See also
Phase 1: National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal
In this early phase, works focussed on Regeneration of poorer areas and was led by the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
The broad policy was published in 2001 as the National Strategy Action Plan: A New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal. (NSAP) It set out the Government's clear vision that within 10 to 20 years nobody should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live.
ODPM says:
An action plan has been developed, setting out the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal. Reversing years of decline requires long-term investment and new ways of working.
For the first time, we have set targets not just for the national average, but for outcomes in deprived areas, which will ensure that a fair share of these budget increases goes to deprived areas.
The Action Plan sets out a new approach to renewing poor neighbourhoods. This approach is different for four reasons.
The true scale of the problem is being addressed - not the tens but the hundreds of severely deprived neighbourhoods.
The focus is not just on housing and the physical fabric of neighbourhoods, but the fundamental problems of worklessness, crime and poor public services - poor schools, too few GPs and policing.
The Strategy harnesses the hundreds of billions of pounds spent by key Government departments, rather than relying on one-off regeneration spending.
The Strategy puts in place new ideas including Neighbourhood Management and Local Strategic Partnerships for empowering residents and getting public, private and voluntary organisations to work in partnership.
This paper was very much focussed on regeneration, but began te theme of new localism and community involvement & empowerment. At this stage it was at eth level of LSPs and neighbourhood management, I think.
Amongst other things, the NSAP out a plan for the establishment of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs). (Document excerpt from here and there's more about LSPs here.)
In essence, LSPs are: "...non-statutory, multi-agency partnerships, which match local authority boundaries. LSPs bring together at a local level the different parts of the public, private, community and voluntary sectors; allowing different initiatives and services to support one another so that they can work together more effectively."
At the local level, this, I think, has been given life as the Haringey Strategic Partnership (and more here ). The HSP published their core strategy as the Community Strategy 2007 - 2016.
The HSP also developed the Local Area Agreement (LAA), 2008-2011 which expresses a substantial part of the mechanism for the delivery of the Sustainable Community Strategy. The include local goals against the National Indicators.
The Enterprise and Commissioning Plan, 2009 - 2011 published by the Haringey Strategic Partnership - sets out Haringey's priorities, objectives and Outcomes for Haringey's allocation of the Area Based Grant. The Area Based Grant Review reviews how about £25m a year has been spent by the HSP so far.
Making it happen in deprived neighbourhoods: The national strategy for neighbourhood renewal - 4 years on provides a progress report against the aims set out in the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal; demonstrates progress made in neighbourhoods and includes a summary of new funding and high level government targets announced as part of the Spending Review 2004. This strategy is part of the Office of the Department for Communities and Local Government's (DCLG) five year plan to give communities more say in local decision-making. This report provides a progress report against the aims set out in the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal; demonstrates progress made in neighbourhoods and includes a summary of new funding and high level government targets announced as part of the Spending Review 2004.
Phase 2: Community Empowerment & Engagement
Somewhere between 2004-2007, the mahor work of the NRU had been done. The theme of Community empowerment emerege as the new leading priority managed by the Depertment for Communities & Local Government. Today the NRU website home page carries the following wording:
Please be aware that this site is NO LONGER BEING UPDATED
For up-to-date information on these and related topics, please go to http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/
Some of the issues in the Government's New Localism agenda are discussed by Professor John Garventa in this Representation, Community Leadership and Participation: Citizen involvement in neighbourhood renewal and local governance paper prepared in 2004 for the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
The next milestone is just about to come into law.
The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007
(LGPIH) comes into force on 1 April 2009. This includes a duty for local councils to involve us and explains why Haringey have just issued their new
Community Engagement Strategy
The LGPIH is explained in statutory guidance paper, Creating Strong & Prosperous Communities. Key elements of the Act are
- Provisions to secure greater involvement of people in the workings and decision-making processes of local public authorities.
- provisions to ensure that councils respond to petitions and can consider other matters raised by citizens in their area.
- a new duty for local authorities to assess economic conditions; a joint duty on regional development agencies and local authorities to produce a single regional strategy; and powers for councils to co-operate in promoting economic development.
The Government's strategy around all this stuff was explained in another document, the Community Empowerment Action Plan, Oct 2007. This plan spawned Local Charters.
There will be some overlap of the duties to promote democracy and for councils to respond to petitions between the LGPIH and another piece of proposed legislation, the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill.
And, of course, we have to remember the Sustainable Communities Act.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.