Community Links

Community Links blog

Archive for the ‘Community Engagement’ Category

« Older Entries

Community Development – “filling in a few gaps to ensure the enthusiasm for shared action becomes contagious”

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Jude Simmons is the head of Community Links’ Children, Youth, and Community work.Strengthening Communities Report Cover

Our new report, Strengthening Communities, outlines the achievements co-ordinated over just two years by Cecilia Jaros, our part-time community development worker.

We start from the belief that everyone has potential to play a part in their local community themselves, and make things happen. Sometimes people need a little support to identify the right places to get started, people to contact, available sources of funding, or just the confidence to have a go.

Community Links provide the catalyst; we encourage people to organise their own activities. Starting off locally and small scale – holding an event where people can get together and begin talking about the issues that concern them – is sometimes all that is needed to ignite a spark that leads to new community activity. Just filling in a few gaps can ensure the enthusiasm for shared action becomes contagious.

From outside, our area might be identified as one experiencing multiple deprivation, child poverty and a range of other negative issues, but we take the view that our community has tremendous assets. Key amongst them is the energy, enthusiasm and enterprise of people who live locally and, given a bit of support, can make things happen.

Whilst much of our work is intense and at a micro level, often our input will be for only a short time as we put people in touch with each other and watch things take off. However we are equally happy to support people on small scale activity or far bigger more ambitious ventures.  One young lad at one of community hubs was really interested in Street Dance and also concerned about young people on the estate where he lived.

Cecilia talked with him over a period of weeks introducing ideas to him – maybe teaching dance to the very young people he was concerned for. He now has his own street dance group, has fundraised for rehearsal and studio space, performs at events and is going to university to study music.  The difference in this quiet young boy is incredible.

We also helped seven different communities in Newham organise Big Lunch events this Summer, where neighbours get together one Sunday to have lunch outside. This is part of a national event and once the idea was aired with local people they just took over, coming up with a whole load of ideas to get people involved. This event happened with four groups last year and next year I’m sure it will expand again. It has now gained its own momentum with local people, streets, and clubs already planning events for next year.

Our centres or “hubs” house a number of different activities under one roof so progression from one thing to another is easy, organic and not forced. Our approach at all of our centres is to have an open door and welcome visitors just to come in and have a look at what is happening. Often in the remote isolated estates where we work what little activity that does take place is restricted – just for pensioners or just for teenagers. We take the view that any activity is available to all who want to participate, and we’d encourage everyone to take part in setting up something new.

Our centres are also places where we connect with other local agencies and organisations, schoolteachers and heads participate and Police Community Support Officers are likely to be sat across the table and engaged in the same project – not a demanding authority figure. So if a parent needs to speak to the school about behaviour or attendance, it’s likely that one of our staff can make the introduction directly, passing on the connection from one trusted professional to another and widening the circle of social contact.

it is an approach to community development that permeates all we do at Community Links.

Read the report to find out more.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Community Engagement, General | No Comments »

A Big Society… and four economy sized societies

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Community Action bannerPerhaps I’m too cynical or just insufficiently pragmatic but I urge caution in our response to government rhetoric on the Big Society, at least until we see more detail.

Matthew Taylor says the RSA could be called the think tank for the Big Society so closely are the visions aligned. So could Community Links and, I suspect, a lot of other organisations. This might signal an opportunity or it might be a warning. Few can dissemble from the warm words but is it really possible in practise to please so many people?

Thus far we’re promised some old ideas rebranded Big Society – the social investment bank for example , some reworked – the social action day was consumer tested last year and rejected , some relatively small new ones – funding the training (though not the employment) of community organisers for instance and, today, four Economy Size Societies in the Eden Valley, Windsor , Sutton and Liverpool. Worthy initiatives perhaps but scarcely amounting yet to a brave new vision. The more ambitious iterations of the Big Society are less clear and more worrying – Andrew Lansley claimed the label for his NHS reforms as did Michael Gove for independent schools.

Here my concern is less about the producer interests of the organisations on this patch – third sector agencies and social enterprises may well grow the business, but much more about the best interests of our service users, particularly the most excluded.  Some of the services on which the most vulnerable are most dependent are clearly threatened and could, under the cover of the Big Society, diminish significantly over the next couple of years. Not necessarily but very possibly.

Arriving for work at Community Links in Canning Town this morning I passed a long queue of people waiting for advice or practical support in this, one of the UKs most disadvantaged communities. The questions I ask of every government programme are the same today as everyday. “How does it meet their needs? How does it tackle poverty, not just money but poverty of opportunity, and what more could be done?” I’m not sure that what I know about the Big Society, or what its leading minister, Francis Maude, had to say about it last week,  helps me with the answers.

Criticism at this stage is of course just as empty as wide eyed enthusiasm. It simply isn’t yet time for the jury to return. We could however be thinking more about the criteria for   judgement, the basis on which we might   appraise the Big Society , challenge it, build it. Our Chain Reaction network has begun this work with a statement of principles sketching our vision of the good society, outlining the principles that might underpin that vision and suggesting the expectations, for ourselves and for government that might flow from this analysis.  We put forward this vision, these values and these expectations for ourselves and for government as a set of principles that might guide the judgements that we make and the work that we do.

We share it as a work in progress and invite others to contribute.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Community Engagement, Innovation, Leadership | 3 Comments »

Being Poor and Being Powerless

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Henry Tam Henry Tam is Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written extensively on the subject of democratic citizenship, and actively championed the development of inclusive communities. In this guest blog post he outlines the analysis from his recent book Against Power Inequalities.

If in the land of the blind, the one-eye man is king, then in the realm of trillionaires, even those with merely a millionaire status would languish at the bottom of the heap. Power – visual power, purchasing power, military power – whatever form it takes, is inherently relative. It makes no sense to talk about someone being powerful or not without making a comparison with someone else’s ability to make things happen. And since poverty is in essence about the lack of power, we should never lose sight of the need to combat it by limiting the concentration of power in those who can already pretty much do what they want.

Yet, it is not an uncommon suggestion that people should not worry about what others have got. Perhaps the visibly wretched should be given clothes, shelter and food. But beyond that, we are often told; people should look after their own needs and leave others to get on with their lives. Where they have a common interest in cooperating, they can voluntarily do so; otherwise just let people mind their own business. This sanguine outlook has one critical flaw. It ignores what entrepreneurs have tirelessly demanded as the level playing field, or diplomats have for centuries sought as the balance of power – in short, a power structure where no one has a predominant capacity to subdue, intimidate, marginalise, or take unfair advantage over others.

If we really care about helping the poor, the powerless, all those who are vulnerable to the whims and commands of others, then we need to make sure they can stand up to the powerful. In my new book, Against Power Inequalities, I look back on history and find that over centuries, across the world, a similar pattern emerges with those in powerful positions seeking to strengthen their grip even further by constantly changing the rules in their favour, and progress in making communities more inclusive only achieved when reformists and citizens have managed to redistribute power more fairly. Along the way, there are of course many twists and turns. Some claim to fight for the powerless and end up just grabbing power for themselves. Others express deep concern for the poor while they consolidate economic arrangements which will continue to benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else. But sustained change for the better is possible.

We are not talking about some utopian end point, but a constant effort to moderate excesses. The civil service has now been told that its highest earners should not be earning 20 times or more than the lowest. The same message needs to be repeated for society at large – at present, the top 10% in the UK have 100 times more wealth than the bottom 10%. At the global level, the challenge is even more severe. The richest 1% of adults own 40% of the world’s assets, while the bottom 50% barely own 1% of the world’s wealth.

To adapt the homily about not just giving a hungry man a fish, but teaching him the art of fishing, there is no point in teaching him how to fish if he is unable to stop the multinational fleet of trawlers taking away the entire fish stock.

Henry Tam’s new book, Against Power Inequalities, provides a short guide to the contest for power redistribution across the centuries, and draws out the underlying causes of disempowerment which are still with us today.  It is available for  free download from the Equality Trust, or from Henry Tam’s own blog Question the Powerful.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Community Engagement, Research | No Comments »

Volunteers Week: celebrating our volunteering stars.

Friday, June 4th, 2010

This week (June 1-7) is Volunteers Week and provides the perfect opportunity to take time to thank all the wonderful volunteers who give their time to help others.

Community Links provides volunteers with the opportunity to make a meaningful difference for others while gaining practical experience, skills and insights for themselves. This is why hundreds of volunteers get involved in all areas of our work. As a multipurpose organization we have all sorts of volunteering opportunities including activities with children and young people, filling in complex forms with clients of our Welfare Rights Advice team , providing research for our policy and campaigning work and all sorts of tasks alongside Senior Management as well as our Trustee board.

We have individual volunteers coming to work on a specific session, longer term interns working on a particular project and volunteer groups from our corporate supporters. Our friends in the city – our corporate volunteers – may come to us and undertake a volunteering challenge or run a team building workshop or they may engage disadvantaged young people at Community Links and give them the opportunity to visit company offices for extensive workshops on CV, interview and presentation skills, helping to break down barriers and raise aspirations amongst the young people to achieve their full potential.

Whichever way we work together volunteers make an enormous difference to the work we do, over the last three years we have benefited from almost 82,000 hours of volunteer time – that equates to about nine years and four months of one person’s time, 24 hours a day.  But the true value is not measured simply in the hours spent – it is often the one-to-one human contact between someone with the time to spend taking an interest in a person who needs a little support. Sometimes setting up and running a pensioners tea-dance, taking a group of children to the zoo for the first time, mentoring a young person struggling with school – or just having fun together can bring significant brightness to another person’s life.

We believe that everyone has the potential to do great things and that sometimes all people need is a little bit of help to feel empowered to take the next step. We have many members of staff working with us who first began as volunteers and we’d  like to think about how we can progress and develop volunteers over time by referring them to different Community Links projects to gain relevant experience, helping them to gain access to appropriate training and accreditation to gain relevant qualifications and ultimately enable them to secure employment as a result of their valuable volunteer experience.

We are grateful to all the volunteers who support our work and the work of other community groups and voluntary sector agencies. It is heartening to think of so many “willing citizens” volunteering to help others  “not because they are forced from without but because they are compelled from within” as we said in our report on the many forms of community involvement Willing Citizens and the Making of the Good Society.

If  you want to get involved with out work as a volunteer have a look at our website and please get in touch you will be made very welcome.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Community Engagement, Inspiration, Volunteering | 1 Comment »

More on Cameron’s Big Society

Monday, April 19th, 2010

We’ve been poring over an excellent piece by Madeleine Bunting in today’s Guardian, not least because it begins with a great description of our Rokeby Community Centre, which Madeleine visited last week.

When she came, we made four points, applicable to any party trying to promote community action, and worth repeating here.

Firstly, recognise that this kind of work is already going on, in places like the Rokeby Centre, and has been for a long time. Community Links has been here 30 years.

Secondly, harnessing mainstream budgets, like welfare or housing, to strengthen communities rather than undermine them, would be far more powerful than making small additional budgets available. One way to do this is to harness the potential for the relationship between those delivering public services and those receiving them.

Thirdly, this kind of action thrives on partnership, between state, business, and the third sector.

And fourthly, it must be properly funded. You need to build fences at the top of the cliff as well as running ambulances at the bottom, and although it’s much easier to withdraw funding from the fences, when budgets are tight it’s even more crucial you keep building them.

What do you think of the Big Society? We’d be interested to hear your views.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Attitudes, Community Engagement, Regeneration | 2 Comments »

Should Parliament move to east London?

Friday, February 12th, 2010

MPs have put forward a suggestion that Parliament should move its premises to east London’s ExCel centre. This is just a few minutes away from our base in Canning Town so we asked our staff what they thought, 80% of our staff live locally or are ex-service users.

Here’s what they said:

‘Not sure why ExCel would be considered a location more in touch with real life. It is in many ways more isolated than Westminster.’

‘I think that’s a great idea, especially as Newham, even though the host borough for the Olympics is still one of the poorest boroughs, and the politicians would get a better insight to the area and its problems.’

‘I would strongly disagree due to the strain on local roads, facilities etc. Also, with the constant threat of terrorism I do not like the idea of such high profile figures at the end of my road.’

‘I think it’s a great idea for Parliament to be located in the heart of East London, especially with a backdrop of the recent tarnished media image of Westminster politics & expenses scandals over the last year. The areas of regeneration immediately surrounding the ExCel Centre, such as Canning Town and Newham in general would provide a daily reminder, and accurate snapshot of the array of challenges facing people today. Westminster Palace can be seen to be a location that can often be seen to be its own detached and removed world. In addition there could be marked cost reduction benefits to the tax payer also, and potential to make such a site a sustainable one, perhaps helping to restore some faith in the public that politics and voting is a system one should try to engage with in order to help address society’s problems.’

‘My experience of the Excel centre is that it is a place full of ’suits’ on dubious expenses!!!!!!’

‘I really don’t want them in east London.  We already have enough agro when the biannual DSEI exhibition is held at the Excel.  Then we will have the massive inconvenience of “heightened security” from about April 2011 until the end of the games.  We have permanent armed cops in Royal Docks because of the airport!’

I personally think instead of the Excel centre perhaps some of them should move in with us to see how the real day to day to life is like, see what we have to put up with, I bet half of them would be scared to go out after 6pm. Most of them don’t know what real life is like, with all their pampering up at Whitehall.

There we go again, they want the accommodation in the Olympic village and to be in for 2012……..

“Once the Olympic athletes have left the Village how about turning it into dormitory accommodation for MPs right next to a new Parliament – that way nobody would need to apply for a second home allowance and the security and official transport could all be pooled making a financial saving.”

Apart from the obvious benefit, the creation of a local food outlet other that one long standing bakery to swarm to for lunch, we would have MPs at our doorstep. Would local east London people get more involved in governmental affairs as a result? Would the cynicism and lack of trust that has increased since the MP expenses scandal in the summer gradually disappear (that is why MPs are suggesting this surely?!), probably not.

The Canary Wharf development is a stones throw from Canning Town and has had very little impact on local residents in all the years that is has been there. When asked what impact Canary Wharf has had, our community development team replied that ‘most locals say it is for rich people, there is a stigma to it as it cost millions and it has no place for them, the shops are lovely but far too expensive so its just somewhere some feel them can go for a nice wander around’

If government is trying to find ways to reconnect with the public and be in touch with real life issues to win back that trust they have completely lost then it will take more than packing up and moving location. That is a mis-diagnosis of the problem. We have had political apathy for a long time; in the 2005 election there was an overall voting turnout of 61.4% in the UK, a slight rise in an overall declining trend from previous decades. Last summer’s revelations fed ammunition to turn that apathy to resentment. Parliament needs to changes its practices; get out, listen and take action, not relocate to what is considered less attractive dwellings and adopt exactly the same customs as before. The geography isn’t the problem; it’s the lack of listening to real people. Not just listening for the sake of an election but to take action and do something about it. That will win the hearts and minds of local people and make it worthwhile to plan a trip over to Westminster.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Communication, Community Engagement, Regeneration | No Comments »

A partnership of equals to tackle Child Poverty

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Speaking at the Conference Into 2010 The European Year Against Poverty Financial Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms MP called on campaigners, community organisations and faith groups to join local and national government in a “partnership of equals” to end child poverty over the next 10 years.

He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to end child poverty by 2020 and outlined the significant progress that has been made over the last decade but he accepted that much more needed to be done if the target is to be reached.

The focus on poverty across Eurpoe offered by the European Year Against Poverty will provide an opportunity to develop existing work both in government and at the grass roots level which will help to build a movement to really push on and meet the target Stephen Timms said.

Speaking at the same event Jean Lambert MEP was perhaps less positive about the likliehood of real progress through legislation – but again talked about the progress that can be made through community based campaigns and projects such as London Citizens. She spoke about the need for a welfare benefit sytem to reflect the real situation experienced by communities experiencing unemployment and the challenges of the global recession. Significantly she called for strutural causes of inequality to be considered at the European level – not just responding to the effects.

A greater equality of income was an emerging theme in the discussion and will be something we will be considering in further blog posts over the coming months.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Child Poverty, Community Engagement, News, employment | No Comments »

Community Allowance Pilot Partners Wanted

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009


We (the CREATE Consortium) are looking for three community organisations to pilot the Community Allowance with us. Could you be involved?

Background – the Community Allowance proposal
A Community Allowance would allow benefit claimants to supplement their income without incurring a penalty – this month’s New Start magazine has a useful overview of the idea, which is starting to be picked up by government. We hope to be involved in piloting the idea, and would welcome your involvement.

Under the government’s Right to Bid scheme, any organisation can propose to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) a new way of delivering any of its services. We thought this was a good opportunity to work with the DWP to pilot the Community Allowance. We developed a Right to Bid proposal for a £2.2 million pilot programme in 15 areas across the UK, and submitted it in January 2009. In April, they asked us a number of questions about our proposal, and you can read our answers here.

In July 2009 they called us to a meeting where they informed us that the Right to Bid process was looking for much smaller scale pilots. They also said that the outgoing Secretary of State, James Purnell MP, had made it clear that the Community Allowance could not be piloted for people on Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance.

They rejected our bid but asked us to submit another proposal for a smaller scale pilot operating in three areas anywhere in the UK. They also said our bid would stand a greater chance of success if we restricted the people who could participate to those who are on Incapacity Benefit and Employment and Support Allowance.

We asked all the organisations that had already expressed an interest in piloting the Community Allowance if they would be prepared to go ahead on that basis, and over 30 organisations said they would.

Aims of pilots:

  • To test the feasibility and impact of the Community Allowance on participants and their communities in a range of settings across the UK.
  • To capture learning and evidence that could inform further development of the Community Allowance to people on other benefits (e.g. Income Support and Job Seekers Allowance).

Want to be involved in the pilot programme?

We are looking for community organisations from across the UK that are interested in becoming a partner with CREATE in order to run the Community Allowance. We would like to work with organisations that are:

  • Local community based charities, social enterprises or community interest companies
  • Trusted locally, with a track record of working with ‘hard to reach’ people
  • Equipped with the capacity and skills to support the Community Allowance participants
  • Able to generate local paid work (e.g. community research or youth work) or identify and place people in paid work that strengthens their neighbourhood (e.g. School Crossing Patrol)

We’d like these pilots to be in a range of rural and urban areas. In each area we anticipate identifying and working with one or more partners, each of whom would recruit, employ, and support people. We have estimated that in each area the Community Allowance could create around 80 part time jobs.

If you wish to develop a proposal for how your organisation would deliver a Community Allowance pilot programme in your area, please download a proposal form and guidance notes. Completed forms need to be back to the CREATE Consortium by 5pm on 1st October 2009, either to CREATE Consortium, 33 Corsham Street, London N1 6DR or to n.alexander@dta.org.uk

Type of Jobs: Eligible jobs on the Community Allowance would be restricted to those that contribute to strengthening the neighbourhood. This would be defined and refined by the CREATE Consortium over the duration of the pilots through dialogue with the CREATE partners.

Real Time Evaluation: The CREATE Consortium will contract with an independent evaluator to carry out a real time evaluation of the pilot programme.

 Do get in touch on aaron.barbour@community-links.org with any suggestions or questions.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Benefits, Community Engagement, Innovation, Regeneration, Welfare, employment | No Comments »

Introducing the National Talent Bank

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Yesterday the Daily Telegraph ran a front page story suggesting that almost one million people across the UK are now working part-time because they cannot get a full-time job. The story suggested several major employers have offered staff reduced hours or extended holidays in an attempt to cut costs. The story goes on to suggest that unlike previous recessions this time there are “more dramatic changes in the labour market, with hundreds of thousands cutting their hours and pay in an attempt to hold on to their jobs. “

 Today at a breakfast meeting with actual and potential partners we are introducing the National Talent Bank.

The NTB is an idea proposed by the Council on Social Action – a time limited partnership promoting and supporting volunteering amongst those with more time to share as a consequence of recession.

Today we are publishing a discussion paper to stimulate dialogue and engagement and issuing a call for partners to build the Talent Bank together.

A video accompanying this post outlines the plan.

The Council on Social Action (CoSA) has been considering the role of social action in recession and what might be done now to ensure that we emerge from this period with not only a stronger economy but also happier, healthier, stronger communities.  

Strong communities benefit from the engagement of the many, not the few.  They nurture a commitment to one another sharing the opportunities, the experience and the knowledge we need to shape the decisions that affect our lives, to fulfil potential individually and to live and work effectively together. These are timeless values but particularly significant today: Recession could drive division and exclusion or it could unite us, extracting greater value from all that we have, embracing new ideas and working together on common goals.

Working with The Talent and Enterprise Task Force at the DCSF, TimeBank, Business in the Community (BiTC) and CAPP we’ve developed a short list of opportunities, a framework for expansion and a call for partners to build the National Talent Bank together.

The Plan: The Bank will not be a big new bureaucracy. It will be the sum of its programmes, each run by an independent set of partners. It will offer light touch brokerage to employers, not individual employees and to NTB programmes.

NTB will have a fixed life, probably two years, and will unleash the potential from temporary circumstances. It will target those employers who are releasing employees for a fixed period or are reducing the working week.

The Need: We know that 17% of UK employers have implemented short time working programmes, with a further 13% intending to or considering the option. (CBI Employment Trends Survey: June 2009)  The “under employed”  includes employees working shorter hours,  required to take  sabbaticals, retained in the workforce  but under occupied or “deferred” – new recruits with a deferred start date.

We also know that large numbers of children would benfit from extra one-to-one literacy and numeracy support, that debt enquiries at Citizens Advice Bureaux were 21% higher in the first quarter of this year compared to last and that Child Line have experienced a comparable increase in demand.

On the one hand there is need. On the other there is the capacity to help.

The Action: We intend to build three themes. Action for Young People, Action on Climate Change and Action on Money Management. Beneath each theme we are developing a set of volunteering programmes

As recession continues more people become available and more problems become more entrenched. Employees are making choices about how they use their unexpected time when it becomes available. As the economy picks up they will once again have less time available. The need and the opportunity exist now. So should our response.  


Do please download the report and have a look at the video. We are developing a short list of opportunities and  a framework for expansion if you have any comments or you would like to be involved please leave a comment below or contact me  info@nationaltalentbank.org.uk . Website:  www.nationaltalentbank.org.uk

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Community Engagement, Council on Social Action, Innovation, Inspiration, News, Regeneration, Volunteering, employment | 1 Comment »

Community Allowance: Latest News

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

We at Community Links have been a part of the CREATE Consortium since its inception. The campaign calls for changes to benefit rules which would enable community organisations to pay people to do work that strengthens their neighbourhood without it affecting any of their benefits.

In a guest blog here CREATE Consortium co-ordinator Naomi Alexander updates the campaign progress. 

Well, we finally have some news from the governments Department for Work and Pensions about the Community Allowance.

We (Steve Wyler, Executive Director of the DTA, Aaron Barbour, Head of linksUK at Community Links and me) went to a hastily arranged meeting with 6 officials from the DWP this morning to discuss our Right to Bid proposal that we submitted back in January.

We’ve got through two rounds of intensive scrutiny and evaluation from across the Department and they wanted to give us their feedback.

Because the last Secretary of State, James Purnell, said that people on Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) would not be eligible for the Community Allowance, our bid, which includes a lot of detail about people on JSA is not eligible for funding and they are rejecting our proposal as it stands.

While we are obviously, really disappointed that this is the decision after all the work that has gone into getting this far, there is still hope.

They have asked us to write another bid (!) as they are keen on the Community Allowance concept and can see the value in piloting it to test the approach. They have given us some guidance as to how we should re-shape the bid to stand the best chance of being approved.

This includes:

  • Re-shaping what we would deliver through the Community Allowance only for people who are on Employment and Support Allowance and Incapacity Benefit
  • Scaling back the pilot programme from 15 pilots across the UK to just 3 pilots as the Right to Bid process is targeted at funding small scale activity that can act as the DWP’s research and development arm to test out new ideas and add value to their existing work
  • Choosing which three pilot areas it would be piloted in and having identified lead community organisations in each area before the bid is submitted
  • Ensuring that each of these pilot areas fits within Job Centre Plus and Pathways to Work provider boundaries, which are different to local authority boundaries
  • Beginning to develop a dialogue between the community organisation(s) running the pilot and local Job Centre Plus and Pathways/FND providers in each area
  • Including more of a focus on how many people will move into jobs as a result of the activity, specifying which of these are part time, full time and sustained over a 26 week period  

We have had lots of discussions about this since Friday and we think it is worth being pragmatic at this stage and moving ahead with another bid as outlined above. At the same time we will continue our lobbying and campaigning work to convince politicians that the Community Allowance should be available to anyone on any benefit and try to get the scope of the pilots extended to include those on JSA at a later date.

What do you think?

We would like to hear if community organisations are still interested in being pilot partners under this scaled back version of a Community Allowance pilot.

If you are interested, or you’d like to discuss the practicalities of becoming a pilot partner please email me (and copy in Jess Steele the Chair of the CREATE Consortium j.steele@dta.org.uk).

Depending on the level of interest, we will set up a short selection process that enables us to choose three pilot locations and partners. The aim is to get the new bid to DWP for their end of August selection panel, so that we have a decision in September and a contract signed and monies flowing to pilot partners as soon as possible after that.

It’s a challenging timescale, especially as it’s over the summer whilst people will be taking leave, but if you’re up for it – we’re up for it!

We’ve come this far and now have an opportunity to get something up and running next year that will begin to demonstrate how the Community Allowance could work. It may not be what we know is needed in our most deprived communities but it’s a start and we have no intention of giving up. With your involvement we will keep up the pressure on politicians to realise the full potential of the Community Allowance over the long term.

We look forward to hearing what you think.

Thanks so much for your support.

Naomi Alexander

Email: n.alexander@dta.org.uk Web: www.communityallowance.org

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Benefits, Community Engagement, News, Regeneration, Welfare | 4 Comments »

« Older Entries