Social Justice Action Note
June 2000
Empowering Communities
The Social Justice Report - a Scotland where everyone matters - made it
clear that justice in Scotland is about people and the places and communities
where they live. A Scotland where we have a working community in every community,
a story of improvement for everyone and no-one being left behind.
The story we start with though, is one where many of our communities are excluded.
Communities and neighbourhoods suffering from the affects of poor health, poor
housing and poor education. From a lack of jobs, lack of income and little hope
for the future.
We are committed to tackling poverty and injustice by helping people help themselves.
We can help achieve our aim for communities by developing capacity at community
level. By:
-
empowering communities to make decisions and influence others
-
building skills and confidence
-
providing the right services and products
-
preventing a growing digital divide
To drive the whole social justice programme through to successful delivery
we are emphasising empowering communities - so that people have the means to
influence, to manage and to deliver success.
This Action Note outlines some of the actions we are taking now. These are
our building blocks - we will be working over the summer to make community empowerment
an increasing reality.
"Service improvement and innovation come best in response
to pressure from demanding, informed and confident consumers."
(Social Inclusion Network Action Team Report: Local Action to Tackle Poverty)
Community leadership
The best ideas often come from within the community. They know the gaps
and failures in services in their area. They need a way of making sure their
ideas and innovations can be taken seriously.
To make sure community consultation and involvement is improved across Scotland
and that people have a voice in decision-making in their own communities we
are:
- Finding new ways to give communities more influence over the delivery
of local services
- by investing over £7.5 million this year and next year in 13 Working
for Communities pathfinders across Scotland
- Pathfinders are a test bed of ways to give communities more say
in what goes on
- they are tackling general service delivery and specific issues
such as community safety, the needs of young people and financial
exclusion
|
- Developing links between community expenditure patterns and Community
Planning so that communities can actively influence the provision of
services
- people need to know what is being spent on what programmes to
be able to influence spending in an area
- communities should be able to influence the effectiveness of delivery
even when expenditure is a statutory responsibility
- the Community Planning framework should help foster such a climate
of community involvement in decision making
|
- Piloting People's Juries to give a forum for collective deliberation
- People's Juries - open to all - increase the public's voice in
decision-making in their own communities
- randomly selected juries of 16 members of the public work with
'Stakeholder Juries', including representatives from the public,
private and voluntary sectors, to agree a plan of action to deal
with issues of concern to the community
- we are producing guidance to help Social Inclusion Partnerships
run juries and we will invest £450,000 over the next two years to
roll out the Jury programme across all partnership areas
- two pilots have been run in the Great Northern Partnership and
the East Ayrshire Coalfield Social Inclusion Partnership, and the
Glasgow People's Jury on Drugs has started
|
- Promoting ways to get people involved in Social Inclusion Partnerships
- we expect all Social Inclusion Partnerships to develop their programmes
with the active participation of people in the area
- we are producing Community Participation Guidance and good practice
examples to support this
- the Listening to Communities programme, as well as supporting
skills development and People's Juries, aims to develop and encourage
new approaches to community participation
|
- Helping Social Inclusion Partnerships to run People's Panels
- People's Panels are a cross-section of local residents (often
numbering 1000 residents) who will be surveyed regularly
- Information from the Panels will help Social Inclusion Partnerships
track and better understand changes in residents' circumstances,
attitudes and experiences, and so deliver better services
- Panel recruitment is underway in 24 Social Inclusion Partnerships
|
Building skills and confidence
We want to help give people the skills and the confidence to make decisions
on behalf of themselves and their communities. Skills that help people work
together, access information and manage a business. Skills that help them influence
another organisation's decisions, identify what works and learn lessons and
apply them. We also want the people involved in designing and delivering services
to be better aware of the issues being tackled through our social justice agenda.
We are:
- Launching a Community Participation Skills Programme
- we are investing over £1 million in the new Community Participation
Skills Programme
- starting this year it will offer 7,200 days of training and development
to representatives from Social Inclusion Partnerships - partners
and board members - and Working for Communities Pathfinders
- 900 people from across Scotland will receive training in modules
covering social justice policy; learning from past regeneration
efforts; partnership skills and knowledge; and working effectively
with communities
- the Programme will help everyone in the partnerships - from local
authorities, to agencies, to community representatives - to develop
their skills to work more effectively
- it will give people the skills and understanding needed to design
and deliver good solutions to community needs
- a consortium involving the Scottish Community Development Centre,
the SCVO and Community Learning Scotland, will deliver the Programme.
The Poverty Alliance and Northern College will also be involved
|
- Developing proposals for common training and continual professional
development of managers and front line staff
- training is a means to better understanding the needs of excluded
people, and better co-operation and collaboration between agencies
and professionals
- we will be proposing to encourage professionals to train together
and be aware of how their work sits alongside that of other professions
- we will be looking at ways to enable public service professionals
to engage in continual professional development over the summer
|
Investing in the Community
Many ideas and initiatives are developed and delivered by local people and
local groups. This 'social economy' - the non-public and non-private sectors
of the economy - has an income of over £2 billion, more than a third of which
is earned, and it supports at least 100,000 jobs. It is a significant part of
the Scottish economy.
We are developing an investment package, of capital and advice for local groups
to access to make their ideas work and to make sure that good ideas can be sustained.
We are:
- Setting up an investment fund, Social Investment Scotland, to provide
development advice and loan funding for social economy organisations
that want to set up or expand their services
- opportunities to expand in areas such as care provision, neighbourhood
renewal and personal services have never been greater. Loan funding
can help those who are increasingly able to sell their services
- Social Investment Scotland loans will help release Scotland's
entrepreneurial culture - in the social economy
- Social Investment Scotland will build on existing loan activity
to social enterprises in Scotland and will help stimulate awareness
and demand
- the partnership designing the investment initiative - which includes
the voluntary and public sector and the Bank of Scotland - recognise
that social economy organisations need access to complimentary financial
and business skills to help put them on a more secure footing
- the development of technical support for social enterprises will
be a key part of the initiative
|
- Developing capacity through the Lottery KickStart Programme
- some disadvantaged communities lose out at the moment on Lottery
funding
- under the KickStart Programme, trained development workers will
work with communities to help build their capacity to develop projects
and take them forward to Lottery application
- Scottish Business in the Community will be supporting this by
accessing private sector expertise
|
- Developing the credit union movement in Scotland
- credit unions, as member-owned, not-for-profit financial institutions,
encourage savings by offering a fair return and use these savings
to make loans to members
- we are creating a national development strategy for credit unions
in partnership with others to be published this autumn
- the national development strategy will deal with the development
needs of the credit union movement in Scotland, making sure that
quality support and development services are available across Scotland
by building on good practice and local action
- we are co-funding a credit union health check pilot with Scottish
banks and Glasgow City Council
- the initial pilot will be rolled out to create a Scotland-wide
service, including a self help tool kit
|
Financial inclusion
Money matters. But learning to manage money, and being given support and
advice is crucial to helping people help themselves. More than 1 in 10 households
do not have access to even the most basic of bank accounts.
These households are also excluded from other financial services, such as insurance
and good quality advice and support. This means people have to pay disproportionately
more to access financial services and their ability to plan and budget effectively
is significantly reduced.
To put people in charge of their own financial circumstances as far as possible,
we are:
- Working with Scottish banks to develop basic bank accounts
- Scotland's major clearing banks now offer a card-based account
offering full direct debit and standing order capability, designed
to suit people on low incomes
- we are building on a joint campaign by Glasgow City Council, Scottish
Executive and the Scottish banks to encourage people to use basic
bank accounts
- the campaign will be spread across Scotland with support from
COSLA over the next year
- we have asked insurance companies to look at the design, delivery
and promotion of their household contents and life insurance policies
and we will work with building societies to explore how they can
help widen the supply of financial services
- we will also be doing more to help increase take up of these services
through promotion and through education
|
- Working with Money Advice Scotland and contributing to the set-up
costs for a Scottish Debtline
- People will have the same access to free, good quality money advice
wherever they live in Scotland through the Scottish Debtline
- the Debtline's specially trained advisors will also be able to
put people in touch with the right local advice organisation in
their area
- we will be working with local organisations to make sure the provision
of local back up is of high quality across Scotland and will be
looking at how the technical support and services for these advisors
can be strengthened so the capacity of the 'industry' can be developed
|
- Working with the Wester Hailes Representative Council and the Bank
of Scotland and co-funding research to find out what services people
in the local community want and how best they can be delivered
- researching innovative solutions that put the finance needs of
the community first, for example offering advice and support services
as well as access to different products
- the research will inform the negotiation of agreements between
the community and financial institutions, providing tailored products
and services for people in the Pathfinder area
|
Closing the digital divide
There is an emerging digital divide, which is threatening to leave many less
well off people excluded from income, opportunity and access to services. One
in four most prosperous households in Scotland have access to the net, but just
one in twenty households in our most deprived communities.
The information and communication technology (ICT) revolution is affecting
all members of society, from employers looking for IT and Internet skills, to
Government services delivered online, to the best bargains being available on
the net. People without access to the Internet and the skills to use it will
be increasingly and severely disadvantaged.
To close this digital divide we are:
- Accelerating access to the internet
- £23 million of Lottery Funding is being used to encourage more
people - particularly disadvantaged people and communities - into
learning through the use of ICT
- the money will help fund a developing network of learning centres
across Scotland and will include promotion and outreach work to
attract new users to the learning centres
- Royal Bank of Scotland is donating 500 internet-ready refurbished
computers to support schemes for wider web access across Social
Inclusion Partnerships
- The National Grid for Learning is extending to communities. A
broad-based group will oversee this process - early action will
lead to a training pack on ICT for community workers
|
- Breaking down barriers
- access to hardware and falling costs of Internet access will not
be enough to close the digital divide
- we will address people's discomfort with the technology and the
perception that the Internet does not offer any value
- demonstrator projects in disadvantaged communities will raise
awareness and make people more at ease
- an ICT component will be included in the Community Participation
Skills Programme to develop skills and awareness, and prompt innovative
approaches to the use of ICT to develop communities
- workshops and seminars will be held for community workers involved
in delivering ICT training and internet access
|
- Looking at new ways of service delivery
- the UK wide target is for 100% of all key public services to be
delivered online by 2005 for those who want them
- we will carry out a digital audit of the Social Justice milestones
to look for opportunities for more effective delivery and fresh
approaches
- this will include ICT for advice (hotlines and websites); ICT
for joining-up organisations (voluntary sector information exchange
portal); ICT for opening up access (new ways for communities to
speak and be heard)
|
If you want to know more about these programmes or wish to contribute to or
comment on the summer work programme please contact the Social Inclusion Division,
Scottish Executive, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh EH6 6QQ, Phone 0131 244 7376;
email susan.haddon@scotland.gov.uk
| 
