This is Great news for the Kemptown Community, please take time to read it all.
The National Community Contracts project evaluation has been published, a link to the full report is below, about our Charter project, also referred to throughout the report, but is anonymised.
This led to an article in New Start that particularly mentioned our project,
Community Group Wins MP’s Praise.
A Community programme has been praised by a government minister.
The Eastern Road Partnership in Brighton was one of 11 groups selected for the Community Contracts pilot by the National Association of Neighbourhood Management.
With the support of Brighton and Hove City Council, a charter was created in August 2008 under which service providers and the community agreed to their own commitments to improve the quality of life for people in the area.
The group received praise from Communities Secretary for providing “real action in real places with real people”
Area background
The contract covers a neighbourhood which is part of one ward in this unitary authority, which is Conservative run. The ward itself has three Green Party councillors. The authority is largely urban and the area covered by the contract is more suburban in character. The local authority area is densely populated and is a popular place to live. It is also a destination for migrants from other parts of Europe, but overall the black and minority ethnic population in the authority is comparatively low. Economically the area has prospered over the past decade, and technology and knowledge based businesses have been thriving, along with business and financial services, though growth rates have slowed in recent years.
Neighbourhood
The contract covers 1,480 households, with a high proportion of older people living there; the average age is 59.5, with 52.9 per cent being aged 65 or over. There are many sheltered housing schemes within the area and 52.5 per cent of the population have a limiting long term illness. The area (designated a super output area) ranks as the 2nd most deprived in the authority, and as the 515th most deprived in England.
Aims of the contract
The contract aimed to provide information and increase awareness about resident entitlements to and expectations of services. Resident ownership of the contract was seen by stakeholders as a way of increasing resident influence over services. The older person’s co-ordinator stated: “The contract is done with people rather than to people and they are involved in the thinking behind it. It has given residents the power to challenge.” There was an emphasis towards encouraging the involvement of a wide range of people in community activity, especially older residents. Stakeholders also stated that the contract was a way of improving service delivery.
Organisation and implementation
It was initiated and led by the Neighbourhood Management Team (NMT) which is funded to work in the area as part of the national neighbourhood element programme. Unlike an adjoining neighbourhood, this neighbourhood was not covered by the neighbourhood renewal funding programme and had no formal neighbourhood working strategies in place. The NMT decided on the idea of a contract as they were interested in applying new ways of working. The Neighbourhood Management Team leader stated: “We wanted to try something that was about the nuts and bolts of service delivery, something firm and deliberate rather than aspirational.” The process started in spring 2007 and the contract was delivered to the community in August 2008. The NMT were the driving force behind the production and development of the contract and were commended by service providers, councillors and residents for their success to date.
94 An evaluation of the community contracts pilot programme
A local area partnership made up of residents, service providers, the local authority, and elected members, oversees and leads the contract. The contract is co-ordinated on behalf of the partnership by the NMT. The contract is focused on community safety and health with issues such as clean neighbourhoods, combating anti-social behaviour, providing health service information and encouraging exercise as key priorities. These priorities came out of a survey completed in spring 2007 which was distributed to three quarters of households in the area and received a 21 per cent response rate. The survey responses collected framed the basis of the contract and then workshops were held with residents in the local area partnership and the action groups (community safety and health) to formulate the specific priorities within the contract based on these findings. The contract was launched with key stakeholders and formally signed by a ward councillor, the leader of the council, the chief superintendent with the police, the primary care trust and the chair of the local area partnership (a resident). This was covered by the local press. It was delivered door to door in August 2008 by the Neighbourhood Management Team, outreach workers, police community support officers and residents. This was in order to maximise awareness about the contract and make any referrals or follow-up visits to resolve immediate or outstanding service problems. Through this process 29 per cent of households were spoken to. Monitoring is done through feedback from voluntary organisations and community groups. The household survey was to be repeated in March 2009 which will include two questions about the contract to measure perception.
A core group of active community residents had a high level of involvement in the development and production of the contract. The findings of the spring 2007 survey were presented to local community groups. Workshops were then held for residents to develop the contract priorities. The residents were keen to input their views and the NMT were keen for this to drive the contract. The Neighbourhood Team manager said: “It ended up a much larger document than we expected as we didn’t want to exclude anything that the residents felt important- they themselves wanted it shorter as a matter of principle but weren’t able to cut the content.” Approximately 80 residents took part in theses workshops, from this a core group of 6-8 residents were involved in the editing of the document and took time to negotiate wording to make it readable for a wider audience. The older person’s co-ordinator stated: “Residents helped proof read and there were a few re-writes to make sure it was in the right language. For example, the term ‘access’ didn’t mean anything to people. We might not have picked up on that without these residents.”
Appendices 95
The area benefited from the high level of community activity already in place. The local area partnership, tenants and resident groups, the community safety action group and the health action group were well established in the area at the beginning of the process. Community engagement structures were seen as imperative to the contract’s success. An NMT community engagement officer stated: “The neighbourhood itself was already well engaged. It would have been almost impossible to do without this…we would still be in the process of establishing those groups now.” Residents continue to be involved with the contract and have used it directly as a lobbying tool with services. Two active residents stated: “The contract has given us the power to say to services – you promised to keep this up. When the police did not provide crime stats I as a resident could challenge them.” Ultimately it is envisaged that residents will take full ownership of the contract in time.
Achievements – highlights
The door-to-door delivery of the contract was a success and 29 per cent of houses were spoken to. A number of referrals were made in this way, for example to Age Concern and the pension service. There were also a number of residents who required the contract to be translated and 11 follow-up interpreter visits took place. One example is a resident who had significant housing issues that they had been unable to communicate. The NMT liaised with the housing office and resolved these issues. The team are taking this forward with the housing office to identify more potential cases of this kind. The three ward councillors are dedicated to the idea of the contract and were involved in its production and delivery. One councillor stated: “The process of developing and publicising the contract was an intense way of bringing the neighbourhood together…the contract has enabled people to contact services directly without the help of ward councillors.” They were commended for being active in the negotiation of service commitments in the contract and also within resident consultation. The Neighbourhood Management Team leader stated: “They have been brilliant from beginning to end; they have attended community workshops and been part of the steering group to keep the contract alive.” Similarly active residents also appreciated councillor support: “They attend every meeting and are really dedicated.” After the contract was delivered two additional residents started attending the health action group. Another resident started attending the local area partnership meetings through the contract. The contract also helped to strengthen community outreach and partnership working in the area. The older person’s co-ordinator stated: “It is a fantastic approach; it has definitely strengthened the 50+ programme. I know a lot more people in the area because of it and we also feel a lot more connected to the community and Adult Social Services.“
96 An evaluation of the community contracts pilot programme
Since the contract a number of residents reported improvements in service delivery. One person was concerned about the amount of drug paraphernalia discarded in the area and reported a huge improvement in recent months. A drugs and alcohol worker was recently committed to the area and through their acknowledged progress, the local area partnership agreed that some Community Chest money should go to part funding their wages.
The contract formalised police feedback to residents through local community groups. The police community support officers (PCSOs) attend the local area partnership and feedback data on crime and anti-social behaviour. The chief superintendent felt this was a huge success and as a result they rolled out feedback of crime data to the community across the district. “The PCSO’s feedback to the community through local groups, without the contract we would not have done this, the impact this has had on the community has been significant….the feedback we give to residents has done a lot for public confidence.” The contract also co-ordinated and improved service response times. The local authorities housing department and a contracted cleaning service agreed to match the best time for disposing of needles and drug paraphernalia and fly tipping. Active residents had high levels of awareness of the community notice boards. Stakeholders received feedback from residents that the notice boards improved information flows within the community. The updating of these boards was discussed in community meetings. Two active community residents stated “people tell us that they look at them regularly.” Residents in the wider community mentioned that the area is well looked after and some highlighted improvements in recent months. The Community Clean Up days were mentioned as having a positive impact on the area. The problem of graffiti was also improved recently. Gaps and issues
One area identified for further development is monitoring. Stakeholders outlined there were positive impacts to be attributed but there were no formal mechanisms in place to measure impact at the moment. There are a lot of different agencies and services in the contract and it is difficult to coordinate feedback on each of the contract standards. The NMT outlined that smaller voluntary sector agencies were providing monitoring and feedback. However, large public sector organisations found it more difficult to provide monitoring data on the contract priorities for the area. There were a series of negotiations about the production of local area data. For example, the police were concerned about breaking down data at neighbourhood level. The chief superintendent said: “We have to be careful with ward data as it would not give residents a true picture of crime in the neighbourhood as it falls within the city centre boundaries and the high crime rates due to the night time economy.” There was a need for ongoing promotion of the contract within the community to keep the momentum going. There was a need for further awareness raising about the contract within the community and it was felt by key stakeholders that the contract needed time to develop for impacts in service delivery to take place and for information to be filtered down to the public. One councillor stated: “If the contract is to deliver these commitments then it needs to be in place for a long time before service providers will be able to deliver it effectively.”
There were concerns raised about the future of the contract due to the restructuring of neighbourhood management from the dedicated NMT to a central strategic neighbourhood management function after March 2009. One councillor stated: “The NMT has been imperative to the delivery of the contract, it is still early days and we need a few years to establish the contract properly, resident ownership will take a bit more time, the NM still need to be involved.” Active community residents also felt it was too soon for full resident ownership of the contract at this stage.
Resources and sustainability
A critical issue was finding a way of creating a neighbourhood plan which was sustainable given the short term funding for the NMT (till 31 March, 2009). Without the function of the neighbourhood team it is unclear how the lead co-ordination role will continue to happen for the contract.
Areas for future development
The contract was viewed as a pilot phase and councillors, residents and services providers are keen for it to be continued and refreshed. The NMT team would like a stronger focus on the inclusion of black and minority ethnic residents and young people in the next phase. The neighbourhood survey was due to be completed in March 2009 to measure impact of contract issues and develop a new focus. The NMT would also be keen to develop a contract in a neighbouring area if capacity allowed. The police and housing department both wanted to go beyond their current service standards in the contract. The housing manager stated: “If phase two happens I would be happy to push service delivery forward and work on a wish list for residents.” The chief superintendent of the police stated: “We would like more target setting and tightening up of monitoring to measure impact. The contract could be even more if the community said this is what we want and we could work toward that.”
