.
One community group chair pointed out that his organisation struggles to find funding, ‘yet the local authority relies upon us at times when they need to consult with the community.‘ Another said: ‘This is raising expectations of what community groups can achieve, but it has to be matched with a strategy for community support and resources.‘
The forthcoming Third Sector Review and CSR 2007 will provide a clearer picture. But the end of Single Regeneration Budget, much European Union funding and Community Chest grants coupled with a push towards economic outputs by Regional Development Agencies, mean community groups‘ funds are dwindling in many places.
A study of Community Empowerment Networks (CENs) published last month by umbrella body Urban Forum also shows that 79% of these networks, which were set up to boost grassroots participation, have lost resources since cash was re-directed through Local Area Agreements (LAAs) in 2005. Their ability to allocate small grants for neighbhourhood activity has decreased significantly, leaving them unable to do outreach work in deprived areas. The positive news from the survey was, however, that 44% of CENs said that relationships with local authorities had improved since LAAs were introduced.
Elin Gudnadottir, deputy chief executive of Urban Forum, told The MJ: ‘The Bill has a lot of talk about community engagement, but [the Government] stops short of saying how they are going to do it. There is a gap between what is being said and what is actually happening. It won‘t be proper community engagement unless it is properly funded.’
Mandy Wilson, director of community development body COGS, points out that it is not just financial resources that are needed for community activity; it is access to skills, brokerage, mentors and facilitators. She says: ‘There is a lot of talk about community engagement but it has be underpinned by community development and that‘s not there.’
Last year‘s Community Development Challenge report, commissioned by DCLG, found that community involvement depends fundamentally on community development and such work has a very low profile, unstable funding and is overlooked by policy-makers. She says it is disappointing that these findings were not reflected in the Bill.
Ms Wilson thinks the Bill places places too much emphasis upon representative democracy as opposed to participatory democracy. ‘There is a need to look closely at the relationship between elected members and community groups. There is no process there in the legislation. It is left up to local authorities to take it on as they see fit. But only the best authorities will do it well. We need processes to make it happen’, she says.
The Bill places local authorities as the lead partners in Local Strategic Partnerships when they were previously cast as equals with the private and voluntary sectors. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has also lobbied for Clause 81 to specifically refer to consultation with these other sectors on Local Area Agreements, which it fails to do. The Best Value duty to involve residents and Community Call for Action (CCfA) are the most tangible extensions of powers to local people contained in the legislation. The CCfA enables councillors to take up issues raised by constituents and find solutions to them, but is not prescriptive.
Ms Wilson comments: ‘It sounds good, but will it work in action? When using it, how do you decide which groups and individuals get priority? The local councillor will act on behalf of the community. That means councillors have to know their communities well and work with community leaders.’ Matthew Warburton, head of strategy at the LGA, does not see the Bill‘s lack of prescriptive processes for community engagement as a problem. He says: ‘We have convinced the government that local government is committed to empowering communities and there are better ways to make that happen than through the statute book.’
He thinks the Bill paves the way for many of the aspirations in the LGA‘s Closer to People and Places manifesto, published last year, to happen. ‘What is important’, he says, ‘is that it contains a new approach to LAAs, a new performance framework and scrutiny arrangements that will play an indirect role in empowerment by emphasising local priorities.’
He points out that councillors are elected to represent the community in its widest sense, which goes far beyond community organisations per se. And while community development must be considered against the backdrop of financial pressures, rooting money through LAAs can mean the public and voluntary sector can use it, ‘in a way that makes most sense locally,’ he says.
He says there needs to be clarity over the roles of ward councillors and community group leaders and that support and information must be there so elected members have a thorough knowledge and understanding of their communities. Development work on joint problem-solving, rather than straightforward training, is necessary.
Ed Cox, director of policy and public affairs at the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU), echoes the view that the Bill could not be too prescriptive because this hampers devolution: ‘Representative and participatory democracy are not in competition, but can be complementary. The Government is telling local authorities to take community engagement seriously, giving them tools to do so and there is recourse to complaint where this does not happen.’
While centralisation of power has contributed to unhealthy relationships between ward councillors and community leaders in the past, he is optimistic for the future. He says: ‘The relationship between councils and voluntary and community sector has been put on a fresh footing now. There needs to be more thinking in local authorities about the support and capacity building given to councillors and officers around community engagement in decision-making. Skills are needed particularly to engage marginalised minorities. Investment needs to go into the grassroots community sector where it has not necessarily hit and resources need to be better co-ordinated.’
Top-down, ring-fenced funding for community development may not necessarily be the answer. ‘Councils and community groups need to work together to deliver improved outcomes’, says Mr Cox.
The LGA, IDeA, Urban Forum, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, LGIU and others are all working to develop ideas for improving relationships between councillors and community organisations.
What is certain is that a lot of hard work is needed to achieve the potential grassroots groups undoubtedly have for bringing councillors closer to their communities. And that hard work must not be left to those groups alone. n
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