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CAPACITY BUILDING FOR COMMUNITY PLANNING
CHAPTER THREE OVERVIEW OF THE PARTNERSHIPS' LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT
3.1 From the interviews and focus groups conducted during the study, one can gain an overview of the national learning and development context CPPs find themselves working in. This chapter provides a summary of the key issues relating to this environment as a basis for assessing the demand and supply issues covered in later chapters. Whilst the chapter draws attention to a number of constraints on the effective and co-ordinated development of capacity building initiatives across the country, it must be stated that there are also some examples of excellent practice and strong commitment. These are picked up in the later chapters.
LACK OF CONSENSUS OF AN OVERARCHING DEFINITION FOR COMMUNITY PLANNING
3.2 The lack of consensus about what CP means has been explored above, but is worth reiterating in order to better understand the general direction which CPPs are working towards. Owing to the broad absence of an overarching definition of CP, the CPPs, and sometimes specific partners, have tended to work to either loosely formulated objectives or to approaches which support different objectives. In either case, there is often not a clear overview of what CPPs or specific partners are trying to achieve, and what support they might require to address and deliver on objectives. Responses to the broad question of what the learning and development needs of CPPs are often pointed to a lack of clarity about learning needs, or to an indication that needs within one CPP might be quite different from needs in another. So the emerging picture relating to this whole issue is still unclear.
THE IMPORTANCE OF VALUES, ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOURS
3.3 In examining the skills, knowledge and competencies required in order to work effectively in CP, consultees were very keen to point out that learning and development will be maximised where both individuals and the supporting infrastructure place prime importance on adopting and developing appropriate values, behaviours and attitudes. This means having key people in partner organisations - elected members, board members, chief executives, directors and other senior officers - committed not only to compliance with CP but also to the very principles and ethos of collaborative working. Commitment to collaborative working has a major impact on how they work as individuals, teams and organisations. There was a strong recognition that without such commitment no amount of learning and development activity would make up for it. In fact, it is likely to be a waste of time and resources if the values, attitudes and behaviours that are truly supportive of joined-up and integrated working are missing.
3.4 At the focus groups, a great deal of discussion also took place concerning the extent to which such collaborative values, attitudes and behaviours could be learned and then implemented successfully by individuals, and on whether organisations tended to stifle such changed values and behaviours - inadvertently or even deliberately. There are prevailing cultures, behaviours and incentives in all organisations. What kinds of behaviours are rewarded in terms of promotion or other advancement in a local enterprise company or in a local authority department? Perhaps the behaviours have to change throughout an organisation, and the key place for such change to begin is at the top.
3.5 There was strong support for the view that effective capacity building - which is strongly dependent upon the efforts, motivation and enthusiasm of the individuals involved - is very much dependent upon the presence of values, attitudes and behaviours that are supportive of integrated partnership working, integrated service delivery and the broad objectives of the CP process. Incentives and rewards have to become linked to learning and evidence of successful behaviours in these aspects of management and delivery.
3.6 In a later chapter, the idea of an assessment tool is explored to help individuals, at all levels in partner organisations, identify the elements of their working methods and ways of dealing with people that are most suited to the CP principles, and those where they will wish to develop alternative behaviours. It is widely understood that partnership working is about learning values and behaviours, not about genetic "hard-wiring".
3.7 There is perhaps a misconception that partnership working is all about giving way and seeking consensus at all costs. This is not at all a realistic or effective approach. One consultee suggested that effective partnership players have an element of the "collaborative thug" in their personal influencing styles to ensure that blockages are overcome and that the partnership stays focused on its objectives and priorities. This is an important message because there may be cases where "traditional macho management", as one consultee put it, is put off by the idea of "partnership".
LACK OF STRUCTURE AND PLANNING IN RELATION TO CPP DEVELOPMENT NEEDS
3.8 Many of the individuals who operate within the CPP do so while retaining "day jobs" within their own organisations and with the inherent roles and responsibilities which go with this. The consultees perceive that CPPs are generally not resourced to devote real time to developing formalised thinking or to create a co-ordinated CPP strategy for learning and development needs. Indeed, many individuals during the focus group sessions said that the sessions themselves were a valuable opportunity to consider and reflect on these issues, in a way which many had not been able to do before.
THE NEED FOR A MECHANISM TO IDENTIFY LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS
3.9 The need for a mechanism to identify learning and development needs relates to the issue above, in that individuals believed that without a strategic overview of learning and development requirements, there was no effective mechanism which could readily identify what, when and how such learning or development could take place. As mentioned above, this leads to an ad-hoc approach to learning and development, where the value of the learning and development and its effective capture is constrained.
THE VALUE PLACED ON LEARING AND DEVELOPMENT
3.10 It follows that where lack of focus on learning and development - and a correspondingly ineffective mechanism - to identify such needs exists, those who are operating within this environment are more likely to overlook the need for and value of such activity. This is likely to be the case on a day-to-day basis, where operational priorities and a lack of time to address wider issues will place the value of learning and capacity building further down the agenda. The officers who are charged with operational development of CP may not have ready access to resources to develop capacity building or even be well placed to influence the key managers who hold the training and learning budgets in their own organisations.
DISSEMINATION AND SHARING OF CPP EXPERIENCES
3.11 Within an environment which places limited focus and emphasis on learning and development - and where the mechanisms and conscious motivation to access such learning and development are constrained - there will also be significantly less opportunity to share personal learning experiences with others: either within the CPP itself or across CPPs and back to the individual partner organisations. As such, the opportunities to capture and further 'spread the net' of learning are limited. It was a striking aspect of the focus groups to hear participants bemoan the lack of formal or informal networking, progress sharing and dissemination of good practice. Sessions of COSLA's Community Planning Officer Network were felt to be useful for keeping up to date with national developments and issues, but they were found to be singularly unsuccessful in providing a forum for sharing experiences. It was also felt that attendance at these sessions was not always at the most appropriate officer level to progress various issues.
THE CURRENT CPP LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT
3.12 It follows that in a context where, in most cases, very little learning and development is taking place and very little learning and experience is being captured and shared, the overall learning and development culture required to support CP is generally absent. The reasons for this are varied, and the picture is not the same in all CPP areas. There is certainly still confusion about what CP actually means in some areas, and this leads to uncertainty about what is required of each partner. This in turn leads to uncertainty about the required skills and competencies to generate the appropriate behaviour and action for CP.
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