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CAPACITY BUILDING FOR COMMUNITY PLANNING
CHAPTER FOUR BUILDING THE CAPACITY - A LEARNING DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK
4.1 This chapter sets out the range of skills and competencies, knowledge and attitudes that have been identified in this study as vital to the effective development and implementation of CP across Scotland, with reference to the issues emerging from the group discussions, interviews with key individuals and the specialist knowledge of the study team. The skills and competencies, knowledge and attitudes are based on the tasks and outcomes that are considered by the consultees to be key to the success of CP within the partner organisations. They are wide-ranging and incorporate several different aspects of personal and organisational capacity.
THE LEARNING DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK
4.2 The following diagram represents a broad Learning Development Framework for CP that could form the basis of a capacity building strategy for partners. The Framework encompasses the key skills and competencies, knowledge and attitudes that are required to progress CP, and it is shown to have four distinct but inter-related learning areas:
4.3 The skills and competency, knowledge and attitude components that make up these four learning areas are outlined below. They are inter-related, in that every CPP will need to have all of these at their disposal at various stages of their development, but it will be for each CPP to work out which of them are required at any given stage. For instance, some CPPs will have successfully moved beyond the initial values and visioning stages towards the more practical issues of making their partnerships work at various levels and equipping officers with the technical practitioner skills to deliver results and make things happen. Other CPPs, still at the embryonic stages, will find it valuable to develop their values and visioning skills to assist with the process of establishing shared priorities, setting goals and objectives and communicating at a strategic level. There will be cases where a CPP has made real progress at the strategic vision level but will still need to develop capacity to roll this vision out at the local level.
4.4 The consultation programme and additional reading suggest that the skills and competencies, knowledge and attitudes that make up the Learning Development Framework include the following:
VALUES & VISIONING |
Nature of partnerships - Generic and specific issues around partnerships and their purpose, values, culture and deliverables - critical success factors
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Leadership - Developing, sustaining and implementing a vision - vertical and horizontal
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Strategic change management - Challenging conventional approaches and values, following through and developing capacity for change in organisations
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Objective and goal setting - Agreeing common goals and objectives and how partners can contribute to these
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Policy development - Shaping and influencing development of policies and strategies in own organisation and across partnership
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Strategic resourcing - The overarching opportunities for innovative and collaborative funding of initiatives and joint working
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Scenario planning - Identifying and agreeing possible futures and developing the strategies to address these collaboratively
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Brainstorming - And other techniques to ensure innovation and wide-ranging options
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PARTNERSHIP WORKING |
Nature of partnerships - Generic and specific issues around partnerships and their purpose, values, culture and deliverables - critical success factors
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Cultural and institutional awareness - Common understanding of fellow partners and their values, objectives, power structures, decision making and funding
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Stakeholder analysis - Capacity to assess the values, incentives, constraints and other factors driving key partners or other players - and strategies to manage these in the interests of the partnership
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Negotiation and influencing skills - Partners influencing and negotiating with each other with reference to various community planning issues (e.g. joint resourcing)
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Listening and communicating - Gaining understanding and insight into needs and concerns of different partners
- Getting across key messages to different partners
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PRACTITIONER SKILLS |
Project and options appraisal - Developing options and assessing priorities for innovative projects to challenge conventional approaches to service delivery and decision making
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Project planning and management - Development of co-ordinated approaches
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Budget setting and management - Understanding the budget regimes of partners, the areas for potential joint funding and establishing procedures and protocols
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Information and research - Collaborative research, joint commissioning,
- Development of data sharing protocols
- Joint monitoring and evaluation
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ENGAGING COMMUNITIES |
Raising cultural and institutional awareness - Promoting shared understanding on the part of community planning partners (strategic and local level) about the concerns, needs and expectations of their communities
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Understanding community diversity - Mapping out current levels of community activity
- Assessing different methods and approaches to engaging communities
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Listening and communicating - 2-way communication and building of trust and credibility
- Surveys, groupwork, public meetings, area and interest forums, etc.
- Engaging marginalised groups
- Public performance reporting
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Community learning and development - Familiarisation with how communities currently build capacity, what initiatives might enhance their learning capacity
- Development and implementation of plans for engaging communities
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4.5 Some staff in partner agencies may have to work in all these areas, but if CP is to achieve its wider objectives, a much more substantial number of officers in partner organisations will have to develop real capacities in at least one of the learning areas. It is essential that everyone involved in developing CP has a grounding in the generic areas of awareness of the purpose and principles of CP, the values and vision underpinning CP, and the broad principles of partnership working - supported by some demonstrations of what CP means in terms of service delivery and actions on the ground.
4.6 This study was focused primarily on capacity building requirements of staff working with each other at council-wide levels, with rather less emphasis given capacity building for community/voluntary groups and representatives involved in the CP process. This is not to suggest that community capacity building at the council-wide level is unimportant, on the contrary, and, as indicated in the Learning Development Framework above, staff and organisations will need to build up their own capacity to work with and support communities in the CP process. There is some evidence to suggest it is at the local or neighbourhood levels where such capacity building for staff will assume most importance. A study of Health Action Zones in England, for instance, found that "there was limited evidence of increasing capacity for community involvement at the strategic level but also some indication that this might not be a priority for voluntary and community partners" 2. There is nonetheless a need for capacity building among organisations and staff working with communities at all levels, and this is reflected in the Framework.
4.7 The objective in all the learning areas will be to enhance knowledge, understanding and attitudes and then to apply this in collaboration with other partners to change fundamental behaviours in key aspects of work and relationships. The "Knowing-Doing Gap" has been identified as a set of barriers which constrain the progress from learning and awareness to implementation and delivery. The objective must be to build capacity to change and develop attitudes and behaviours, as opposed to just providing information and knowledge.
4.8 In all learning areas, it will be essential to provide awareness raising in the benefits of collaborative working and behaviour at the front end of any capacity building programme. Unless participants are convinced of the benefits of working this way - and the disbenefits of not doing so - then it will be more difficult to achieve the desired changes in behaviour and working practices. This approach has been adopted successfully by South Lanarkshire Council with CP awareness raising sessions for over 700 staff.
4.9 Professor John Stewart of the Institute of Local Government in Birmingham University has identified "permeability" as a key requisite of effective partnership, involving in-depth commitment to collaborative working, greater trust between all partners, mutual accountability and the use of common language. This should be the purpose of much of the front-end work on capacity building for CP.
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