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COMMUNITY REGENERATION STATEMENT: IMPLEMENTATION OF ACTION PLAN

COMMUNITY REGENERATION STATEMENT: IMPLEMENTING THE ACTION PLAN

10. The remainder of this document sets out the various steps that have already been taken or that will be taken in the short to medium term to implement the key action points in Chapter 4 of the Community Regeneration Statement.

Joining up Services

11. The joining up of priorities and services - at national, regional and local levels - is the lynchpin of successful community regeneration. The Statement identified various strands of work to take this forward:

Create the framework for community planning through the Local Government in Scotland Bill and the guidance prepared with the assistance of the Community Planning Task Force

• Community Planning will play an important role in addressing regeneration, through providing an overarching framework for joining up priorities and services. The Bill and associated guidance http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/whats_happening/research/pdf_res_brief/sb02-67.pdf sets out the key principles in taking community planning forward. It emphasises the importance of linking up national, regional and local priorities; genuine partnership working; effective community engagement and making community planning work at the local or neighbourhood level, as well as strategically.
• The Bill completed Stage 2 at the end of November. The Stage 3 debate will be held in January 2003 and the Bill is expected to receive Royal Assent in February/March. The community planning elements of the Act are expected to come into force in April 2003. The associated guidance was issued for interim consultation in November, prior to formal consultation once the Bill has been enacted.
• COSLA has been working closely with the Community Planning Task Force (CPTF) and the Executive to develop the guidance on community planning. Its Equalities Co-ordination Group has produced draft guidance on mainstreaming equalities in community planning, best value and the power of well-being.
• Through its own Executive Groups, COSLA will continue to ensure that regeneration is kept high on the agenda of local authorities. COSLA supports a member-Council officer network concerned with community planning issues and the focus of this group is being extended to cover community regeneration issues.

Develop the framework and models for community planning at local level and prepare more guidance and advice on best practice

12. It is at the local or neighbourhood level that regeneration activity makes its impact and community planning at this level will play a crucial role in responding in a joined-up way to local needs and priorities, rationalising partnership activities and engaging with communities.

We are taking this forward in various ways:

• Councils and their partners in a number of areas are already putting in place structures for community planning at the local/neighbourhood level which are addressing regeneration issues, but more needs to be done to make community planning work for regeneration. The need for community planning at a local level is emphasised in the guidance on the Local Government in Scotland Bill already mentioned. In addition, a discussion paper accompanying the guidance and produced by a working group of the Community Planning Task Force, sets out the range of issues that community planning partnerships need to consider in developing approaches to community planning at a local or neighbourhood level.
• An initial paper on rationalisation issues has been prepared. http://www.communityplanning.org.uk/documents/Rationalisationissuespaper.pdf

The Community Planning Task Force has also commissioned case study research on partnership rationalisation, with a view to providing practical advice to community planning partnership on this. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/social/uscp.pdf

If the conditions are right, pass responsibility for Social Inclusion Partnerships (SIPs) to Community Planning Partnerships

13. Social Inclusion Partnerships, covering many of Scotland's most deprived communities of place and interest (eg ethnic minorities), have brought together a range of local agencies to address regeneration and social justice issues. As part of the strategy to integrate regeneration more clearly within the community planning process, the intention is to transfer responsibility for SIPs to CPPs over the next couple of years. Involving communities will be a key element of the new arrangements, which will apply to both area based and thematic regeneration partnerships. This is being taken forward as follows:

• Communities Scotland has been developing, in consultation with stakeholders, a framework for the transfer of SIPs to CPPs. This will set out the options for the new arrangements, detailed criteria to be met by CPPs, other governance issues and an implementation plan for how the new arrangements would be introduced. Once the framework and implementation plan have been approved by the Minister for Social Justice they will be circulated widely and will be available on the Communities Scotland website. www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk
• To support this work, Cambridge Economic Associates was commissioned to undertake a review of the experience to date of SIPs working with Community Planning Partnerships and the extent to which they have influenced mainstream services. The review and a PRECIS will shortly be available from Communities Scotland. For copies of the PRECIS report please contact: POPPLEWELLR@communitiesscotland.gov.uk
• Starting in early 2003 Communities Scotland will begin working to integrate individual SIPs with CPPs, following the timetable and plans set out in the transition framework document referred to above. This will involve providing support and guidance to both SIPs and Community Planning Partnerships to ensure their readiness for the changes required.

Make sure Cities Review takes full account of the need to tackle local regeneration and identifying what other actions are needed to support this

14. The Cities Review is still being considered by Ministers.

Building Knowledge and Expertise

15. Various strands of work are being taken forward which will improve our understanding of what works, so that we can do better in future.

Continue to take forward the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics Project

16. We need to be able to identify on the basis of the best available evidence patterns of deprivation in Scottish communities and to track changes in these over time. The Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics is a major project designed to help us do this by improving the data we have for local areas. This will better inform policy decisions about where to target investment and will improve service delivery at the local level. The project will bring together a wide range of data - access to services, community well-being, crime, economic deprivation, education (including skills and training), health, housing, physical environment and work deprivation - and make it freely available to users via a web-based dissemination system. Users will include not only central and local government and other public agencies, but also voluntary and community groups and private sector bodies. We are taking forward this as follows:

• In the first year of the project (2001-2) the emphasis has been on setting up appropriate advisory and steering groups to help prioritise the work and develop the data. Issues that have needed to be considered include the problems of data sharing, confidentiality and disclosure and finding ICT solutions to the storage and dissemination of the vast amount of information.
• In Spring 2003 an interim web-based dissemination tool will be available to users. This tool will provide initial data for pre-defined geographies (including postcode sector, ward, SIP, local authority and constituency level) where confidentiality and data quality allow.
• In March 2004 a web based system providing a full range of data to users, using Census Output Areas as the key building blocks where suitability of data allows. This will allow users to be able to define their own geographies.

17. It is recognised that certain users will need to receive help in order that the information is used efficiently and effectively. The Scottish Executive will consult with users about the type of support and advice required to enable them to make the best use of the information.

Further information can be found on: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/neighbours/tables/neighbours.asp

Introduce a new Deprivation Index for Scotland

18. The aim of the New Deprivation Index is to create a long-term (10 year) measure of deprivation in Scotland which can be regularly updated between Censuses. This measure will help identify communities (rural and urban) and groups of individuals that are in greater need compared with others, with reference to levels of income, education, health, employment etc.

This work is being taken forward in a number of steps:

• The Executive's Central Statistics Unit has commissioned an interim Scottish Index, from the team at Oxford University that has already developed such Indices for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This will be available towards the end of 2002/early 2003. This will produce ward level domain indices and an overall ward level index of multiple deprivation, with an accompanying report detailing the construction of the indices and a summary of results, including maps.
• Running in parallel with this, the Executive is developing a long-term strategy for creating an Index of Deprivation for Scotland. The results of the interim Index will be used as the basis for an external consultation/debate which will take place throughout 2003 about what a new Index should look like and how we can overcome some of the weaknesses of the current Index. The strategy will address issues such as the long-term development and maintenance of data and the inclusion of methodological advances and will be in place towards the end of 2003. By April 2004 a new measure of deprivation using a combination of Census 2001 and data development through the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics project will be in place.

Further information can be found on: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/neighbours/tables/neighbours.asp

Set up the Scottish Centre for Regeneration

19. Approaches to community regeneration will need to be backed up, not only by statistical data, but also by sharing experience and good practice and through commissioned research on regeneration issues. It is envisaged that the Scottish Centre for Regeneration (SCR), which is being established by Communities Scotland, will play an important role in improving the effectiveness of regeneration approaches by improving the evidence base for regeneration, and developing and improving the skills of those working in regeneration. Its primary function will be to act as a resource for key players involved in regeneration, providing a central information point resource on all aspects of regeneration and practical support for practitioners and communities. Communities Scotland is currently working up detailed proposals for what the Centre will do and how it will operate, which will then be considered by the Minister for Social Justice. It will be important that the Centre works closely with and adds value to the work of centres of excellence concerned with regeneration.

Further information can be found on: http://www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk/communities/upload/tplt_regeneration_.asp?page=2100002157

Improving Services

20. Regeneration activity will be judged by its capacity to bring about real improvements to services for people in deprived communities. The Executive's budget for 2003-6 reflects the commitment to delivering well-run, cost-effective and innovative public services that improve standards while minimising costs and bureaucracy. In the spending review, we have made major commitments to improving services, particularly in Scotland's deprived communities and have put in place clear service delivery objectives and targets across our 5 priority areas on which the performance of public services can be judged. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/government/babs-14.asp

21. COSLA has played a key role in the development of the best value framework, which is due to be put on a statutory footing under the Local Government in Scotland Bill. Local authorities are also committed to making very substantial contributions to regeneration through their day-to-day services, such as education, housing, cultural and leisure services and through economic development, health improvement, community safety and sustainable development. Examples of the work carried out by Councils and their local partners can be found on:

http://www.cosla.gov.uk/attachments/execgroups/mg/mgsjkeyacts.doc

Develop community budgeting

22. Local authorities, their community planning partners and the communities they serve have an interest in knowing and reviewing what is spent on services in particular areas and amongst particular groups, for example children. Community budgeting is being developed as an instrument, within the community planning process, to allow this to be done. This will help to get service delivery right at the local level, create more integrated means of delivering services and bring an additional dimension to community engagement. This is being taken forward as follows:

• A consultation on community budgeting was launched in March 2002, and completed at the end of June 2002. The Executive received 99 written submissions and attended many seminars and meetings during the course of the consultation, gathering in more views on its development. The consultation document and the report of the consultation can be found on the Scottish Executive Website. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/social/cbcd-00.asp
• In October 2001, the 12 local authorities participating in the Better Neighbourhood Services Fund each received 25,000 to further develop their baseline spending streams for their Local Outcome Agreements. Their results have been analysed and are feeding into the development of community budgeting.
• Following the consultation process, Ministers have agreed that we need to test out the benefits of community budgeting further. As a result funding will be provided, via local authorities, to the following CPPs to run community budgeting pilots: Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Edinburgh, Fife, Glasgow, Highlands, East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire.
• Further action will include agreeing the way forward with the chosen pilots, running a series of seminars to allow for sharing of practice between the CPPs involved and the wider dissemination of their approach to other CPPs and establishing monitoring and evaluation procedures. 5m has been allocated to take forward community budgeting in 2002 - 2004.

Further information on community budgeting can be requested from communitybudgeting@scotland.gov.uk

Work to develop neighbourhood management approaches to service delivery

23. Neighbourhood management covers a wide spectrum of activities, from the work of estate wardens, caretakers and housing managers to broader approaches such as service decentralisation and improved means of local governance. Usually it is associated with the organisation of "basic" services, such as cleansing, environmental maintenance, housing management and security. This is being taken forward as follows:

• A number of local authorities have already begun piloting neighbourhood management approaches, for example through the Working for Communities programme and the Better Neighbourhood Services Fund. Useful lessons from the former programmes can be found on http://www.scotland.gov.uk/cru/kd01/blue/lwcp-00.asp
• The Executive's 2003-6 budget includes various plans for building strong, safe and attractive communities. We are investing 0/15/15m on various schemes to tackle anti-social behaviour and poor quality of the environment, including the extension of community warden schemes more widely across Scotland. Communities Scotland is undertaking policy development work on the improvement and extension of care-taking and other local housing and environmental services and consideration of the wider role of housing associations.

Work to develop the use of local outcome agreements in planning service improvements and to explore how resources can be used more flexibly to deliver outcomes

24. Local outcome agreements are intended to secure individual local authority commitment to national priorities, while leaving local freedom as to the means of delivery and reducing reporting and monitoring requirements, which increase management costs. This is being taken forward as follows:

• The Executive is considering how to take forward LOAs in light of the recent 2002 spending review.
• DTZ Pieda consultants are working with the local authorities participating in the Better Neighbourhood Services Fund to monitor and evaluate the experience of using LOAs which will feed into the wider consideration.

Take account of the outcome of the Social Economy Review to identify how we can work across all sectors to create solutions that draw on the all the skills and resources within our communities

25. The Scottish Executive believes that a well-developed social economy can make an important contribution to furthering its policy objectives, particularly creating new jobs, including jobs within disadvantaged communities; extending service delivery options in fields such as housing, childcare, community care and the provision of financial services for those suffering financial exclusion; and growing social capital as a crucial component of strong, inclusive communities.

26. In Scotland there is a healthy social economy, but one that is comparatively underdeveloped. The Social Economy Review will be published in January and will provide the basis for a programme of action.

Raising Skills

27. People in deprived communities need the knowledge, skills and confidence with which to influence and help shape policies and decision affecting their lives. Community learning and development - informal learning and social development work with individual and groups in their communities which enhances people's confidence, knowledge, skills organisational capacity and resources - is key to achieving this. There are various strands to this work:

Support partnership approaches to regeneration and develop more guidance on what is effective in delivering change

• With Communities Scotland and the Scottish Executive/COSLA Community Learning and Development Working Group we have agreed an outline strategy for raising the profile of community learning and development within community regeneration and related strategies. Communities Scotland is taking the lead on this, in collaboration with the Working Group.
• A discussion paper has been prepared by one of the Working Groups of the Community Planning Task Force on the range of issues that CPPs should consider in developing approaches to engaging with communities as part of the community planning process. www.communityplanning.org.uk

Prepare guidance on how community learning and development approaches can support community involvement in the community planning process and in developing local community plans

In June we published "The Way Forward", which set out the Executive's strategy for community learning and development. http://www.communityplanning.org.uk/documents/CLDWayForwarddocMay30FINALAPPROVED.pdf

The draft Community Planning guidance contains a section on "Effective Community Engagement". This highlights that Community Learning and Development Partnerships "should have a clear and specific role in co-ordinating and developing support for community engagement in the community planning process.

• COSLA is promoting the role of local authorities in engaging with their communities in community planning and related contexts through seminars, guidance and sharing of good practice.

http://www.cosla.gov.uk/attachments/execgroups/mg/mgengagingcommunitiesexamples.doc

• The Community Planning Task Force is considering the conclusions of a study it commissioned on the capacity building requirements for community planning, including the training and development needs of staff in engaging with communities. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/planning/cbcp.pdf
• The Community Planning Task Force has also been running a series of seminars at a regional level in Scotland to support, among other things, the sharing of good practice, and it is planning a major conference at national level in March 2003.

Carry out more work to improve how we measure the effect of community learning and development on building social capital and improving core service outcomes

• With HMIE we have prepared a paper on the collection of management information. This has been consulted upon with the members of the Scottish Executive/CoSLA Community Learning and Development working group and across the Scottish Executive. Our intention is to agree with Community Learning and Development Partnerships common data definitions regarding the key input, output and outcome questions for which we need to collect information. We have agreed to establish a National Development Project to take this work forward in 2003.
• In May HMIE published "How Good is our Community Learning and Development? A framework for self-evaluation and for inspections". http://www.scotland.gov.uk/hmie/CL_HGIOS/cldfull%20html/cldfull.pdf
• A series of induction workshops have been held across the country. HMIE has also published a review of the 200 pilot community learning plans.

Revise Circular 4/99 on Community Learning and Development to take account of the development of community planning and the focus on the main service outcomes

• The Executive has prepared working draft guidance on Community Learning and Development, following extensive pre-consultation meetings in the autumn, which will be launched in January 2003. The guidance will set national priorities for community learning and development focussing upon "closing the opportunity gap" issues in the context of community planning. The guidance provides advice on the processes to be adopted and the key outcomes to be addressed, together with quality, profile-raising, professional development and management information issues.
• The guidance is intended to integrate Community Learning and Development Partnerships and approaches into CPPs and to enhance their capacity to address community regeneration priorities.

Raise the skills of professionals and communities to engage with one another

• We have completed the Scottish Executive's response to the recommendations of the national Community Education Training Review (CETR) and consultations. We shall be making an announcement on this in early in 2003.
• The CETR report and consultations have confirmed the concerns that some CPPs need to enhance their community learning and development capacity to deliver the regeneration agenda. Employers are experiencing problems with the recruitment and retention of high quality staff trained in community learning and development skills.

For further information please contact: Charlie.mcconnell@scotland.gov.ukRossC@communitiesscotland.gov.uk

The Scottish Community Action Research Fund (SCARF)

28. Communities Scotland has set up SCARF to support local communities, both geographic and communities of interest, to carry out their own research, develop their knowledge about their community and improve skills and research capacity. With an initial budget of 100,000 in 2002/3, SCARF will provide funds to community organisations and support through research mentors.

http://www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk/communities/upload/tplt_regeneration_.asp?page=2100002380

Charting Progress and Planning for Change

29. We need to put in place a solid framework to allow us to measure progress in tacking problems faced by deprived communities. We are taking this forward in various ways:

Develop a set of indicators for measuring whether we are closing the gap and monitor progress against this framework

30. In the 2003-6 budget the Executive produced a set of indicators that it will use to measure the Executive's contribution to closing the opportunity gap between deprived communities and the rest of Scotland. These are:

• This set of indicators is intended to measure the Executive's contribution to closing the opportunity gap between deprived communities and the national average. They are not expected to pre-empt the development of performance monitoring systems at local authority or local/neighbourhood level nor are they expected to drive local spending priorities.
• These indicators were chosen because they reflect existing targets that individual Executive departments are responsible for delivering, they are relevant for monitoring area-based deprivation and because the necessary data will be available at local level for the baseline year of 2003-4, through the Neighbourhood Statistics project. Other indicators of deprivation, such as income, were excluded because they are not ones for which Scottish Executive departments have responsibility.
• Audit Scotland, under the auspices of the Community Planning Task Force, is currently developing a performance monitoring framework for community planning.
• COSLA is working with the Best Value Task Force to develop guidance on public performance reports, which draws on its own work in this area. "Reporting to the Public: an analysis of Councils' frameworks for reporting on their performance".

http://www.cosla.gov.uk/attachments/execgroups/mg/mgpprreport.doc

Consider whether we should set floor and convergence targets for deprived areas and how we should set those targets

31. No action has yet been taken on this.

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