The effectiveness of local service partnerships on disadvantaged estates

An evaluation study of demonstration projects launched three years ago to build on initiatives in Burnley and Coventry finds that the benefits of local service partnerships included better community health services, more help for families, environmental improvements, safer streets and less vandalism.

The partnerships, studied by PEP (Priority Estates Project), brought statutory, voluntary, private and community agencies together to plan services that cut across the normal boundaries of their organisations. The emphasis given to involving local people - including those not represented by existing residentsÍ groups - emerged as an important ingredient of their success.

Sarah Gregory, co-ordinator of the study, said: "It took time to build up the necessary levels of co-operation and trust between the various partners in these projects. But the resulting action plans have led to real changes in the way that local services are provided with a stronger emphasis on customer care."

Evaluation of the projects - which were funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Coventry and Burnley Councils, the Department of the Environment and the Tudor Trust - concluded that effective local partnerships should include:

• A long-term commitment from individual organisations to co-ordinate their work with other agencies and to adapt their methods - including financing - accordingly. The views of residents need to carry equal weight in the partnership with those of agencies.
• The early appointment of a co-ordinator capable of holding the partnerships together. The projects also employed a community development worker each to ensure that residents were fully consulted and represented.
• Systematic, long-term planning (although short-term action on pressing local problems helped give the partnerships credibility with local people). A wide-ranging analysis of local needs formed the essential base for action plans. 

Sarah Gregory said: "With strictly limited resources, local service partnerships have brought about action to tackle problems like anti-social behaviour and lack of facilities for parents and children that could not be addressed by a single agency. They are helping to prevent wasteful overlaps in provision, while identifying the gaps in existing services that need to be filled.

"By providing better services, partnerships can improve the quality of life for individuals living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. They cannot solve poverty, but have a valuable part in wider plans for regeneration, including training and job opportunities and action to improve the housing stock."