Belonging Communities

 

In March 2008 a programme of meetings was being held across Northumberland aimed at working with communities to tailor services more closely around their needs.

These roadshows were a chance for staff from district and county councils to meet with representatives from parish and town councils, voluntary and community groups and development trusts to discuss options for 27 community forums proposed under the LGR bid for the Unitary Council. The feedback will be considered by the new Council before any final decisions are made on Belonging Communities.

• Your questions answered from the roadshows

 

Community Consultation on Belonging Communities

As part of the consultation process to talk to Northumberland communities about community forums, 23 meetings were held around the county in March 2008. These meetings included a presentation on setting up community forums in the 27 belonging communities and asking for feedback.

The presentation was delivered by a team of officers at each event including chief executives and chief officers from district councils, and a senior officer from the county council. The notes from all the meetings have been collated by a team of officers from district and county councils, and have been analysed to draw out the key concerns and ideas expressed by those in attendance.

Some key points suggested at the consultation events:

In order to make sure that there is representation from a wide range of interests in the community and that all voices are heard equally, people at the presentations suggested that the invitation to become a forum member should be extended to parish and town councils, voluntary and community organisations, development trusts, local businesses, church groups and local umbrella groups, networks and forums.

Those organisations would be asked to choose a representative and these people would become the core membership of the forum.  Well advertised, open meetings should be held regularly where all residents of the belonging community would be invited to attend. 

Officers and staff of organisations working in the area could be invited to particular meetings and events to advise on specific issues and could become members of issue based sub-groups that are taking a particular project/issue forward.

In order to keep everyone’s interest in attending forum meetings, they would need to be regular, interesting and stimulating, well run and resourced.  The forums would need to involve those that are hardest to reach in communities, - so meetings would need to be held at times and in venues that are easily accessible. Attendees may need to be reimbursed for their time, travel or carer responsibilities, and those groups of people that are not represented must be identified and actively targeted. Forums would need to be well publicised and promoted, and will need to demonstrate their achievements.

Communication between the forum and the wider community would be crucial, and there would be a need to raise community awareness about the forums at the beginning, and then on an ongoing basis, using a variety of means to communicate as widely as possible.  It would be important to create the right environment so that everyone felt able to express their views and share their knowledge and expertise. It would be important that the business of the forum is relevant to the locality.  There was a wide consensus on the need to discover the needs and priorities of young people and to get into all corners of the community.

When asked what the role of local councillors should be, it was suggested that the new council’s councillors should be the forums’ champions.  There was concern that they should be politically neutral and should attend all forums in order to listen, not to control.

It was felt that the councillor’s role would be to help engage people; to give advice, listen and respond to the views of local people and to take those views to area and county level.  Councillors should be able to hold service managers to account, help to monitor performance against set targets within the Local Area Agreement, community action plans and partners’ plans and strategies.  There was some concern expressed about whether councillors should chair the forums.  Some thought this was a good idea but others thought that listening carefully was the most important role.

In designing and running the Forums, we asked how we could make sure that the Forums would add value to the work of existing organisations active in the community. We were told that linking organisations together through the forum would help the representatives to develop useful relationships that could lead to joint pieces of work and a sharing of information, resources and services.  Meeting together in this way would help to clarify the role of various organisations, help to identify common interests and expertise and provide a critical mass to make a strong voice for the community.  Public participation in the forum and the amount of local information and expertise they can bring would add value to any requests for increases or changes in services. Levels of social capital in the belonging community would be increased.

We then asked what some early priorities are that the Forum would want to tackle in the first year or so and the most important issue is to sort out the structure and organisation of the forum.  We need to clarify resources, membership, sequence of meetings, what powers and responsibilities the forums could have and how the forums would relate to the area structures of the new unitary council.  The next important thing would be to sort out how to communicate within the belonging community area and to sort out publicity so that everyone knows about the forum.  The development of clear terms of reference for the forums at an early stage was seen as crucial and the Locality Team is in the process of developing Draft Terms of Reference so they can be consulted on during the next round of meetings.

It was also made clear that forums would need to achieve some early wins in order to gain credibility.
Many parish councils have already developed community plans and are working their way though them.  These plans need to be revisited as a priority, and either updated or moved on with the help of the forum.

Other priorities include:

• affordable housing
• transport,
• street cleaning
• the needs of young people
• rural isolation
• anti-social behaviour
• GP and hospital services
• highway maintenance
• and
• education

We asked what the best way would be for the council and others to consult and involve the Forums in these issues, and we were told that extensive public participation and regular public meetings would help.  That different ways of communication were needed to make sure everyone was aware of the subjects to be discussed and researched and that consultation should be directly related to issues and to the people who are affected by them.  A commitment of both time and resources by the new unitary council is considered essential; each forum area should have a dedicated officer and there needs to be a clear route to the area structures and clear reporting mechanisms back to the forum.  Representatives from the forums should be able to attend other relevant meetings and the area committee.

We asked how the forum could generate evidence of outstanding needs in the community and as well as suggestions already noted, we were informed that the members of the forum would have a great deal of qualitative data and may well have information they have gathered through their own organisations.  The forum would be able to act as an information exchange and to gather information from a variety of sources.  An interesting idea was to invite members of the community to address the forum at “open days” on specific topics and another was to have suggestion boxes located in appropriate public places.  There would be a great deal of information in the keeping of agencies such as the Care Trust, the Police as well as the current District Councils but forum members are likely to have a greater understanding of their area and are well placed to carry out local research.

Finally we asked what else the Forums may need to work effectively and responses included:

• training in community development and confidence building for those who have not participated in this way before
• admin and officer support/professional support from outset
• help to raise profile
• co-ordination across the 27 belonging communities
• strong links between parish council, town council and locality officer
• a devolved budget
• permission to think radically
• the confidence of the community

and

• getting the culture right

 

The Way Forward

So, what happens next?

From this initial analysis of the information gathered, it is apparent that there is a lot of interest in the development of community forums, but a whole variety of views as to how this should happen, what the forums should look like and how they should function.  Resources, accountability, communication, structure and membership are all areas of common concern.  It is essential that communities work together to ensure that their forum works for their area, building on what already exists and that local people help to shape it.

The journey into a unitary Northumberland is well on its way, and a whole team of people are working hard to get the structures and systems right and ready for 2009. The key to this change being an improvement on what goes before involves  a significant move on the new council’s part to ”move closer to communities” and to improve communication and build relationships on a more open and equal basis.  The development of community forums is at the heart of this.

The Locality Team, a group of officers who work throughout the county and who hosted the first round of consultation meetings, are working to address these concerns and ideas and testing them against the duties and responsibilities of the new council.
These suggestions will be put to the Members of the new Council.  In the meantime, work continues to produce a draft terms of reference for the forums, which will be brought to the next round of consultation meetings for consideration.  It is also hoped that there will be a clearer description about the way the forums will relate to the area structures in the near future.

If you require any further information, and have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Lynda Fakir or Susi Goncu, Locality Officers, based in the Joint Implementation Team at County Hall, Morpeth.  Telephone numbers: 01670 533658/4264