Policy and Representation Partnership Year 2 Topics

Year 2 Topics

Year 2 Policy Topics

Assessing the Policy Framework of Local Government on Child and Women’s Poverty amongst BME Communities in the North East

BECON worked with BME women’s organisations in the North East to understand how local authorities in the region address issues of child and maternal poverty in BME communities. BECON developed this work in partnership with Oxfam’s Route to Solidarity Project.

While BECON’s policy work on child and maternal poverty finished at the end of June 2011, the partnership with the Routes to Solidarity Project will support the learning from BECON’s policy work to be embedded in future developments with women’s organisations in the North East.

The project primarily focused on assessment of policy framework of four local authorities in the region. From the assessments and consultation events held, 7 recommendations were offered:

1. Local authorities need to develop a programme of training to better support officers involved in equalities work

2. Local authorise should engage with BME VCS organisations to support employment related work, especially for women

3. There is a paucity of evidence at the local level on needs of BME communities. Additional resources are needed for collection of evidence which will enable the BME voluntary and community organisations to be able to participate both in shaping of public services and their delivery

4. Appropriate child care needs urgent attention and investment for allowing women from BME communities to undertake employment opportunities

5. Strategic investment in BME women’s organisations to improve their capacity to engage in issues related to gender and power by involving men

6. Development of appropriate benefits advice to BME women to improve their uptake

7. At a locality level the identification of a lead officer within the local authority to lead on child poverty and be a single point of contact for VCS.

A copy of the final report and executive summary can be downloaded from the right hand side of this page.

Building the Big Society: A Race Equality Perspective

In order to understand the impact of an emerging area of government thinking and associated policies dissolution of centrally controlled targets and oversight of local authorities and other public bodies, changes in regional governance, reduction in investment to build the infrastructure of voluntary and community organisations, and a drive towards "localism" - BECON organised two consultations with the BME voluntary and community organisations in the region. These two events contributed immensely to the policy document. In addition, BECON's Policy Officer undertook a review of available literature on Big Society, along with emerging areas of government policies.

The policy paper seeks to inform BECON, BME VCS, wider VCS, partners and stakeholders about the Big Society programme from a race equality perspective and has been disseminated to BME VCS and wider VCS organisations within the region and across the country.

Recommendations:

1. There is a lack of evidence at the local and regional level on the needs of BME communities. Additional resources are needed for collection of evidence which will enable BME VCS organisations to be able to participate, both in the shaping of public services and their delivery. BECON, in partnership with the Policy and Representation Partnership, will organise a round-table discussion with appropriate stakeholders to discuss the way forward on developing evidence.

2. The identification of a lead officer (at a locality level) within the local authority to lead on liaising on the changing policy landscape and to be a single point of contact for VCS.

3. Transparent mechanism to be established that assesses the impact of changes in public service delivery with specific reference to VCS organisations and private companies as deliverers of public services

4. Identification of resources for local and regional BME infrastructure support to ensure the continuation of participation and engagement of BME communities

5. As the Big Society Bank has been mandated to develop the capacity of organisations, it is important that the Bank develops relationship with BME VCS and supports its capacity building

6. The development of a targeted service to capture and support the enthusiasm in the sector in developing enterprise, as mainstream services are too distant and do not cater to the needs of BME businesses. Targeted support to BME SME's and social enterprises so that they become a part of public service delivery and a diverse supplier base

7. The programme to train community organisers needs clarity and requires participation of local and regional infrastructure to inform BME VCS organisations and BME communities

The full report and the executive summary can be downloaded from the right hand side of this page.

Can the Big Society, be a Fair Society?

IPPR North was chosen to lead on this project, which aimed to influence the Government's Big Society agenda in a positive and progressive way for the North East. Through this work IPPR North worked to improve third sector understanding of the Big Society agenda in the North East of England and developed a North East third sector response to the ‘Big Society', which sends a clear message on what the sector welcomes, and where there are questions to be answered.

Research Findings and Final Report

The report – 'Can the Big Society be a Fair Society?' draws on workshops involving 150 third sector organisations working in the North East to provide a critical analysis of some of the key policies the government has put forward under the banner of the ‘Big Society’. It also asks a crucial question: will the Big Society be a fair society?

This report argues that areas with a weaker private sector are also where voluntary and community organisations are more reliant on public funding. The proportion of voluntary and community organisations in receipt of public funds is:

43 per cent in the North East
42 per cent in the North West
39 per cent in Yorkshire and Humber
38 per cent in the East midlands
38 per cent in the West Midlands
37 per cent in the South West
34 per cent in the East of England
33 per cent in London
33 per cent in the South East

Spending cuts and a move to greater reliance on business donations could therefore doubly disadvantage organisations in the North unless the government provides innovative forms of finance.

To help vital services offered by voluntary and community organisations survive spending cuts and make the Big Society in their areas flourish, the report recommends:

the Big Society Bank should offer products that are accessible to small and large organisations and should support a range of forms of finance;
the Transition Fund should provide ‘seed corn’ grants to help voluntary and community organisations to become more enterprising to make them more sustainable;
commissioning should be reviewed so that VCS organisations, social enterprises and service users are involved in identifying need and shaping services;
a strongly branded local community fund should be established in priority areas, backed by a government pledge to match a proportion of business donations for a fixed period in order to strengthen relationships between the VCS and private sector.

The full report can be downloaded from the right hand side of this page. Recommendations from this report were used to hold discussions with Annabel Turpie, Deputy Director Big Society Strategy at the Cabinet Office and Hulya Mustafa, Deputy Director for Big Society at DCLG about the impact on the North East.

Enhancing the Role of the Third Sector in reducing Health Inequalities in the North East

The aim of this project, lead by VONNE, was to promote the role of the third sector in tackling health inequalities, through the wider determinants of health, to key policy makers in the North East. The project has been building the case as to how third sector organisations improve health outcomes for marginalised communities and individuals in the North East. The evidence gathered from this project is being used to share good practice between third sector organisations and to promote the commissioning of effective services by the public sector, with the view to ensuring that the poorest people in the North East are not left behind in terms of health outcomes.

Resources have been developed for policy makers and commissioners to better understand the sector, and voluntary sector voice in the North East has been fed into consultations this year on the health white paper, public health white paper and into the NHS Future Forum listening exercise.

Work on this project is ongoing and updates can be found at http://www.vonne.org.uk/policy/healthandwellbeing/health_inequalities.php

Influencing Policy for Children and Families of (ex) Offenders in the North East

NEPACS were chosen to lead on this project, which aimed to increase the involvement and influence of voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations in regional initiatives to support the children and families of (ex) offenders. As a direct result of this project DfE provided funding for NEPACS to employ 1.5 FTE Integrated Family Support Advocates.

Research Findings and Final report

Following research carried our across the 12 North East local authority areas, the prisons and specialist VCS organisations; A guide for local authorities and partnerships working with children and families of offenders has been produced. It aims to support the work they do with the children and families of offenders and is made up of nine recommendations:

The focus on the children and families of offenders should come from Integrated Offender Management (IOM) projects
Each IOM project should have a specific Children and Families of Offenders Strategy and Action Plan which outlines specific actions and responsible agencies
There is a need to increase partnership working within IOM projects. In some areas, this will mean increasing the numbers of partners on IOM projects to include children’s and family services
All Probation Officers and IOM staff should receive training in the Think Family approach
All IOM staff and other relevant local authority and partnership agencies should receive training on the Hidden Sentence
A recording system needs to be developed to record the number of children and families of offenders that are worked with in a local authority area
There needs to be clear information sharing and consent arrangements between agencies
Integrated Offender Management projects and local authority agencies need to understand voluntary sector agencies working in the area, so they can develop a relationship and work together
At the point of imprisonment an offer of support should be made to the family

The guide also contains key statutory and voluntary and community sector organisation's contact details.

This piece of work has been picked up nationally as a model of good practice and NEPACS have been invited to contribute to a national guidance document that will contain some learning from this project.

Making 'User-led' Decision-making a Reality for People with Learning Disabilities Now and in the Future

This project aimed to ensure that people with learning disabilities and other excluded groups were given the tools to ensure that they could develop their leadership skills and participate as fully as possible in decision making in the North East.

Skills for People are leading on this work, which was extended in order to allow for extra time to carry out research. A policy paper has been produced to explore ways in which the governance of voluntary and community sector organisations can involve people who receive their support. This paper (pdf 608 kB) is intended to act as a basis for discussion for VCS organisations in the North East on how they can become more ‘user led’ by ensuring people with disabilities and other beneficiaries are involved in the planning, running and delivery of services.

An event was held on 30th January 2012 to discuss the governance issues surrounding becoming a user led organisations. James Sinclair Taylor, Head of Charity and Social Business Team at Russell-Cooke Solicitiors faciliated the event; discussing the benefits and issues with being a user led charity.

James offered practical examples and answered delegates' questions to provide organisations within the North East the opportunity to think about how they can involve service users in the governance of their organisations. James delivered a PowerPoint presentation during the day along with an exercise.