Programme of Work (P084 (6)) Progress Report
North Lanarkshire Council · 31 October 2022
Back to Communities Committee — 31 October 2022 and its agenda
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North Lanarkshire Council Report Communities Committee Does this report require to be approved? ☒ Yes ☐ No Ref SP/LP Date 31/10/22 Programme of Work (P084 (6)) Progress Report From Stephen Penman, Head of Strategic Communication E-mail penmanste@northlan.gov.uk pollockle@northlan.gov.uk Telephone 07947 997750 Executive Summary This report provides an update on activity aimed at strengthening the role of the Community and Voluntary Sector (CVS) in the delivery of priorities associated with The Plan for North Lanarkshire and the nine Local Outcome Improvement Plans. Including progress made with work to scope a more strategic approach to funding and supporting the community and voluntary sector. A proposal is outlined to test and redesign through engagement with the sector and elected members the Grant Award Programme (GAP) to better align to the model for working with communities and delivery of local priorities. This provides an opportunity to support a longer-term shift from a traditional ‘grant making model’ to one that is built on coproduction, community capacity building and local community assets and reflects the needs, aspirations and circumstances of local communities. It is anticipated that this could provide the basis for a framework for future approaches to funding the sector. Additionally, work is underway to develop a concordat between community planning partners, local communities and the community and voluntary sector and the development of the Social Enterprise Strategy reflects the need to better approaches to Community Wealth Building. This work is the subject of a separate report to this committee. Recommendations It is recommended that Committee 1. approve plans to further scope out opportunities to realign the Grant Award Programme (GAP) to locally agreed and strategic priorities as outlined in this report
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1. Background The challenges associated with the Covid 19 pandemic further highlighted the invaluable role that the community and voluntary sector play in delivering key grassroots services and activities. There are opportunities to build on lessons from this to strengthen support to the sector and mechanisms for making best use of cross sector resource. It makes sense that communities and local organisations should work with the council to make best use of available resource based on their local knowledge and contribution to supporting locally agreed priorities through the nine Local Outcome Improvement Plans. The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 has been a catalyst in providing a focus for improving approaches to engagement and participation seeking to empower communities, giving them more of a say in how public services are planned and delivered. The North Lanarkshire Partnership (NLP) Framework for Working with Communities underscores the council and its partners’ commitment to engaging and working with communities. An approach that is rooted in a set of principles and corresponding methodology designed to deliver key outcomes associated with working with communities including: - • A consistent and inclusive model for engagement, with strong local governance to ensure that communities can contribute to, and influence delivery of the vision and priorities set out in The Plan for North Lanarkshire. • optimum coordination and use of partnership and council resource to support communities to engage and influence investment, service design and delivery. • clearly targeted activity around communities of place, interest, and identity with a focus on ensuring that the voices of the ‘seldom heard’ are listened to; and • the development of online and remote approaches to engaging with communities to ensure a flexible digital interface for local people. There is a need to build on work with communities to date to ensure that any approaches to funding, resourcing, or supporting the role of the Community and Voluntary Sector reflect this model and the priorities that have been set and are emerging for communities as articulated within the nine Local Outcome Improvement Plans (LOIP’s). 2. Report 2.1 Role of the Community and Voluntary Sector There are clear advantages to having a strong, independent CVS influencing and delivering local services. The added value of the contribution of the CVS to the efforts of the public sector in achieving outcomes for local people cannot be underestimated and this has been further emphasised through Covid 19 response and recovery. It makes sense that funding decisions reflect local knowledge and support the contribution of the sector to supporting locally agreed priorities. It is important to ensure that funding processes recognise and are compatible with the known and potential ‘added value’ of the sector and that any risk of this being undermined is minimised. For example The Plan for North Lanarkshire Priority Enhance participation, capacity, and empowerment across our communities Ambition statement (20) Improve the involvement of communities in the decisions, and development of services and supports, that affect them
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• Flexibility and responsiveness (closeness and accountability to communities, members, users) • Role in building social capital • Experience and expertise in involving and developing volunteers • Ability to reach some of the most marginalised and excluded groups in communities • High levels of trust with service users and the public • Knowledge and expertise to address difficult social issues • Socially and mission driven • Independence (contribution to advocacy, social policy, campaigning, etc.) • Ability to innovate and attract additional, non-statutory sources of funding • Positive collaborative partnerships with other community and voluntary organisations and also with statutory agencies • Diversity 2.2 Review and realignment of Grant Award Programme Grant Award Programme (GAP) The current Community Grant Award Programme seeks to support community and voluntary organisations contribution to achieving the outcomes for North Lanarkshire. The programme is open to voluntary organisations or community groups operating in North Lanarkshire and may be used for various purposes including employee costs, accommodation costs and programme costs. Organisations can apply for a minimum of £1,000 and a maximum of £50,000 annually. Applications are currently assessed against criteria aligned to the Plan for North Lanarkshire and key elements of the vision particularly relevant to partnership working and supporting communities. The total allocated for Grant Award applications for 22/23 is currently around £580,000. A separate allocation is ringfenced for the council’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire (VANL) in their role as Third Sector Interface (TSI). 55 organisations are currently in receipt of a share of the funding. The approach to scoring and assessing applications was reviewed and the process updated following committee approval in January 2022 to ensure equity across previously funded organisations and new applicants. Further review is required to ensure that the criteria and associated scoring and assessment is fit for purpose and targets activity to supporting: • The current strategic priorities within TPFNL • The model for Working with Communities and the priorities identified with communities through the development of the nine LOIPs • The role of key community anchor organisations as catalysts for building community and voluntary sector capacity to support delivery of local community led priorities Proposed approach Discussion to develop this programme of work over the past few years has focused on the potential for a ‘commissioning’ approach. While emerging good practice in the public sector has moved towards a ‘Community Commissioning’ model (which better lends itself to a more open and empowering approach), traditionally commissioning is often
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characterised by defined services and activities, prescriptive processes and competitiveness rather than encouraging partnership or cooperation. Informed by wider discussion with community planning partners and council services, the proposal is to review and redesign the Grant Award Programme to more closely align to the ‘Communities’ model and reflect the priorities set by communities through their nine LOIPs. This would provide a framework that can be applied to other Council and indeed partnership funding maintaining the focus and a ‘golden thread’ from grassroots activity, LOIP priorities and the priorities within TPFNL. This approach outlined does not fit neatly with the traditional definition of a ‘commissioning ‘model. The proposed approach is better described as one that is seeking to work collaboratively with the Community and Voluntary sector to deliver services and activities in response to local need and in line with strategic priorities for North Lanarkshire. It is suggested that the focus for this programme of work moving forward reflects this. The proposed approach may reflect components of different approaches to working with communities • Community commissioning - in that priorities and types of activity could be defined within the context of the LOIP priorities and local community and voluntary organisations will be able to ‘bid’ for resource to deliver. • Grant making – in that the detail of proposals will be up to the submitting organisation reflecting their knowledge of the community, their target audience and the subject matter and they will be required to evidence • Co-production – in that both the process and the delivery is about coproduction between public, voluntary and community sector to active progress around shared outcomes • Participatory budgeting in that criteria will reflect locally identified need based on community engagement • Place making and place planning – criteria, decision making and assessment will reflect locally agreed priorities aligned to the LOIP;s Process and timeline Stage 1: Internal review of approach – Oct – Dec 2022 • Engagement with Elected Members • Desktop review of background procedures and processes to look at opportunities for better alignment Stage 2: Engagement with CVS and funded organisations Dec 2022 – Feb 2023 • Undertake initial stakeholder engagement with local community and voluntary sector agencies • Focus groups • Survey Stage 3: Approving approach and process • Presented to Committee for approval – Cycle 2 2023 • Awareness raising around updated approach – Summer 2023 • Framework available to be applied to other funding streams as appropriate – ongoing from summer 2023
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2.3 Strengthening the role of the Community and Voluntary Sector Community Concordat The previous Community Empowerment Committee in January 2022 approved resource for Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire to lead in the development of a Community Concordat. The approach endorsed was based on working collaboratively with communities and community planning partners to develop, agree and implement a Community Concordat between North Lanarkshire stakeholders, which sets out shared values and approaches to empowering and investing in local communities to support improved wellbeing, equality and sustainability. A detailed update on this work is provided in a separate report on the agenda for this meeting. Community wealth building Community wealth building as a concept has been the subject of national and local debate and discussion. In the North Lanarkshire context, community wealth building is emerging across several workstreams. As previously reported to committee there is consensus across services that what would be useful in the North Lanarkshire context is: • a shared understanding and definition for community wealth building; • mapping to understand the breadth of work that contributes to wealth building and any further opportunities to enhance ; • development of a corporate community wealth building statement to be embedded across several policy and strategy areas; and • potential to consider regular reporting to committee on a range of wealth building activity Discussion is already underway to consider a statement that could be applicable across the following key areas of business development: • Social Economy Framework development; • Community Benefits; • Participatory Budgeting ; • Procurement; and • Tackling poverty and inequality Work to develop the Social Economy Framework has reflected the need to better strengthen and connect approaches to wealth building. Workshop discussion linked to this from the launch of the framework earlier in October 2022 will be used to inform next steps. In parallel to this key Council services have been engaging with the Wellbeing Alliance to scope out opportunities and approaches that are directly in support of the concept of creating a Wellbeing Economy in North Lanarkshire. A Wellbeing Economy is one where public interest determine economics. Rather than pursuing economic growth through indicators such as GDPR, a wellbeing economy monitors and places value on things that contribute to quality of live such as for example health, nature, education, and communities
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Early discussion has focused on how the principles of a Wellbeing Economy could be applied in North Lanarkshire to contribute to the ambition and plans to improve outcomes for local people. A further session is planned and due to take place in November 2022 to scope out next steps and key actions to progress this work. A more detailed update report will be presented at a future committee cycle. 3. Measures of success • number of community groups accessing funding ; • number of LOIP priorities being progressed through use of GAP funding • number of community groups applying funding • positive alternative outcomes as a result of initial enquiries relating to GAP funding 4. Supporting documentation None Stephen Penman Head of Strategic Communication
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5. Impacts ( http://connect/report-template-guidance ) 5.1 Public Sector Equality Duty and Fairer Scotland Duty Does the report contain information that has an impact as a result of the Public Sector Equality Duty and/or Fairer Scotland Duty? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? An integrated Fairer Scotland Duty/Equality Impact Assessment was carried out during the development of the strategic Framework for Working with Communities. Data gathered through the ongoing engagement with communities will be vital in informing/shaping future locality community planning linked to the LOIPs If Yes, has an assessment been carried out and published on the council’s website? https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/equalities/equality-and-fairer- scotland-duty-impact-assessments Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.2 Financial impact Does the report contain any financial impacts? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, have all relevant financial impacts have been discussed and agreed with Financial Solutions? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? A one off budget allocation of up to £60k was identified within the Communities division in the financial year 2021/22 to fund the work outlined in this report. This funding was to cover the following :- • a temporary Project Co-ordinator employed by VANL for 12 months: £30,000. • two independent Appreciative Inquiry Facilitators commissioned and managed by VANL: £30,000. The funding was added to the Council’s current funding arrangements for VANL and progress monitored through already established liaison mechanisms between the Council and VANL
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5.3 HR policy impact Does the report contain any HR policy or procedure impacts? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, have all relevant HR impacts have been discussed and agreed with People and Organisational Development? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.4 Legal impact Does the report contain any legal impacts (such as general legal matters, statutory considerations (including employment law considerations), or new legislation)? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant legal impacts have been discussed and agreed with Legal and Democratic Solutions? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.5 Data protection impact Does the report / project / practice contain or involve the processing of personal data? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, is the processing of this personal data likely to result in a high risk to the data subject? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, has a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out and e- mailed to dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.6 Technology / Digital impact Does the report contain information that has an impact on either technology, digital transformation, service redesign / business change processes, data management, or connectivity / broadband / Wi-Fi? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? Digital approaches are utilised as required to maximise participation Where the impact identifies a requirement for technology, has an assessment been carried out (or scheduled) by the Enterprise Architecture Governance Group (EAGG)? Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.7 Environmental / Carbon impact Does the report / project / practice contain information that has an impact on any environmental or carbon matters? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.8 Communications impact Does the report contain any information that has an impact on the council’s communications activities? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.9 Risk impact
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Is there a risk impact? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the key risks and potential impacts, highlighting where the risk(s) are assessed and recorded (e.g. Corporate or Service or Project Risk Registers), and how they are managed? The approach outlined within this report contributes to the controls associated with the corporate risk - engagement and consultation with communities, partners and stakeholders on the shaping and delivery of services.