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CAPACITY BUILDING FOR COMMUNITY PLANNING
SUMMARY
1 The Community Planning Task Force (CPTF) commissioned this study, with the support of Social Research at the Scottish Executive. The aim was to research the capacity building requirements of Community Planning (CP), with reference to the training and development needs of staff directly concerned with developing and progressing CP. The study was expected to indicate what sort of training and other development work needs to be done to progress CP and then to advise on an appropriate way forward
2 The study focused on the skills and development needs of individuals operating within partnerships at 'officer' level or equivalent, from across a range of CP partners. It appeared that very little training and development work was taking place on the ground and this study sought to explore the issues behind this, as well as focusing on a way forward.
3 The CPTF required two interrelated threads of research - primary research with a range of Community Planning partnership (CPP) representatives and secondary research into existing training and development provision. Staff from across the CPPs were invited to attend one of four focus group sessions and the consultants interviewed or consulted with a wide range of other stakeholders and interested parties.
4 It was found that there was little evidence of real progress being made in developing or implementing co-ordinated learning activity in the CPPs. There were some examples of commitment to learning and awareness building but these tended to be relatively isolated examples mainly in particular organisations as opposed to CPP-wide.
5 This lack of progress in developing learning was found to be due partly to CP still being at an early stage of development and the fact that there is still considerable ambiguity amongst partners about just what CP means and how they should respond individually and collectively. Since many CPPs still had to agree the values, attitudes and behaviours required to work in a collaborative CP way, it was unlikely that they had moved on to identify the skills and competencies underpinning this. In practice it seems there has been little work on the planning of learning and development needs or on the mechanisms to identify what these needs might entail. It is particularly evident that partnership-wide learning has been rare, with most evidence of progress taking place in individual partner organisations.
6 Most consultees believed that the lack of progress on the skills and competencies, knowledge and attitudes required for effective CP is the result of a weakness in addressing some infrastructural and cultural issues, both at national and local partner level. Consultees tended to feel that these constraints on CP had to be addressed before real progress could be made on developing capacity building interventions for officers. The constraints included the:
- confusion about the definition of CP, with a need for clear guidance on CP and the steps necessary to implement it effectively
- virtual absence of a learning and development culture surrounding CP, with a dearth opportunities, formal and informal, for sharing and building on experiences
- the "knowing-doing gap" being a significant barrier to learning and development - moving from awareness and understanding to implementation and actual delivery
- lack of incentives for collaborative working, with career paths for staff being dominated by mainstream delivery and in-house priorities and targets, and with an under-appreciation of the benefits of collaborative working
- 'thematic-based' national policy initiatives or guidance at a national level not appearing to be immediately compatible or joined-up with delivery processes at local levels.
- community planning having to be developed against a background of institutional change taking place within some partner organisations (e.g. Communities Scotland)
- the culture of partnership working itself - and the need to secure consensus at all costs - sometimes creating blockages to getting things done
- fragmented/under-developed supply of capacity building services (expertise, materials, initiatives, programmes, etc) against a backdrop of relatively unplanned demand and lack of co-ordinated effort for such training - representing a lost opportunity to spread development costs between partner agencies
A concern expressed by many consultees was that the 'duty' of CP, under the Local Government in Scotland Bill, might be counter-productive to the wider ethos and spirit of CP, which focuses on fostering an environment of spontaneous partnership working within a voluntary context.
7 It was the view of most consultees that addressing these cultural and infrastructural issues is the first priority, rather than a national programme of capacity building for middle management officers specifically responsible for developing and implementing CP. It was felt that just training and developing these officers in isolation would not achieve the objectives of making CP more effective.
8 Two parallel solutions were required. Firstly, to address the cultural and institutional issues which are constraining collaborative working and, secondly, to ensure that an integrated programme of capacity building is developed to enhance the relevant skills and competencies, attitudes and behaviours of all key officers and elected and board members of the main partner organisations. For CP to become truly embedded, it will be important to work on capacity building at the CPP level and encourage partners to learn and develop together, with capacity building for CP perhaps permeating the whole of a partner's organisation - and the impetus for such change beginning at the top.
9 The integrated programme of capacity building has been drawn up into a suggested Learning Development Framework which incorporates four interrelated learning areas:
- Values and visioning
- Partnership working
- Practitioner skills
- Engaging communities
These learning areas should be seen in the context of a set of core values and principles for CP and a commitment to enhancing the skills and competencies, attitudes and behaviours necessary to achieve the objectives of CP. The specific skills are set out under each of the four learning areas to illustrate the potential content of a capacity building intervention.
10 The study strongly suggests that a "one size fits all" national programme for capacity building in CP would not be appropriate. The partnerships are very different in terms of their speed and direction of development and there is also a need to ensure that different groups within the CPPs can access support and learning in a flexible way that meets their own specific needs. Some groups may need to work on values and visioning to ensure there is a common purpose to their partnership whereas others that are further up the learning curve may be much more interested in focusing on key practitioner skills that will lead to innovative partnership projects and improved collaborative service delivery.
11 The study highlights deficiencies in the marketplace for capacity building provision, with the supply side relatively being under-developed and the demand side characterised by a lack of integrated effort in accessing provision. It also draws attention to the importance of exploring informal approaches to learning and development, which are in danger of being overlooked in a marketplace more associated with formal training provision. The study identifies some of the more significant programmes and relates these to the Learning Development Framework.
12 As very little training and development work is taking place on the ground, the study suggests that CPPs should be encouraged to develop their own Community Planning Capacity Building Plans, costed in broad terms with a strong commitment to deliver within an agreed timescale. Plans would be jointly owned by CP partners, on the assumption that capacity building for CP is firmly embedded - on a sustainable basis - in each partner's organisational development plans. They could incorporate the elements set out in the Learning Development Framework and be underpinned by general guidelines promoting quality standards and suggesting what development work the Plans might cover, such as baseline or scoping studies, audit of capacity building needs, costed-out delivery options, awareness raising activities, modular training sessions for key staff, development of learning networks, arrangements for good practice dissemination and other matters.
13 The legislation on CP will no doubt create an environment in which building up the capacity of CP partners will form an essential element of the core business of CPPs. Some sort of incentive may nonetheless be needed to kick start the process, and the study therefore suggests provision of some pump priming funding - the amount involved need not be very large, as there would be an expectation that CP partners would fund much of the development work from their own budgets. As the study suggests an approach to capacity building from the bottom up, it is not possible to give more than a notional estimate of the cost of initial development work, but it is roughly estimated that it would cost up to 1 million across all CPPs in the first year, depending on what elements were built into this (e.g. baseline studies, awareness raising workshops, modular training sessions, networking, etc). There is already a commitment by the Scottish Executive, under the Local Government in Scotland Bill, to assist with the development costs of CP.
14 The study suggests that the capacity building programme should be flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of different learning methodologies, including:
- Networking
- Secondments and shadowing
- Learning forums
- Internally devised and delivered workshops and training events
- Externally devised and delivered workshops and training events
- e-learning, web-based fora and good practice databases
There should also be opportunities for self-directed learning and other informal ways of capturing knowledge and experience. Approaches to working with or through a range of different agencies - in further and higher education and in the voluntary, community and private sectors - also deserve to be fully explored.
15 Consideration should be given to the piloting of different approaches to capacity building to support and inform development work, drawing on the experience of CPPs furthest forward in their development as well as supporting CPPs at an earlier stage of development. The role of the proposed Improvement Agency, which ministers seem minded to set up, in promoting and supporting good practice also deserves consideration.
16 On the basis of this study and the approach suggested, the next steps for the CPTF to consider would be:
- the promotion of Community Planning Capacity Building Plans - with the aim of all 32 CPPs having well-developed Plans in place at an early stage, say by around spring 2003
- the provision of pump priming funding for CPPs submitting Capacity Building Plans
- the commissioning of pilot projects to support development work and inform good practice
- the development of general guidelines to promote quality standards in capacity building for CP
- the potential role of the Improvement Agency, which Ministers seem minded to set up, in providing longer term support
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