Abi's saved pages [3]

Rural Poverty

The Commission for Rural Communities published an analysis of the ‘State of the Countryside’ in July 2010. This report reminded me that in general, in rural areas compared to urban areas:

• there are a higher percentage of people over retirement age
• access to what we would consider basic services (bank, surgery, supermarket, school) is lower
• internet connection speeds are lower
• expenditure on transport is significantly higher
• rates of fuel poverty are substantially worse.

One in four households in sparse rural areas are in income poverty, before housing costs are accounted for, and redundancy rates and unemployment are nothing to smile about.

Hidden poverty

The East of England is largely considered to be one of the most affluent regions in the UK, and policy from the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition is continuing the trajectory of recent years by strategically directing investment away from this region (along with London and the South East) towards areas with higher overall need (see for example announcements in the emergency budget, June 2010).

Almost 80% of this region is rural. Aside from the urban belt around London, most of the region is populated in small cities, market and coastal towns, villages and even smaller settlements. There are areas of the East of England which suffer extensively from poverty and deprivation, but these are easily hidden within high level figures.

Rural Action East is a regional organisation that advocates for fair consideration of the needs of rural areas. A report they published in 2009 suggested the high number of households living in poverty in the region is due to “structural changes including the loss of an estimated 60,000 jobs in agriculture, the closure of important industries and the decline of seaside towns...” Half of the region’s population will be over 50 by 2020, and the region has the second highest number of pensioners living in poverty: potentially a third of the region’s population.

Measuring need

Recently I attended a meeting with a speaker from the Office of Civil Society, who was talking to the group about the coalition government’s ‘Big Society’ concept. One element of this is a proposed funding stream to kick start community activity in deprived areas: ‘Community First’. The speaker asked us about how we would define need: how should the government decide which few areas should receive this grant funding?

Bearing in mind the thoughts above about our region’s rural needs, the ensuing discussion pointed out that:

• traditional methods of measuring deprivation like the IMD often don’t pick up on poverty in areas of dispersed population: the density of need isn’t high enough
• measures of poverty must include consideration of needs that are particularly exacerbated in rural areas such as isolation (and loneliness), and poor access to key public services
• targeting the grant at areas with low social capital is likely to mean that rural areas, which often have a higher level of community activity might again lose out

I’m sure that these issues have been extensively considered by academics and experts involved in defining and measuring poverty and deprivation. Perhaps now that the Social Exclusion Unit has been absorbed into the Office of Civil Society new ways can be developed of ensuring that hidden poverty and inequality in rural areas doesn’t lose out to the more obvious areas of urban need.

For voluntary and community sector organisations, there remains a challenge to highlight the needs of those who we work with in rural areas, and to find innovative and sustainable ways to meet those needs.

Localism and opportunities for engagement

The current UK government has stressed that localism is a key focus of their strategy for charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises. The broad localism argument is that by devolving power to local authorities, for example by removing ring fences on particular funding streams, decisions can be made that more closely reflect the needs of local communities. More specifically, the government expects that the new powers localism brings will provide opportunities for local organisations who are able to grasp them. Think for example of the right to buy and bid to run community assets. Civil society organisations (CSOs) should find it easier to operate and gain important information about their local areas, as a result of the drive for greater transparency and reduced bureaucracy and red tape.

Going forward, one of the main issues that civil society organisations need to grapple with is how to engage with the public sector in their local areas.

In the East of England, COVER carried out a recent piece of research which found that the relationship with the public sector is crucially important for many charities and voluntary groups, particularly for accessing funding. Another interesting finding came from examples provided of public sector decisions which had affected organisations in their local areas. The picture that emerged was (as might be expected) different across the region and particularly that the climate for engagement is perceived to be dictated by the public sector in that particular area.

Considerations for civil society looking forward

In the immediate future, as local authorities are making enormous decisions about funding cuts, it will be difficult for CSOs to be able to influence decision making, unless streamlined and effective mechanisms for consultation and involvement already exist. What might you do to influence decision making if these mechanisms are not in place? Even in authority areas where the relationship is good, there isn’t the time needed (or the flexibility in decision making: the cuts are arguably too swingeing to easily negotiate!) to engage with communities and the organisations representing them about their views. Following hard on the coat tails of the spending review, Norfolk County Council has already announced 3000 jobs are to go, and savings of £155 million over the next three years. Suffolk had previously announced that it will be outsourcing all of its services, and other authorities have made similar announcements.

Although the government has said that civil society should not be the first port of call for funding cuts, will this play out in reality? The situation is likely to be that the easiest cuts will be to services which are already provided outside of local councils, often by the voluntary and community sector. There seems to be little that can be done at this stage to change that. However, the emphasis in recent years on the importance of developing evidence of effectiveness and vitality of services delivered by civil society may help, and it now has an additional poignant clarity. Looking to the future, development of this type of evidence is going to continue to be crucial to survival.

Longer term opportunities

In the longer term, it is hard to know if previous routes of engagement will continue, or new expectations emerge. What will happen with Local Strategic Partnerships? In what form will participatory budgeting and Total Place (‘Community Based Budgets’) continue? Will there be any measure for recording the success of local public sector efforts to engage the community (NI4 and 7)?

It is clear that over the next few years the development and success of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) will be important for local areas. The inclusion of a requirement to involve civil society organisations in plans for LEPs was welcome, if belated. Now that LEPs are beginning to be finalised, it is important for the sector to be initiating conversations about how they can be involved. For smaller or less engaged organisations this will be difficult, as the successful LEPs so far appear to cover much larger-than-local areas. Some kind of mechanism for scaling up the representation from local communities and organisations will need to be developed, in a way which actually captures the input of those outside the public and business sectors.

In the East of England, local authority leaders from different areas are continuing to meet. We are likely to see the development of portfolio holder networks to give support on cross border issues for local councillors. It may be that opportunities for engagement emerge for those organisations with the capacity to take them.

Conclusion

The rhetoric about localism suggests increased opportunities for local communities, and organisations who represent them, to influence and engage with those directing service delivery in their local areas. Engagement with the public sector has always been a fraught, sensitive area of work that varies greatly between different areas. Looking to the future this is likely to continue. Local charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises need to develop pointed, resourced strategies for ensuring that their voice (and the voice of their beneficiaries) is heard where important decisions are being made.

Blurred boundaries within 'the sector'

There are some within the wide spectrum of the ‘voluntary, community and social enterprise’ sector (henceforth ‘the sector’) who don’t much like being lumped together into one bag. And you can see their point to some extent.

The sector’s diversity makes it very difficult to understand and get to grips with. The terminology itself is unclear – the same organisation can be classified in many different ways! And the different classifications will have different implications for those outside the sector seeking partnership. Labels carry connotations and expectations which are not always correct.

The farthest extremes

The two far ends of the sector (if you can imagine it stretched along a continuum) are really very different. There was a time not so long ago when community sector organisations protested that the representation and services they received from infrastructure organisations were more suited to the generally more established, perhaps more formal ‘voluntary’ sector. And in fact we know from our own research that the smallest, most informal parts of the community sector are least likely to engage with outside networks and support services at all.

At the other end, the most business-like social enterprises can resent any implication that they have anything in common with voluntary and community sector organisations at all. Perhaps they see themselves more as a subsector of the private sector. In fact, many in the wider sector probably identify more closely with a certain type of organisation in the public or private sectors than they do with other voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations. For example, some voluntary organisations providing public services have much in common with the public sector.

During the recession and the recent funding cuts, we have seen a trend towards a weakening of the middle of the continuum, it has largely been middle sized organisations who have been the most vulnerable to the fast sweeping changes they face. A possible implication of this is that the ties between the far ends of the sector will lessen further.

Outsiders (and I use the term reservedly) have a tendency to look for neat, precise, business like information and representation from the sector – in a desperate effort to try and understand the workings of organisations and individuals that we have come to realise underpin the whole of our society. Beyond this, and beyond the realms of research and reporting, does it matter that the boundaries are so blurred?

What’s really important here?

For many, the issue of correct terminology in classification is perhaps rightly tangential. After all, we know that in five and ten years time the packaging will have changed several times over. More important is for organisations to get to the heart of their identity themselves, and be able to explain it clearly. If your organisation has been making the transition from one operating model to another, it could be worth considering:

• Do you, all your staff, trustees and stakeholders all have a (similar) clear view of what your identity is?
• Do you have a clear, jargon free description of who you are and how you work that will make sense to potential partners and funders?
• Do you know what type of support organisation is going to best be able to help you?
• Have you got the right legal structures to support the type of organisation you want to be?
• Stripping away the terminology, does the model you are working with suit the types of services you want to deliver and the direction of the organisation?