The Government is giving a higher profile to building capacity within communities so that they can play a more substantial part in regeneration work. Up to 10 per cent of Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) funding is to be available specifically to support community involvement - significantly more than has previously been available. The Social Exclusion Unit, through its report Bringing Britain Together, has also been influential in raising many of the key issues.

Since 1992, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has been looking at what works in the regeneration of deprived neighbourhoods, with a strong focus on the role that local residents and community organisations can play. This paper has been prepared at the request of the DETR in order to share JRF's research findings with bidders for SRB funds. Experience shows that successful involvement is more likely when partners, including the community, develop clear strategies as early as possible and are prepared to invest time and resources in building the capacity of local organisations.

Prior to developing SRB bids it is essential for partnerships to develop 'Community Involvement Strategies' which outline methods for involving residents and local organisations before, during and after SRB programmes. Strategies should be comprehensive and, although their shape and content will vary according to local circumstances, attention needs to be paid to all the areas outlined below:

INTRODUCTION

Community involvement is not a 'bolt-on' or a cosmetic activity

Why involve the community?
Quite simply, because it produces better results. JRF research shows that, to date, the impact of community involvement on regeneration has generally been modest, and that commitment to community involvement has often been tokenistic. On the other hand, good practice in this field of work shows that:

• Communities have a fresh perspective, and can often see the problems in new ways.
• Community involvement helps to deliver programmes which more accurately target local needs.
• The resulting projects are more acceptable to the local community.
• Programme outputs which have been designed with input from local residents are likely to last longer because communities feel ownership of them.
• The constructive involvement of communities in urban regeneration helps to build local organisational skills, making it easier to develop strong successor organisations.
• Partnerships are here to stay - Government will insist on a demonstrably stronger role for communities within these partnerships.
• Successful community involvement helps to revitalise democracy.

Not an easy option
Involving communities in regeneration is not an easy option. Some urban and rural communities are already well organised but many are not. In these cases, which may include city-wide initiatives, the building of capacity is slow and requires various types of support. It is important for partnerships to realise that community involvement is not a 'bolt-on' or a cosmetic activity: real community involvement involves compromise, sharing power, learning to cope with diversity, adjusting organisational cultures, understanding different styles of work, handling conflict constructively, and adjusting priorities and timetables.

These problems may be daunting at first. But, with persistence, they can be overcome and real benefits achieved. The aim of this paper is to provide the framework, with many practical examples, for developing effective Community Involvement Strategies.

GETTING STARTED

Adequate resources must be earmarked for early work

How soon should the community be involved?
As early as possible. SRB bids that do not demonstrate community involvement are unlikely to be successful. Partnerships must ensure that adequate resources are earmarked for this early work. As SRB funds come on stream, dedicated officers should be appointed with responsibility for community involvement. When they need it, community groups should also have access to resources to appoint their own community workers or technical advisers.

Understanding community needs and strengths
An indispensable step for partnerships is to understand - from the standpoints of local residents - both the problems and the priorities for action in the target communities. They also need to map existing community organisations and develop an understanding of who, for each project, the legitimate 'stakeholders' might be. At this stage, it can be helpful to initiate an honest dialogue about possible roles for the community, the levels of power to be devolved, and any limits to this.

Start-up projects - the importance of early successes
In communities that have been marginalised for many years, the confidence of local residents will often be at a low ebb and they may well be angry and frustrated. At an early stage, it can be helpful to encourage the community to take on some modest tangible projects that meet local needs, for example:

• running a local five-a-side tournament;
• organising a trip to the seaside;
• improving the route of the local bus;
• pushing for repairs to the pavements on the estate.

All of these activities were actually carried out by local residents in the early stages of a community development project on the Halton Moor Estate in Leeds. This helped them to develop confidence and build relationships with professional agencies.

Fun is an important ingredient and festivals or community arts projects are good ways of encouraging wide participation.

Developing a vision and action plans
The process of developing a community vision for an area and feeding this into a bid for urban regeneration always takes time and resources. The DETR report, Involving Communities in Urban and Rural Regeneration, goes into many of these techniques in depth. Past experience has shown that the contribution of community groups significantly increases if they have access to independent advice (from a community worker, a consultant or a community architect) to help them develop a vision, priorities and action plans.

INVOLVING THE COMMUNITY IN PARTNERSHIPS

Have the structures in place - and relationships clear - before project work starts
Guidance for Single Regeneration Budget bids

Involving the community in partnerships requires time, resources and sensitivity. It is important to have the structures in place, and relationships clear, before project work starts. It is crucial too to achieve early clarity about when the community is being consulted and when it has the power to share decisions or to veto them. The new possibility within SRB of a 'year zero' in which no project spending is necessary, provides the ideal means to carry out the initial spadework in a thorough way.

Agreeing the partnership structure
Inevitably, partnership structures will vary according to local circumstances. But experience suggests that four key areas demand particular attention:

Developing structures to represent the community
Any area, however small, will have a range of existing community groups. In larger programme areas, the diversity will be much greater. A key first step is to develop a forum that can adequately represent this diversity. Representation is sometimes based on neighbourhood, sometimes on communities of interest, and sometimes on both approaches. Forums have a variety of functions which can include:

• electing representatives to the Board
• nominating representatives to working parties and topic groups;
• acting as a consultative group for the partnership;
• managing staff and projects;
• promoting particular interest groups within the community;
• and acting as a channel of information.

Some areas appoint specialist forums. Tipton City Challenge had a youth forum and a multi-faith forum. It is important that the rights and responsibilities of each forum are clear, and that each has sufficient active membership and resources to operate effectively.

Community representation at Board level
The key role of community representatives is to ensure all project sponsors have consulted the community in appropriate ways and that the views obtained are reflected in the Board's decisions.

In Middlesbrough City Challenge, every project considered by the Board had been commented on by the community representative body: if they disapproved, the decision was put back for further discussion.

To create community confidence it is preferable for the community to select representatives and for representatives to be able to discuss Board matters with the community. Rules on confidentiality should be agreed, but should encourage openness.

Topic groups/implementation groups
Below Board level, many partnerships establish 'topic' or 'implementation' groups, which mirror the core aims of the partnership. Usually, these are theme-based. Sometimes, as in the case of Sunderland City Challenge which is based on nine local authority estates, the implementation groups are organised around geographical areas. These sub-groups of the Board allow further opportunities for community representatives to play a key role in designing, implementing and monitoring projects.

Making meetings community-friendly
At all levels of the partnership structure, it is very important that meetings should be conducted in a style that community partners are comfortable with. Attention should be paid to:

• the time of day set for meetings;
• the language used in meetings;
• the level of formality to be adopted at meetings;
• the possibility of larger meetings being broken down at certain points into smaller groups, to facilitate participation;
• the most appropriate venues; transport; childcare arrangements; and any translation services that may be needed.

Involving the community in project delivery
The most dynamic forms of community participation come about when the community owns or controls programmes or projects.

In Devonport, near Plymouth, the residents of the Pembroke Street Estate played a leading role in the Estate Action-funded refurbishment of their estate; this led in turn to the formation of a Tenant Management Organisation run by the residents and employing several of their number. But the project also encompassed a wider vision which included the economic transformation of the surrounding Dockland areas.

Deptford City Challenge had a block fund called 'Deptford Dividend', with £3m available over five years. The Dividend was promoted through the Community Forum. In York Regeneration Partnership, the Community Forum makes the key recommendation on who the Community Fund grants should go to.

Community block funds can be a useful technique for building capacity and experience within the community, but care should be taken to ensure that they do not divert the community's attention away from the bigger spending decisions on the partnership. SRB Round 5 specifically provides for resources to be earmarked to support projects led by communities.

Training and resourcing
Effective partnership working and community involvement require training and other resources, for both the community partner and the other partners.

Resourcing key community groups
Community groups need office space, telephones, an administrative budget and, if they are to perform on equal terms with other partners, access to professional expertise (legal, financial, etc.).

Tackling the steep learning curve for community representatives
Community representatives need a jargon-free induction to the demands of partnership work which covers:

• programme administration processes, including financial administration;
• legal frameworks and responsibilities;
• maintaining accountability
• basic assertiveness, including public speaking;
• support to help individuals grow into their representative, leadership, or 'social entrepreneur' roles.

Getting professional agencies up to speed on community issues
For professionals, learning to work in equal partnerships with communities - learning to listen and respect their views - is of central importance: in the past, many have failed to make this important first step. At times, separate training is appropriate; but increasingly, joint training sessions between residents and professionals have proved successful.

For both residents and professionals, a range of good training techniques already exists including: group-based training, courses, action-based learning, mentoring, placements, exchange visits, and conferences/seminars.

Encouraging flexibility
It is important for community groups involved in project work to be protected from (or helped with) any undue administrative burdens. Drawing down money should also be made as straightforward as possible. Most bureaucracy arises from conditions imposed by partnerships on individual projects, not from government rules.

Finally, programmes involving the community tend to deliver better results when they are allowed to be creative and flexible. The benefits of partnership working should increase over time and there must be scope for amending projects and programmes to allow fresh ideas to be incorporated.

CREATING STRONG LOCAL ORGANISATIONS WITH THEIR OWN ASSETS

Every partnership needs a forward strategy

Forward strategies and successor bodies
Every partnership needs a forward strategy. In the JRF report, Made to Last, Geoff Fordham suggested four key requirements for effective forward strategies:

• incorporate the forward strategy into partnership planning at the outset;
• handle the actual timing of withdrawal with care, wherever possible dovetailing into new funding programmes;
• consider sustainability when funding individual projects - joint ventures with other agencies, including the community, are more likely to survive;
• identify, and start developing, appropriate successor organisations as early as possible. An existing local organisation may well provide the basis for an effective successor organisation.

Successor bodies can take many forms: some promising models are examined in more detail in the box.

DEVELOPING A SUPPORT INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUSTAIN COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS

The question of long-term support should be tackled at the earliest possible stage

Although SRB (and other Government initiatives) provide a welcome means of building capacity in deprived communities, there remain problems. There is still a lack of funding to support community efforts in the pre-bid phase. And, as short-term initiatives draw to a close, there is the question of who will provide long-term support for community organisations. The reality is that organisations in the community sector often hit troughs and, at these times, will need extra support in order to stave off decline or collapse. These potential difficulties need to be recognised, and planned for, at the earliest possible stage. In local authorities with several regeneration programmes, Regeneration Units with dedicated staff can respond to these needs. This section looks at how ongoing support can be given.

Existing resources
What resources already exist for providing ongoing support to the community sector? At the local level, most local authorities have budgets for grant-aid to community organisations and many employ community development workers. They can also offer various types of help in kind.

Locally based organisations such as housing organisations, faith organisations and schools also have resources that can help capacity building. Other resources are available from charitable trusts, voluntary sector organisations and private business.

Developing a more integrated support infrastructure
Better value could be achieved from all these resources, particularly at the city level, if they were used in a more strategic manner. There is some evidence that more 'joined-up' ways of delivering support are being developed:

• Training networks are beginning to emerge from the community sector itself.
  With SRB funding, a Community Work Training Company in West Yorkshire has developed a range of accredited community work skills courses aimed at people who are active in their communities and in their community work. The networking of community groups is one of the support systems offered.
• Some agencies are developing free-standing programmes, funded by SRB, which are wholly concerned with strengthening the community's role in regeneration.
  The Pan London Community Regeneration Consortium is a voluntary sector partnership, funded by SRB, with the aim of enabling London voluntary and community organisations to play an even greater role in community partnerships and assisting local regeneration partnerships to become more responsive to the needs of local communities. The West Midlands Black Voluntary Sector Regional Regeneration Network carries out a similar role across six local authorities. Its role is to increase interaction between regeneration agencies and the black voluntary sector and to attract additional resources into the region, particularly from black voluntary organisations.
• In response to the Government's announcement of a National Regeneration Strategy and the Local Government White Paper, there is potential for local authorities and other partners at the local level to realign their priorities for capacity building.
  Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council has a Regeneration Division with a Director of Regeneration who sits alongside other Directors in the Corporate Management Team. The same Unit oversees community development and supports the voluntary sector within the Borough and, in addition to a number of area-based regeneration schemes, operates a special SRB-funded Community Capacity Building Project.

Useful links could also be made with longer-term techniques for citizen involvement, such as 'neighbourhood visioning', piloted in Bristol. The creation of broader strategies, in these and other ways, is crucial in order to prevent partnership and initiative 'overload'.

MONITORING PROGRESS

Without monitoring, token community involvement could take the place of real participation

Why evaluate community involvement?
Because evaluation can provide ways of checking that the Community Involvement Strategy is going according to plan and that money invested in this has been well spent. In most cases the community, with fewer resources, is the weaker partner. Without a monitoring of progress, there is a danger that community priorities could be sidelined or that token community involvement could take the place of real participation by local residents. Throughout the monitoring process, full account must be taken of the community's views.

A framework for evaluating community involvement and capacity building

Partnership strategy
Every partnership should be required to produce a Community Involvement Strategy. The strategy would define concrete outputs, as well as processes for community involvement.

Quantifiable outputs
Many of these concrete outputs are already defined in the SRB guidance and they include the numbers of: new tenant management organisations; new community facilities; voluntary organisations supported; individuals involved in voluntary work; community enterprise start-ups; capacity building initiatives carried out. There is scope to add further outputs: for example, the proportion of schemes supported where the community is an active partner.

'Softer' outputs
Many outputs of capacity building relate to the quality of the process rather than to numerical outputs. Ways must be found of monitoring key events and processes to show how they worked (or not) for local people. This could be achieved by using monitoring forms or by independent evaluation.

Some (though not all) of these processes are captured in the assessment criteria for bids in the SRB guidance. However, it is equally important that process measures are included alongside numerical outputs in the measures to be used in monitoring annual Delivery Plans. Without this, monitoring of community involvement and capacity building within partnerships will remain incomplete, and performance will certainly suffer as a result.

Monitoring by partners and government
The adoption of the procedures suggested above would allow for the more accurate monitoring and regulation of community involvement and capacity building within urban regeneration partnerships. This would allow monitoring in three ways:

• The Government Regional Office (the RDA after April 1999) would be able to assess partnerships' Community Involvement Strategies and suggest changes or amendments.
• Partnerships could carry out their own monitoring, wherever possible involving independent evaluators and feeding their insights back into the partnership.
• Assessment of both numerical outputs and processes of community involvement would become part of the annual reporting procedure by partnerships to Government Regional Offices.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The following reports contain further information on individual schemes and general issues. Findings (four-page summaries) can be viewed on the JRF's website or are available from our Publications Office (01904 615905). Reports marked * are available through York Publishing Services Ltd, 64 Hallfield Road, Layerthorpe, York YO31 7ZX, Tel: 01904 430033, Fax: 01904 430868, e-mail: orders@yps.ymn.co.uk

Bell Farm Estate Agreement: Annual Report, unpublished, 1996-97

Brownill, Sue et al., Rich Mix: Inclusive strategies for urban regeneration*, JRF/The Policy Press, 1998, ' "Inclusive" strategies for race and gender in urban regeneration', Findings, October 1998 (Ref: 0108)

Burton, Paul, Community Visioning: An evaluation of the Choices for Bristol project*, JRF/The Policy Press, 1997

Cole, Ian et al., From Estate Action to Estate Agreement: Regeneration and change on the Bell Farm Estate, York*, JRF/The Policy Press, 1996, 'Residents' views of housing association estates', Findings, November 1996 (Ref: H198)

Countryside and Community Research Unit, Village Appraisals, Computer Software, 1991

Culture Makes Communities*, JRF Video, February 1998

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Single Regeneration Budget Bidding Guidance: A guide for partnerships, DETR, 1998

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Involving Communities in Urban and Rural Regeneration: A guide for practitioners, DETR, 1997

Fitzpatrick, Suzanne et al., Including Young People in Urban Regeneration: A lot to learn?*, JRF/The Policy Press, 1998, 'Including young people in urban regeneration', Findings, September 1998 (Ref: 918)

Fordham, Geoff, Made to Last: Creating sustainable neighbourhoods and estate regeneration, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1995, 'Creating sustainable neighbourhood and estate regeneration', Findings, April 1995 (Ref: HSum 7)

Gibson, Tony, Danger Opportunity - Meadowell Community Development, Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation, 1993

Gregory, Sarah, Transforming Local Services: Partnership in action*, JRF/YPS, 1998, 'The effectiveness of local service partnerships on disadvantaged estates', Findings, February 1998

Hawtin, Murray et al., Community Profiling: Auditing social needs, Oxford University Press, 1994

Henderson, Paul et al., Training and Education within Urban Regeneration: A framework for participants*, JRF/The Policy Press, 1998

Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 'Foundations - Regenerating neighbourhoods: Creating integrated and sustainable improvement', Findings, May 1998 (Ref: FO588)

Local Government Association, A Simple Guide to the New Commitment to Regeneration, LGA, December 1998

Macfarlane, Richard, Community Involvement in City Challenge: A good practice guide, NCVO Publications, 1993

McArthur, Andy et al., Less than Equal? Community organisations and estate regeneration partnerships*, The Policy Press, 1996, 'Community involvement in estate regeneration partnerships', February 1996 (Ref: H167)

Pearce, John et al., Uncommon Currencies: LETs and their impact on property repair and maintenance for low-income home-owners*, JRF/The Policy Press, 1998, 'Local initiatives in property repair and maintenance', February 1998 (Ref: 238)

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, Investing in the Voluntary Sector 1997-1998, Sandwell MBC, 1997

Social Exclusion Unit, Bringing Britain Together: A national strategy for neighbourhood renewal, HMSO, 1998

Skelcher, Chris et al., Community Networks in Urban Regeneration: "It all depends who you know"*, JRF/The Policy Press, 1996

Ward, Michael et al., Here to Stay: A public policy framework for community-based regeneration, Development Trusts Association, 1997

Watson, Dick, Putting Back the Pride: A case study of a power-sharing approach to tenant participation, ACTAC, 1994. 'Tenant involvement in estate regeneration', Findings, November 1994 (Ref: H132)

Wilcox, David, The Guide to Effective Participation, Partnership Books, 1994, 'Community participation and empowerment: putting theory into practice', Findings, August 1994 (Ref: HSum 4)