The evaluation of RE:generate's work in Wigan has been completed and is being discussed with RE:generate. A final version is due to be presented to RE:generate's trustees towards the end of October.
RE:generate will then consider how to build on the evaluation's recommendations in developing its work. Any enquiries should be directed to Stephen Kearney - email stephenkearney@regeneratetrust.com
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Perspectives on regeneration: Sian Jay
Sian Jay was township programme manager at Wigan Council when interviewed in January 2007. This summary has been approved for publication.
The issue in a soundbite
What’s appealing to me about this particular model is the way it encourages individuals to expect more of themselves, and then for those individuals to expect more from those around them, and then for those communities to expect more from the services that they need.
Background and key challenges
We’ve always been pretty clear that Wigan is a particularly insular place and that has contributed to a worrying lack of aspiration and a sameness that doesn’t lend itself particularly well to innovation and change. While as public sector organisations I think we’re often celebrated for innovation and change, and I think that’s due and it’s valid, we don’t seem to be having that kind of impact on our communities. Wigan still remains a patriarchal society generally speaking; it remains a society that is resistant to change, to new horizons. It’s not a particularly inclusive society. It’s a very tolerant society, but that’s part of the problem – it’s tolerant of anything. It rarely finds the energy to challenge. On an individual basis our residents are really quite vociferous when things don’t go the way they want them to go, but they’re not political. They don’t naturally form themselves around issues.
Progress so far
At our first meeting Simon [Dale] and I left a little concerned that while we could see the benefit of what we’d heard about, it felt a little as if the intent was to parachute that in without taking account of the context that it would land in, and we felt that was potentially problematic. So we spent a little more time at our second meeting explaining the context and exploring with Regenerate whether the best option was to embed the work within that context, within the structure of the LSP in particular… the alternative was in our view equally valid, and that was to be arm’s length from the piece of work and not try and embed it, with an expectation that it would embed itself at some point, but that we wouldn’t in any way try to structure or engineer that.
I’m not sure whether it’s by default or whether we agreed it without having to voice it: it appears that we’re going with the model, let’s not try and embed it and see how it embeds itself.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
Speaking for myself, I think the work is very interesting and I’m particularly interested in the listening technique. I think it’s something we could all do with more of here.
I’m still aware of the potential for things to go wrong here, because I think this is a challenging concept for Wigan, both at a grassroots level and at a decision-making level. There’s either the danger that it will make an impact no-one’s ready for, or even worse, that it won’t make an impact at all because we’re not ready to accommodate it.
[My hope is for] cultural change both within the organisations, mainly public sector, but some of the community and voluntary organisations also who offer support in terms of community development, economic development and social development – so some cultural change within those organisations, but equally, cultural change within our communities themselves.
What’s appealing to me about this particular model is the way it encourages individuals to expect more of themselves, and then for those individuals to expect more from those around them, and then for those communities to expect more from the services that they need.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
I’m not sure I have a handle on what’s achievable. The only thing I would feel comfortable in saying is that my goal would be for there to be sufficient impact and outcome that energised people around continuing the work, because I think I understand that this is a very long term approach.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
In terms of three or four months, I think I’d want personally to be aware of where the work was up to and feel that I could describe it and explain it to someone else, and that I heard other people talking about it. There’s lots of opportunities for me to hear about this work so I’d like to hear lots of people talking about it.
If I was sitting here in three or four months’ time and was perfectly happy, I’d hear people talking about it, I’d hear people talking about it in a knowledgeable way, and I would feel that I understood myself where the work was up to.
The issue in a soundbite
What’s appealing to me about this particular model is the way it encourages individuals to expect more of themselves, and then for those individuals to expect more from those around them, and then for those communities to expect more from the services that they need.
Background and key challenges
We’ve always been pretty clear that Wigan is a particularly insular place and that has contributed to a worrying lack of aspiration and a sameness that doesn’t lend itself particularly well to innovation and change. While as public sector organisations I think we’re often celebrated for innovation and change, and I think that’s due and it’s valid, we don’t seem to be having that kind of impact on our communities. Wigan still remains a patriarchal society generally speaking; it remains a society that is resistant to change, to new horizons. It’s not a particularly inclusive society. It’s a very tolerant society, but that’s part of the problem – it’s tolerant of anything. It rarely finds the energy to challenge. On an individual basis our residents are really quite vociferous when things don’t go the way they want them to go, but they’re not political. They don’t naturally form themselves around issues.
Progress so far
At our first meeting Simon [Dale] and I left a little concerned that while we could see the benefit of what we’d heard about, it felt a little as if the intent was to parachute that in without taking account of the context that it would land in, and we felt that was potentially problematic. So we spent a little more time at our second meeting explaining the context and exploring with Regenerate whether the best option was to embed the work within that context, within the structure of the LSP in particular… the alternative was in our view equally valid, and that was to be arm’s length from the piece of work and not try and embed it, with an expectation that it would embed itself at some point, but that we wouldn’t in any way try to structure or engineer that.
I’m not sure whether it’s by default or whether we agreed it without having to voice it: it appears that we’re going with the model, let’s not try and embed it and see how it embeds itself.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
Speaking for myself, I think the work is very interesting and I’m particularly interested in the listening technique. I think it’s something we could all do with more of here.
I’m still aware of the potential for things to go wrong here, because I think this is a challenging concept for Wigan, both at a grassroots level and at a decision-making level. There’s either the danger that it will make an impact no-one’s ready for, or even worse, that it won’t make an impact at all because we’re not ready to accommodate it.
[My hope is for] cultural change both within the organisations, mainly public sector, but some of the community and voluntary organisations also who offer support in terms of community development, economic development and social development – so some cultural change within those organisations, but equally, cultural change within our communities themselves.
What’s appealing to me about this particular model is the way it encourages individuals to expect more of themselves, and then for those individuals to expect more from those around them, and then for those communities to expect more from the services that they need.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
I’m not sure I have a handle on what’s achievable. The only thing I would feel comfortable in saying is that my goal would be for there to be sufficient impact and outcome that energised people around continuing the work, because I think I understand that this is a very long term approach.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
In terms of three or four months, I think I’d want personally to be aware of where the work was up to and feel that I could describe it and explain it to someone else, and that I heard other people talking about it. There’s lots of opportunities for me to hear about this work so I’d like to hear lots of people talking about it.
If I was sitting here in three or four months’ time and was perfectly happy, I’d hear people talking about it, I’d hear people talking about it in a knowledgeable way, and I would feel that I understood myself where the work was up to.
Perspectives on regeneration: Pam Stewart (1)
Pam Stewart was working as a community volunteer when first interviewed in January 2007. This summary has been approved for publication.
The issue in a soundbite
You need to find out what’s going on and that in itself is the task. Once you know what’s going on you can join them together.
Background and key challenges
Plans are good, but break down at the implementation stage. There are families and individuals with entrenched problems who need help, but they are receiving it from too many uncoordinated agencies. Wigan is able to produce superb paperwork but it’s watered down when put into action.
Accountability is an issue – someone needs to carry the can. Projects need a driver to be accountable and report back, not just a group of people who don’t take personal responsibility.
I would say the key issue at the moment within the borough of Wigan is a lack of coordination. There are lots and lots of little pockets of really good work going on within areas, but what tends to happen is an area will be highlighted as a super output area or an area of deprivation, the funding will then be attached to that area, all the usual suspects chase the funding, and they all do little pockets of good work but there’s no coordination.
It’s the implementation and accountability, I think that’s where we break down. Somebody actually carrying the can and saying, right, I will be responsible for this initiative and I will drive it.
I think we are putting barriers in place and then saying let’s remove barriers. We’ve got officers in one department putting all these barriers in place, and then we’ve got officers in this department working with you to remove all these barriers, and then here you’ve got a funding officer working with you to get you the money to do it. The futility of it seems to escape people.
Progress so far
The major thing is genuine partnership working. Twenty years ago officers were parachuted in, did what they thought was wanted and went away again. Things failed because people didn’t have ownership of it. Barriers have started to break down now.
We have started to have designated areas with designated people. People don’t use jargon any more. People are happy to work with the community and for the community to take ownership of it.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
Regenerate are ideally placed – they’re coming from outside. This area tends to be quite unforgiving. I think empowerment and encouragement and their capacity to make people see outside the box will work well. They put people at ease.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
Compared to ten years ago there’s some excellent work going on, but it’s not coordinated. Once you know what’s going on you can join them together.
I would hope for a direct link between coordinated projects that are achieving outcomes. People going into training, children going into further education.
I want cohesion. When Regenerate leave here, I want the people that live in the super output areas of this borough, I want them to know what’s available to them, when it’s available to them and how they access it. Not just that one little pot that’s working in that one little estate… I want all the little pods that are working to have some interaction so that they actually link what they’re doing so that we get a better outcome – because there’s some really, really good work going on.
Engaging with people: you need to find out what’s going on and that in itself is the task. Once you know what’s going on you can join them together, and it’s making that link and being that link, but you need to find out actually what’s going on so it’s a mapping exercise.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
Mapping – we need the mapping to start the coordination.
An awareness of what’s going on. If when Regenerate leave that’s the only thing they’ll have left behind, as a member of the NRF panel that funded this I’ll be really happy in the fact that we need this piece of work to be done, but up to now nobody’s ever done it.
The issue in a soundbite
You need to find out what’s going on and that in itself is the task. Once you know what’s going on you can join them together.
Background and key challenges
Plans are good, but break down at the implementation stage. There are families and individuals with entrenched problems who need help, but they are receiving it from too many uncoordinated agencies. Wigan is able to produce superb paperwork but it’s watered down when put into action.
Accountability is an issue – someone needs to carry the can. Projects need a driver to be accountable and report back, not just a group of people who don’t take personal responsibility.
I would say the key issue at the moment within the borough of Wigan is a lack of coordination. There are lots and lots of little pockets of really good work going on within areas, but what tends to happen is an area will be highlighted as a super output area or an area of deprivation, the funding will then be attached to that area, all the usual suspects chase the funding, and they all do little pockets of good work but there’s no coordination.
It’s the implementation and accountability, I think that’s where we break down. Somebody actually carrying the can and saying, right, I will be responsible for this initiative and I will drive it.
I think we are putting barriers in place and then saying let’s remove barriers. We’ve got officers in one department putting all these barriers in place, and then we’ve got officers in this department working with you to remove all these barriers, and then here you’ve got a funding officer working with you to get you the money to do it. The futility of it seems to escape people.
Progress so far
The major thing is genuine partnership working. Twenty years ago officers were parachuted in, did what they thought was wanted and went away again. Things failed because people didn’t have ownership of it. Barriers have started to break down now.
We have started to have designated areas with designated people. People don’t use jargon any more. People are happy to work with the community and for the community to take ownership of it.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
Regenerate are ideally placed – they’re coming from outside. This area tends to be quite unforgiving. I think empowerment and encouragement and their capacity to make people see outside the box will work well. They put people at ease.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
Compared to ten years ago there’s some excellent work going on, but it’s not coordinated. Once you know what’s going on you can join them together.
I would hope for a direct link between coordinated projects that are achieving outcomes. People going into training, children going into further education.
I want cohesion. When Regenerate leave here, I want the people that live in the super output areas of this borough, I want them to know what’s available to them, when it’s available to them and how they access it. Not just that one little pot that’s working in that one little estate… I want all the little pods that are working to have some interaction so that they actually link what they’re doing so that we get a better outcome – because there’s some really, really good work going on.
Engaging with people: you need to find out what’s going on and that in itself is the task. Once you know what’s going on you can join them together, and it’s making that link and being that link, but you need to find out actually what’s going on so it’s a mapping exercise.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
Mapping – we need the mapping to start the coordination.
An awareness of what’s going on. If when Regenerate leave that’s the only thing they’ll have left behind, as a member of the NRF panel that funded this I’ll be really happy in the fact that we need this piece of work to be done, but up to now nobody’s ever done it.
Perspectives on regeneration: Kevin Walsh (1)
Kevin Walsh is economic partnership manager at Wigan Council. He was first interviewed in January 2007. This summary has been approved for publication.
The issue in a soundbite
The thing that attracted me to it is that it would reach out into parts of the community that we’ve probably never reached and engaged with before, and hopefully we’ll then start to gain a better understanding of the low aspirations, low ambitions of people who live in Wigan. We’ve talked about it but we don’t really know why people don’t have the aspiration to get a better quality of life.
Background and key challenges
A very important by-product of our NRF programme is a community network – a delivery mechanism for projects we want to deliver in the future. This very deep community engagement Regenerate propose would be a very good delivery mechanism for LEGI.
The brief was really to create social enterprises, but Regenerate came up with this innovative approach which involved the use of community ambassadors. The ultimate goal of the project is to create community enterprises which will have a bottom line target of creating sustainable employment.
We’ve got 27,000 people classed as workless. The bulk of those are on incapacity benefit – we’ve got over 20,000 people claiming incapacity benefit. There’s obviously a greater concentration in the areas of deprivation. Our main concerns are the increasing numbers of young people claiming incapacity benefit – the 16-24 year age group is the only one that’s increasing… What is more worrying is the increasing number of people with mental health as the primary condition, and that’s gone up in the last six years from 4,400 to 7,000.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
Everything that we spend our NRF money on, we have to link back into worklessness targets. The endgame of the project is to create employment via social enterprises… We must never lose sight of the fact that within this project we have hard output targets that Regenerate have signed up to try and deliver in terms of the number of social enterprises and the number of jobs that will be created.
The thing that attracted me to it is that it would reach out into parts of the community that we’ve probably never reached and engaged with before, and hopefully we’ll then start to gain a better understanding of the low aspirations, low ambitions of people who live in Wigan. We’ve talked about it but we don’t really know why people don’t have the aspiration to get a better quality of life.
That was the point about what Regenerate would hopefully deliver – a lot of tough questions but real hard information about what are the issues in the community. The problem is we get money from various sources and put together what we think are fantastic programmes, but are they really addressing the needs within the community?
What [Regenerate] are really doing is identifying market demand for a service or product within the community, and unless you have that fundamental market demand whatever it is you put in place is not going to be sustainable.
That’s the other thing we really like about Regenerate – the fact that they said they’d go in and identify the issues, people’s needs and wants and loves and all the rest of that stuff, but out of that will come hard data that says there is a market demand for such a kind of service or such a kind of operation within that particular area.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
In a year’s time we would expect to have established community networks in specific geographic areas… We would look to have those established and for people to have gone through the training and started to develop this pyramid-style selling of community engagement. Hopefully we’ll start to see some social enterprises coming through as well.
Let’s get some hard and fast stuff to say this is actually good and works, then we’ll say: here’s the evidence to say we’ll put more people into this even though they’ve got a day job, and start to take that approach forward.
There’s a funding timeline if nothing else. I would like to think by the end of this year we do have projects identified that would be the basis for social enterprises. I suspect there may be social enterprises coming out of the woodwork before the end of this year.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
I would hope to see some tangible progress – I’m not saying results – within Scholes/Birkett Bank within three to six months of getting people trained and starting to work and starting to build up their own networks.
I would expect that they [Regenerate] would have got people through the training… that those people would have then started to be effective, would have started to disseminate the approach and training through their own networks of people and would be starting to get some depth into those communities.
In the three months after that I would like to start to see some feedback coming about the needs, the wants, the issues in those particular communities and then after than we’d be starting to say how can we meet those needs.
The issue in a soundbite
The thing that attracted me to it is that it would reach out into parts of the community that we’ve probably never reached and engaged with before, and hopefully we’ll then start to gain a better understanding of the low aspirations, low ambitions of people who live in Wigan. We’ve talked about it but we don’t really know why people don’t have the aspiration to get a better quality of life.
Background and key challenges
A very important by-product of our NRF programme is a community network – a delivery mechanism for projects we want to deliver in the future. This very deep community engagement Regenerate propose would be a very good delivery mechanism for LEGI.
The brief was really to create social enterprises, but Regenerate came up with this innovative approach which involved the use of community ambassadors. The ultimate goal of the project is to create community enterprises which will have a bottom line target of creating sustainable employment.
We’ve got 27,000 people classed as workless. The bulk of those are on incapacity benefit – we’ve got over 20,000 people claiming incapacity benefit. There’s obviously a greater concentration in the areas of deprivation. Our main concerns are the increasing numbers of young people claiming incapacity benefit – the 16-24 year age group is the only one that’s increasing… What is more worrying is the increasing number of people with mental health as the primary condition, and that’s gone up in the last six years from 4,400 to 7,000.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
Everything that we spend our NRF money on, we have to link back into worklessness targets. The endgame of the project is to create employment via social enterprises… We must never lose sight of the fact that within this project we have hard output targets that Regenerate have signed up to try and deliver in terms of the number of social enterprises and the number of jobs that will be created.
The thing that attracted me to it is that it would reach out into parts of the community that we’ve probably never reached and engaged with before, and hopefully we’ll then start to gain a better understanding of the low aspirations, low ambitions of people who live in Wigan. We’ve talked about it but we don’t really know why people don’t have the aspiration to get a better quality of life.
That was the point about what Regenerate would hopefully deliver – a lot of tough questions but real hard information about what are the issues in the community. The problem is we get money from various sources and put together what we think are fantastic programmes, but are they really addressing the needs within the community?
What [Regenerate] are really doing is identifying market demand for a service or product within the community, and unless you have that fundamental market demand whatever it is you put in place is not going to be sustainable.
That’s the other thing we really like about Regenerate – the fact that they said they’d go in and identify the issues, people’s needs and wants and loves and all the rest of that stuff, but out of that will come hard data that says there is a market demand for such a kind of service or such a kind of operation within that particular area.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
In a year’s time we would expect to have established community networks in specific geographic areas… We would look to have those established and for people to have gone through the training and started to develop this pyramid-style selling of community engagement. Hopefully we’ll start to see some social enterprises coming through as well.
Let’s get some hard and fast stuff to say this is actually good and works, then we’ll say: here’s the evidence to say we’ll put more people into this even though they’ve got a day job, and start to take that approach forward.
There’s a funding timeline if nothing else. I would like to think by the end of this year we do have projects identified that would be the basis for social enterprises. I suspect there may be social enterprises coming out of the woodwork before the end of this year.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
I would hope to see some tangible progress – I’m not saying results – within Scholes/Birkett Bank within three to six months of getting people trained and starting to work and starting to build up their own networks.
I would expect that they [Regenerate] would have got people through the training… that those people would have then started to be effective, would have started to disseminate the approach and training through their own networks of people and would be starting to get some depth into those communities.
In the three months after that I would like to start to see some feedback coming about the needs, the wants, the issues in those particular communities and then after than we’d be starting to say how can we meet those needs.
Perspectives on regeneration: Darren Barton (1)
Darren Barton was township manager for Scholes at Wigan Council when first interviewed in January 2007. This summary has been approved for publication.
The issue in a soundbite
I’d like to develop plans for the area that are really honest and bring out the character of the area and what the real issues are so we can have achievable aims over the next five or six years – I think that’s the timescale we want to look at to try and improve issues such as employment, health.
Background and key challenges
We’ve got an unusual situation with Scholes. I personally don’t think Scholes is as bad as the figures say. I think certain things skew its ranking and make it a deprived area.
There are 2,800 people living in the area and 40% of them live in high rise flats. They are many people who have worked and lived in the area all their lives. It’s very accessible. My grandparents were very happy there all their lives.
There may be small pockets of areas where people wouldn’t feel safe but when we do ask, I feel the feedback will be that it’s a good area to live in really, and people are pretty happy– why should they work when they don’t need to work, when they can survive on a relatively small amount of money?
I think other people’s opinion of Scholes and Birkett Bank may have deteriorated. I think the murder that we had a few years ago has had a psychological effect not just on the people living in the area but on other people’s view of the area.
We have the new Grand Arcade development with 1,000 jobs associated with it on the Scholes doorstep, however talking about how it could impact positively for the residents of the Scholes area, I get the feeling that currently some employers may not be interested in the ‘type’ of people that come from Scholes – they generally wouldn’t have the evidence of the qualifications, skills.
I think there’s some work that needs to be done there to bring the community together and we need to make sense of all the agencies that have been granted money to do work in the area and to make it simple, so people understand what’s going on and ensure that agencies are not duplicating work.
There are issues in and around the community centre regarding the management of it – members of the community took over responsibility for managing the community centre fairly recently and it’s tough. It’s hard work balancing the books but they know what they need to improve on.
One Voice have 1,000 members… through that organisation we could probably get to a third of the population. Half the population live in the flats, and the flats have had their own community association – Scholes Tenants and Residents Association.
Some of the young people who are the ones known to the police, had antisocial behaviour orders or warning letters, have come and engaged with all the activities put on for them through the community centre, but a small number then go out and continue to cause problems.
Progress so far
What we have done so far is agreed a structure for the way we’re going to work in future, with a core group team of 10-12 people including a majority of people from the community and key officers who will take a facilitation and support role to the group.
We have a young people’s practitioners’ group that was set up following the murder, they’ve been meeting 18 months – it’s all the agencies that would relate to young people… Practitioners include Groundwork, the youth service, drugs action team - reps who support the young people. It’s a really good group.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
I want to get a real true story for Scholes and Birkett Bank. I really want to find out what the needs are for the area, and what the aspirations if any are, because I think we’ve got in the next three or four months to be able to prove that there’s only so much we could achieve, and if there’s only so much we can achieve that’s OK. You can’t achieve the unachievable. There are a significant number of people in my mind who live in that area who are happy with their lot and wouldn’t want to change their lifestyles and wouldn’t want or see the need to engage as such.
To make the change to go and get some training and qualifications, to go and work and then earn hardly any extra money, it doesn’t make people feel that great.
I think some of the agencies in the area need to take a real responsibility in terms of getting to the people. I’d like Regenerate to be able to signpost people to services that are available to them. Things like the WIAC advisory service that can give advice to people on benefits for people in work rather than benefits for people out of work. They’re funded to cover the area but I don’t think they’re getting to the right people.
We need to look at things like training, confidence building, part time working that doesn’t affect residents’ earnings, but will get them back into work and if they want to progress further then great.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
I want good communication systems to have been set up. I want information out to the community about what’s happening in the area, but I also want officers to start addressing some of the issues we’ve got in the area to make a real push to improve things.
I’d like more people in the flats to come out of the flats, I’d like one or two of them to come and represent their community on a kind of area board, which involves all members of the community. I’d want employers to start addressing some of the issues of trying to recruit people from the local area, not people who live six or seven miles away. We need to do some work on that – we’ve contacts with the Grand Arcade management group and we need to bring them into things.
I’d like to develop plans for the area that are really honest and bring out the character of the area and what the real issues are so we can have achievable aims over the next five or six years – I think that’s the timescale we want to look at to try and improve employment, health and things like that.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
All the agencies will have a clear understanding not just of what role they’ve been given but of how it’s part of improving the lives long term of people from Scholes and Birkett Bank.
Agencies working in the area have to be aware that the young people they’re dealing with are statistically the most unemployable in the whole borough, and the work they’re all doing is to improve the confidence of those young people, but also to encourage them to take up activities that will get them into a job. That’s part of their job and we all need to do that – if we have four or five clear targets for the area that everybody, whatever they do, must have a clear link to achieving… that’s the main thing I want to achieve.
[Agencies] need to go to the flats and need to do work with people in the flats themselves. Everybody should have a clear understanding of what they’re achieving and actually reporting back as to what they’re doing.
We need communication through the core team so they feed information in and report back. The core group can then work on the ongoing plans for the area. Officers from the council, relating to the different departments, taking an increased level of responsibility in bending their services to meet need.
The issue in a soundbite
I’d like to develop plans for the area that are really honest and bring out the character of the area and what the real issues are so we can have achievable aims over the next five or six years – I think that’s the timescale we want to look at to try and improve issues such as employment, health.
Background and key challenges
We’ve got an unusual situation with Scholes. I personally don’t think Scholes is as bad as the figures say. I think certain things skew its ranking and make it a deprived area.
There are 2,800 people living in the area and 40% of them live in high rise flats. They are many people who have worked and lived in the area all their lives. It’s very accessible. My grandparents were very happy there all their lives.
There may be small pockets of areas where people wouldn’t feel safe but when we do ask, I feel the feedback will be that it’s a good area to live in really, and people are pretty happy– why should they work when they don’t need to work, when they can survive on a relatively small amount of money?
I think other people’s opinion of Scholes and Birkett Bank may have deteriorated. I think the murder that we had a few years ago has had a psychological effect not just on the people living in the area but on other people’s view of the area.
We have the new Grand Arcade development with 1,000 jobs associated with it on the Scholes doorstep, however talking about how it could impact positively for the residents of the Scholes area, I get the feeling that currently some employers may not be interested in the ‘type’ of people that come from Scholes – they generally wouldn’t have the evidence of the qualifications, skills.
I think there’s some work that needs to be done there to bring the community together and we need to make sense of all the agencies that have been granted money to do work in the area and to make it simple, so people understand what’s going on and ensure that agencies are not duplicating work.
There are issues in and around the community centre regarding the management of it – members of the community took over responsibility for managing the community centre fairly recently and it’s tough. It’s hard work balancing the books but they know what they need to improve on.
One Voice have 1,000 members… through that organisation we could probably get to a third of the population. Half the population live in the flats, and the flats have had their own community association – Scholes Tenants and Residents Association.
Some of the young people who are the ones known to the police, had antisocial behaviour orders or warning letters, have come and engaged with all the activities put on for them through the community centre, but a small number then go out and continue to cause problems.
Progress so far
What we have done so far is agreed a structure for the way we’re going to work in future, with a core group team of 10-12 people including a majority of people from the community and key officers who will take a facilitation and support role to the group.
We have a young people’s practitioners’ group that was set up following the murder, they’ve been meeting 18 months – it’s all the agencies that would relate to young people… Practitioners include Groundwork, the youth service, drugs action team - reps who support the young people. It’s a really good group.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
I want to get a real true story for Scholes and Birkett Bank. I really want to find out what the needs are for the area, and what the aspirations if any are, because I think we’ve got in the next three or four months to be able to prove that there’s only so much we could achieve, and if there’s only so much we can achieve that’s OK. You can’t achieve the unachievable. There are a significant number of people in my mind who live in that area who are happy with their lot and wouldn’t want to change their lifestyles and wouldn’t want or see the need to engage as such.
To make the change to go and get some training and qualifications, to go and work and then earn hardly any extra money, it doesn’t make people feel that great.
I think some of the agencies in the area need to take a real responsibility in terms of getting to the people. I’d like Regenerate to be able to signpost people to services that are available to them. Things like the WIAC advisory service that can give advice to people on benefits for people in work rather than benefits for people out of work. They’re funded to cover the area but I don’t think they’re getting to the right people.
We need to look at things like training, confidence building, part time working that doesn’t affect residents’ earnings, but will get them back into work and if they want to progress further then great.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
I want good communication systems to have been set up. I want information out to the community about what’s happening in the area, but I also want officers to start addressing some of the issues we’ve got in the area to make a real push to improve things.
I’d like more people in the flats to come out of the flats, I’d like one or two of them to come and represent their community on a kind of area board, which involves all members of the community. I’d want employers to start addressing some of the issues of trying to recruit people from the local area, not people who live six or seven miles away. We need to do some work on that – we’ve contacts with the Grand Arcade management group and we need to bring them into things.
I’d like to develop plans for the area that are really honest and bring out the character of the area and what the real issues are so we can have achievable aims over the next five or six years – I think that’s the timescale we want to look at to try and improve employment, health and things like that.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
All the agencies will have a clear understanding not just of what role they’ve been given but of how it’s part of improving the lives long term of people from Scholes and Birkett Bank.
Agencies working in the area have to be aware that the young people they’re dealing with are statistically the most unemployable in the whole borough, and the work they’re all doing is to improve the confidence of those young people, but also to encourage them to take up activities that will get them into a job. That’s part of their job and we all need to do that – if we have four or five clear targets for the area that everybody, whatever they do, must have a clear link to achieving… that’s the main thing I want to achieve.
[Agencies] need to go to the flats and need to do work with people in the flats themselves. Everybody should have a clear understanding of what they’re achieving and actually reporting back as to what they’re doing.
We need communication through the core team so they feed information in and report back. The core group can then work on the ongoing plans for the area. Officers from the council, relating to the different departments, taking an increased level of responsibility in bending their services to meet need.
Perspectives on regeneration: Colin Greenhalgh
Colin Greenhalgh was operations director at Groundwork Wigan and Chorley when interviewed in January 2007. This summary has been approved for publication.
The issue in a soundbite
I’d like to see that the training, the understanding of communities will help to ensure the middle management layers within the council start to appreciate that the third sector and community partners can actually deliver things in a social enterprise framework.
Background and key challenges
Groundwork has been working in Wigan for 23 years. It’s been involved mainly in physical improvements but is now looking at wider issues. It has a turnover of £2m in the local area, with successful projects such as Youth Works, and a good relationship with number of communities. I think we’re seen as a trusted partner by the council.
A lot of regeneration funding – SRB, ERDF – is ending, and alternatives such as local area agreements are not ready for accessing. Groundwork’s recent Lottery bids were not successful. I’m not sure Wigan has embraced the opportunity for the third sector to get more involved in service delivery. Contracts are still price led.
Groundwork Wigan and Chorley is merging with Groundwork Lancashire West, covering a wider area. Three Youth Works projects are coming to an end, and they need a sustainable exit strategy.
A bigger challenge is that funding seems to be being pushed more and more towards super output areas. While this is right in terms of the statistics, at the same time some communities on the edge of that top 20% could miss out.
We have a number of our projects that are coming to an end this year, three Youth Works projects that have been working over three years, and what is very important is that we get a good exit from those projects and we get some sustainability - and a couple of those are not looking as sustainable as we thought they would have been from day one, so there’s some work to do there.
Progress so far
Groundwork is well established with the economic partnership in Wigan. We have been working with partners in Wigan for the last 23 years. It’s very much about building sustainable communities.
We have a good relationship with a number of communities in the Wigan area. So in terms of involvement with Regenerate we’re seen I think as a trusted partner, certainly by the council. We’re getting involved at a strategic level, we’re on the LSP, but we also deliver, so we’re not just out there talking, we’re trying to turn that into action. So obviously we’re seen as a natural link with Regenerate because of our link with communities.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
We need to know what people want, so we see the Regenerate project as being a very effective tool. When you listen to people you can take action quickly.
For us it’s about trying to maintain current levels of delivery. I’d like to see the council being able to appreciate that the third sector can deliver things in a social enterprise framework.
We’ve… put in a bid to Children in Need to get a community animator in one of our areas to link in with our Youth Works project, so we do have a belief that it can link very well, that we can work in partnership with Regenerate.
Obviously we’re about delivering quality projects and getting close to communities and to deliver that you’ve got to know what people want, and I see Regenerate as being a very effective tool, certainly in terms of the rhetoric that’s been talked about so far.
I’d like to see that the training, the understanding of communities, will help to ensure the middle management layers within the council start to appreciate that the third sector and other partners, community partners can actually deliver things in a social enterprise framework.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
I would like to think we’re well on the road to having community animators in ten local areas. Groundwork can help make it happen in Worsley Mesnes and Abram, where there are Youth Works projects.
We don’t really need a whole lot of funding to make this happen – what we need is the energy.
Regenerate can play a big part in terms of the exit solution for the Worsley Mesnes Youth Works project that will come to an end in October. I’d love to see that the project has been maintained, with the training that Regenerate have helped us pull together, and that this project is sustained by the community with some support from Groundwork.
I think the ambition initially was to get ten community animators into local areas. I would like to see us being involved to some extent, with community animators linked into Groundwork, but I don’t think it really matters, it’s about having the right people in communities and those people empowering other people and using the training they’ve been given to train other people.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
I haven’t seen enough in terms of building up trust and communication. I hope Regenerate will be seen as being a really good tool and that initial marketing has gone out to people saying that this is a really helpful tool for us in the community. We would hope to have the security of some funding for a community animator ourselves.
We’d like to make sure that Youth Works is sustainable, certainly in the Worsley Mesnes area, and that we get the right training for the right people who are going to be sustaining it.
Internally we’d love to be in a position where we’ve got the security of some funding for a community animator ourselves and we’re up and running.
You would hope that as part and parcel of that training there would be an increase in understanding of how the community works within the [Groundwork] staff who are involved in that. You would hope that increase in knowledge and understanding would then not just be passed on to communities but would also be linked in internally in the organisation and that understanding would lead to more potential opportunities for Groundwork to get engaged in regeneration.
The issue in a soundbite
I’d like to see that the training, the understanding of communities will help to ensure the middle management layers within the council start to appreciate that the third sector and community partners can actually deliver things in a social enterprise framework.
Background and key challenges
Groundwork has been working in Wigan for 23 years. It’s been involved mainly in physical improvements but is now looking at wider issues. It has a turnover of £2m in the local area, with successful projects such as Youth Works, and a good relationship with number of communities. I think we’re seen as a trusted partner by the council.
A lot of regeneration funding – SRB, ERDF – is ending, and alternatives such as local area agreements are not ready for accessing. Groundwork’s recent Lottery bids were not successful. I’m not sure Wigan has embraced the opportunity for the third sector to get more involved in service delivery. Contracts are still price led.
Groundwork Wigan and Chorley is merging with Groundwork Lancashire West, covering a wider area. Three Youth Works projects are coming to an end, and they need a sustainable exit strategy.
A bigger challenge is that funding seems to be being pushed more and more towards super output areas. While this is right in terms of the statistics, at the same time some communities on the edge of that top 20% could miss out.
We have a number of our projects that are coming to an end this year, three Youth Works projects that have been working over three years, and what is very important is that we get a good exit from those projects and we get some sustainability - and a couple of those are not looking as sustainable as we thought they would have been from day one, so there’s some work to do there.
Progress so far
Groundwork is well established with the economic partnership in Wigan. We have been working with partners in Wigan for the last 23 years. It’s very much about building sustainable communities.
We have a good relationship with a number of communities in the Wigan area. So in terms of involvement with Regenerate we’re seen I think as a trusted partner, certainly by the council. We’re getting involved at a strategic level, we’re on the LSP, but we also deliver, so we’re not just out there talking, we’re trying to turn that into action. So obviously we’re seen as a natural link with Regenerate because of our link with communities.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
We need to know what people want, so we see the Regenerate project as being a very effective tool. When you listen to people you can take action quickly.
For us it’s about trying to maintain current levels of delivery. I’d like to see the council being able to appreciate that the third sector can deliver things in a social enterprise framework.
We’ve… put in a bid to Children in Need to get a community animator in one of our areas to link in with our Youth Works project, so we do have a belief that it can link very well, that we can work in partnership with Regenerate.
Obviously we’re about delivering quality projects and getting close to communities and to deliver that you’ve got to know what people want, and I see Regenerate as being a very effective tool, certainly in terms of the rhetoric that’s been talked about so far.
I’d like to see that the training, the understanding of communities, will help to ensure the middle management layers within the council start to appreciate that the third sector and other partners, community partners can actually deliver things in a social enterprise framework.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
I would like to think we’re well on the road to having community animators in ten local areas. Groundwork can help make it happen in Worsley Mesnes and Abram, where there are Youth Works projects.
We don’t really need a whole lot of funding to make this happen – what we need is the energy.
Regenerate can play a big part in terms of the exit solution for the Worsley Mesnes Youth Works project that will come to an end in October. I’d love to see that the project has been maintained, with the training that Regenerate have helped us pull together, and that this project is sustained by the community with some support from Groundwork.
I think the ambition initially was to get ten community animators into local areas. I would like to see us being involved to some extent, with community animators linked into Groundwork, but I don’t think it really matters, it’s about having the right people in communities and those people empowering other people and using the training they’ve been given to train other people.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
I haven’t seen enough in terms of building up trust and communication. I hope Regenerate will be seen as being a really good tool and that initial marketing has gone out to people saying that this is a really helpful tool for us in the community. We would hope to have the security of some funding for a community animator ourselves.
We’d like to make sure that Youth Works is sustainable, certainly in the Worsley Mesnes area, and that we get the right training for the right people who are going to be sustaining it.
Internally we’d love to be in a position where we’ve got the security of some funding for a community animator ourselves and we’re up and running.
You would hope that as part and parcel of that training there would be an increase in understanding of how the community works within the [Groundwork] staff who are involved in that. You would hope that increase in knowledge and understanding would then not just be passed on to communities but would also be linked in internally in the organisation and that understanding would lead to more potential opportunities for Groundwork to get engaged in regeneration.
Perspectives on regeneration: Angela Foster
Angela Foster was principal funding officer at Wigan Council when interviewed in January 2007. This summary has been approved for publication.
The issue in a soundbite
We need to develop our approach to neighbourhood renewal if we are going to secure sustainable change and improve the life chances of residents living within deprived areas. The Regenerate project is new to Wigan and we are hoping that it will be the catalyst to help unlock the potential in our deprived communities.
Background and key challenges
As part of the work we are doing to try and reduce the gap between the most deprived areas and the rest of the borough we are piloting different ways of working with local residents in different localities to improve service provision.
We’re keen to develop a neighbourhood management approach that moves us beyond physical improvements delivered through street scene type of initiatives - we want to do more to tackle inequalities relating to crime, education, health and economic well being.
We’re starting to change the way the Local Strategic Partnership operates and how we as the Council plan and resource service provision to help reduce the gaps - which is creating new challenges for all of us.
We’ve now got the LSP strategic partnerships thinking more about local needs and how they respond to these when planning, resourcing and commissioning service provision, and about how they identify needs and gaps in services and how they collect and use information to inform service development. But one of the things we’ve not been as good at, in my opinion anyway, is using information we get from our neighbourhoods, to inform the strategic planning processes. Part of the challenge is to rethink how we engage and consult with our communities and how we use this information to bring about improvements in our neighbourhoods.
I think we [service providers] don’t always understand what our communities say to us so we don’t always interpret things correctly. A group of young people asked for a training facility and so we gave them an IT suite, and what they wanted was gym equipment – and we thought we’d done a good job, and then wondered why they didn’t use it. It’s not just about improving consultation, it’s about us understanding better what we’re being told.
It’s also about improving communication between the strategic planning processes and localities. Decisions on service provision are complicated and take into account constraints on available resources, and increasingly the need to perform against government targets. Strategic planners don’t have a blank canvas to start with and we don’t have resources to respond to every demand placed on service provision. We also need residents to be able to do more to help themselves.
But we don’t communicate this very well and localities end up thinking their needs are being ignored. I don’t think it’s about residents misunderstanding strategic processes, it’s just difficult to communicate some of this and we’re not always given time to explain. People tend to want immediate solutions to problems - there is an expectation that service providers will deliver these solutions for them. We need to do more to improve communication and encourage residents to be more active in helping to solve some of the problems themselves.
That’s part of the challenge – how do we move the agenda forward and develop the role of localities in decision making, in a way that manages expectations realistically, and at the same time put something in place that will grow and grow and enable us to narrow the gap and sustain improvements within those communities?
Scholes is one of our most deprived neighbourhoods. In comparison to the rest, we’re dealing with high levels of worklessness and long term illness, low education standards and poor skills base. Parts of the area look really tired, whilst other parts, such as the tower blocks on the estate, have had a lot of investment in recent years and the environment has significantly improved. But they’re populated largely by an elderly population who feel more isolated and cut off and are more reliant on others who do the care and running around for them. Then we have at the other extreme a large number of young people who feel there’s nothing for them.
Working in partnership with local residents, we want to improve and develop networks, services and facilities they want and can sustain. Regenerate offers a different approach to community regeneration and actively helps residents to take action to change things. We want to see how it works and what we can achieve with it in the Scholes area of Wigan.
Progress so far
We’re developing neighbourhood management models across nine of our most deprived communities and working with different resident groups, members of the community and local practitioners to move this forward. No one area is exactly the same, they are all evolving differently.
In Scholes, we’ve been working with One Voice, which has a membership of 1,000 people. One Voice has come a long way in recent years in terms of organisation and representing views and they want to develop social enterprise to help the community help itself.
From my involvement with the One Voice group, I think they’re disappointed with the lack of opportunities to help the area to move forward because there hasn’t been any significant regeneration funding available to this area since the City Challenge programme ended in 1998. Without the funding a lot of the projects and initiatives ended and Scholes has struggled since then. One Voice has tried to do something to improve this and has developed links and liaison with different service areas, and a number of projects have been put in place in response to local needs. But they probably feel frustrated that things haven’t moved at the pace they would like and change is slow to happen.
We achieved a lot with City Challenge but didn’t manage to make a lasting difference - if we had Scholes would be thriving. We hope the Regenerate project will help service providers and residents to work differently to “transform” Scholes and create the basis for sustainable growth.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
The people living in our communities are our customers and we need to listen to what they are telling us and act on this if we want to narrow the gap.
I hope involving some of the service providers and training them in the Regenerate listening processes will help them to think differently about the way they provide and develop services or to ask different questions to find out what residents really feel about service provision and to gather information differently, so this can be shared further up the hierarchy to let senior managers know what they their customers want and can inform and improve strategic planning processes and resource allocations.
We want to engage and reach all residents including those who are hardest to reach. One Voice claim to represent the views of a large percentage of residents through their membership, but does the information they provide truly represent the concerns of all its members? Are they listening to everyone’s views and representing these accurately or are just a few people speaking on behalf of the rest? We want to test this. We’d like to involve the group in the neighbourhood work and get some of their members trained in Regenerate’s listening process so they take this into the wider community through their connections and start to collect and share information with all partners.
We hope that everybody in the community can be reached through this approach and that we will have developed an effective communication system that allows information exchange in both directions in a very simplistic and easy to manage way and I imagine it could be done very quickly.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
I would like to see local residents much more informed about how we plan our services – and service providers not seeing the community as a barrier to improvement. I want ideas to develop social enterprise to begin to happen so we can start to see activities emerge that will help to reduce inequalities and contribute to long term sustainability.
A key thing for me would be to have local planning meetings that bring residents and service providers together to discuss and talk about problems with services and what needs doing to improve the Scholes area, without them descending into arguments about little matters to the extent that nothing meaningful can be discussed and no decisions can be made.
Within a year I would like to see more people from Scholes involved in and influencing local priorities and service planning and provision. I want them to be coming forward because they feel its worthwhile coming forwards, that they have got something to say and people will listen.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
I’d like to see work progressing to set up the neighbourhood forum and meetings set up to tell residents and service providers about what we are trying to do through the Regenerate project. I expect a number of people to have participated in the training delivered through the Regenerate project and that information will be being made available to the forum as a result of the consultation processes we are adopting. I’d like the forum to have started to identify local priorities and action plans and started to commission projects and/or services to address some of this.
I would actually expect quite a volume of information to have been gathered in Scholes about what local people think, about their environment and what they would like to see happen. I would also expect to have seen a neighbourhood group set up in that area who are getting that information and beginning to make some use of it or some sense of it – not necessarily having decided exactly how to spend any money attached to it, but beginning to understand what the information is and perhaps starting to do some work on how you take such a big volume of information and start to make sense of it in terms of improvements in terms of some of the priorities for health.
The issue in a soundbite
We need to develop our approach to neighbourhood renewal if we are going to secure sustainable change and improve the life chances of residents living within deprived areas. The Regenerate project is new to Wigan and we are hoping that it will be the catalyst to help unlock the potential in our deprived communities.
Background and key challenges
As part of the work we are doing to try and reduce the gap between the most deprived areas and the rest of the borough we are piloting different ways of working with local residents in different localities to improve service provision.
We’re keen to develop a neighbourhood management approach that moves us beyond physical improvements delivered through street scene type of initiatives - we want to do more to tackle inequalities relating to crime, education, health and economic well being.
We’re starting to change the way the Local Strategic Partnership operates and how we as the Council plan and resource service provision to help reduce the gaps - which is creating new challenges for all of us.
We’ve now got the LSP strategic partnerships thinking more about local needs and how they respond to these when planning, resourcing and commissioning service provision, and about how they identify needs and gaps in services and how they collect and use information to inform service development. But one of the things we’ve not been as good at, in my opinion anyway, is using information we get from our neighbourhoods, to inform the strategic planning processes. Part of the challenge is to rethink how we engage and consult with our communities and how we use this information to bring about improvements in our neighbourhoods.
I think we [service providers] don’t always understand what our communities say to us so we don’t always interpret things correctly. A group of young people asked for a training facility and so we gave them an IT suite, and what they wanted was gym equipment – and we thought we’d done a good job, and then wondered why they didn’t use it. It’s not just about improving consultation, it’s about us understanding better what we’re being told.
It’s also about improving communication between the strategic planning processes and localities. Decisions on service provision are complicated and take into account constraints on available resources, and increasingly the need to perform against government targets. Strategic planners don’t have a blank canvas to start with and we don’t have resources to respond to every demand placed on service provision. We also need residents to be able to do more to help themselves.
But we don’t communicate this very well and localities end up thinking their needs are being ignored. I don’t think it’s about residents misunderstanding strategic processes, it’s just difficult to communicate some of this and we’re not always given time to explain. People tend to want immediate solutions to problems - there is an expectation that service providers will deliver these solutions for them. We need to do more to improve communication and encourage residents to be more active in helping to solve some of the problems themselves.
That’s part of the challenge – how do we move the agenda forward and develop the role of localities in decision making, in a way that manages expectations realistically, and at the same time put something in place that will grow and grow and enable us to narrow the gap and sustain improvements within those communities?
Scholes is one of our most deprived neighbourhoods. In comparison to the rest, we’re dealing with high levels of worklessness and long term illness, low education standards and poor skills base. Parts of the area look really tired, whilst other parts, such as the tower blocks on the estate, have had a lot of investment in recent years and the environment has significantly improved. But they’re populated largely by an elderly population who feel more isolated and cut off and are more reliant on others who do the care and running around for them. Then we have at the other extreme a large number of young people who feel there’s nothing for them.
Working in partnership with local residents, we want to improve and develop networks, services and facilities they want and can sustain. Regenerate offers a different approach to community regeneration and actively helps residents to take action to change things. We want to see how it works and what we can achieve with it in the Scholes area of Wigan.
Progress so far
We’re developing neighbourhood management models across nine of our most deprived communities and working with different resident groups, members of the community and local practitioners to move this forward. No one area is exactly the same, they are all evolving differently.
In Scholes, we’ve been working with One Voice, which has a membership of 1,000 people. One Voice has come a long way in recent years in terms of organisation and representing views and they want to develop social enterprise to help the community help itself.
From my involvement with the One Voice group, I think they’re disappointed with the lack of opportunities to help the area to move forward because there hasn’t been any significant regeneration funding available to this area since the City Challenge programme ended in 1998. Without the funding a lot of the projects and initiatives ended and Scholes has struggled since then. One Voice has tried to do something to improve this and has developed links and liaison with different service areas, and a number of projects have been put in place in response to local needs. But they probably feel frustrated that things haven’t moved at the pace they would like and change is slow to happen.
We achieved a lot with City Challenge but didn’t manage to make a lasting difference - if we had Scholes would be thriving. We hope the Regenerate project will help service providers and residents to work differently to “transform” Scholes and create the basis for sustainable growth.
Hopes and aspirations for Regenerate
The people living in our communities are our customers and we need to listen to what they are telling us and act on this if we want to narrow the gap.
I hope involving some of the service providers and training them in the Regenerate listening processes will help them to think differently about the way they provide and develop services or to ask different questions to find out what residents really feel about service provision and to gather information differently, so this can be shared further up the hierarchy to let senior managers know what they their customers want and can inform and improve strategic planning processes and resource allocations.
We want to engage and reach all residents including those who are hardest to reach. One Voice claim to represent the views of a large percentage of residents through their membership, but does the information they provide truly represent the concerns of all its members? Are they listening to everyone’s views and representing these accurately or are just a few people speaking on behalf of the rest? We want to test this. We’d like to involve the group in the neighbourhood work and get some of their members trained in Regenerate’s listening process so they take this into the wider community through their connections and start to collect and share information with all partners.
We hope that everybody in the community can be reached through this approach and that we will have developed an effective communication system that allows information exchange in both directions in a very simplistic and easy to manage way and I imagine it could be done very quickly.
What should be achieved after 18 months?
I would like to see local residents much more informed about how we plan our services – and service providers not seeing the community as a barrier to improvement. I want ideas to develop social enterprise to begin to happen so we can start to see activities emerge that will help to reduce inequalities and contribute to long term sustainability.
A key thing for me would be to have local planning meetings that bring residents and service providers together to discuss and talk about problems with services and what needs doing to improve the Scholes area, without them descending into arguments about little matters to the extent that nothing meaningful can be discussed and no decisions can be made.
Within a year I would like to see more people from Scholes involved in and influencing local priorities and service planning and provision. I want them to be coming forward because they feel its worthwhile coming forwards, that they have got something to say and people will listen.
What needs to be done in the next four months?
I’d like to see work progressing to set up the neighbourhood forum and meetings set up to tell residents and service providers about what we are trying to do through the Regenerate project. I expect a number of people to have participated in the training delivered through the Regenerate project and that information will be being made available to the forum as a result of the consultation processes we are adopting. I’d like the forum to have started to identify local priorities and action plans and started to commission projects and/or services to address some of this.
I would actually expect quite a volume of information to have been gathered in Scholes about what local people think, about their environment and what they would like to see happen. I would also expect to have seen a neighbourhood group set up in that area who are getting that information and beginning to make some use of it or some sense of it – not necessarily having decided exactly how to spend any money attached to it, but beginning to understand what the information is and perhaps starting to do some work on how you take such a big volume of information and start to make sense of it in terms of improvements in terms of some of the priorities for health.
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