NCVO submission to Lyons Inquiry into Local Government

Paper addressing the relationship between the voluntary and public sectors in the context of the key themes emerging from the interim report of the Lyons Inquiry.

Published: July 2006
Telephone: 020 7520 2473
Email: policy[at]ncvo-vol.org.uk

Introduction
Background - NCVO's contribution to the local government policy debate
The role of voluntary and community sector
Democracy and legitimacy
'Placeshaping' and the role of the local VCS
Public services
Summary of key points

1. Introduction

1.1 The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is the largest general membership body for charities and voluntary organisations in England. Established in 1919, NCVO represents over four thousand seven hundred organisations, from large 'household name' charities to small groups involved in all areas of voluntary and social action at the local level. NCVO champions voluntary action, our vision is of a society in which people are inspired to make a positive difference to their communities. A vibrant voluntary and community sector deserves a strong voice and the best support. NCVO works to provide that support and voice.

1.2 In May 2006 we met with Sir Michael Lyons to discuss the relationship between local government and the voluntary and community sector (VCS). - In our view, the VCS and local government share many values and many objectives. There is clearly scope for the two sectors to work better together in the interests of local people and local communities. - Local communities are strongest when all partners - statutory and non-statutory - come together to meet shared objectives and increase the social, economic and environmental well being of an area. The respective skills, strengths knowledge and mandates of all organisations in an area must be cultivated, supported and encouraged.

1.3 We were asked to submit a formal response to the Inquiry Team to help inform their final report, due to be published in December 2006. - This response addresses the relationship between the two sectors in the context of the key themes emerging from Sir Michael's interim report, in the following sections:

background - NCVO's contribution to the local government policy debate
the role of voluntary and community sector
democracy and legitimacy
'placeshaping' and the role of the local VCS
public services
summary of key points

1.4 This submission is endorsed in full by the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA). NAVCA promotes local voluntary and community action through its membership of over 360 VCS Local Infrastructure Organisations. Its members' relationship with local government is vital and their experience informs NAVCA's contribution to the national policy debate.

1.5 If you wish to discuss any part of our response, or require further information, please contact the policy team on 020 7520 2473 or email, policy[at]ncvo-vol.org.uk

2. Background - NCVO's contribution to local government policy

2.1 Locally based voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) comprise a significant element of NCVO's membership. Nearly 3,000 of our members are local organisations, and over 3,600 of our members have an income of less than £500,000 (as of 21 July 2006). - However, relationships with local government are significant for VCOs regardless of their size: around 70% of the relationships that all VCOs have with government are at the local level, rather than with national statutory bodies.

2.2 In 2005 we undertook an extensive consultation with our members to inform our own strategic review. The responses to our consultation reinforced the importance of the sector's relationship with local government, but also highlighted weaknesses and problems in the relationship that need to be addressed. - NCVO believes it is essential that local authorities understand and support the invaluable contribution VCOs make to their communities, and why we believe that any strategy for the future of local government needs to take account of the relationship between the two sectors.

2.3 It is because of the importance of this relationship that NCVO has a long history of being engaged with, and facilitating discussions in the area of local government policy. We have provided briefings, consulted with our members and submitted responses to government on a range of key policy developments, including the implementation of Best Value, the development of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), the community participation review in 2003, the national procurement strategy for Local Government in 2004 and most recently commenting on proposals for 'double devolution'. In 2005 the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) asked NCVO to run a national conference for voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) to discuss their Local:Vision documents and to consider the impact of the local government reform agenda on the VCS.

2.4 Our response to the Lyons review is informed not only by the interests and concerns of our members, and the direct work on local government policy we have undertaken, but also by a number of our other areas of policy and research work which is of direct relevance to this debate. - Recent publications include:

3. Why the VCS must play a vital role in this debate

3.1 Voluntary and community organisations are an essential part of society. NCVO's UK Voluntary Sector Almanac 2006 shows that there are over 169,000 active general charities in the UK. The contribution VCOs make to civil society tends to be recognised, but they are also an important part of the economic landscape: the sector has a paid workforce of over 608,000 people and an annual income of £26.3 billion, 38% of which comes from statutory sources. The sector is also very diverse, in terms of the scope of its activities, but also the size and nature of the organisations that make up the sector. Whilst a small number of charities have substantial incomes (fewer than 300 charities have an income in excess of £10 million), over 50% of the voluntary sector has an annual income of less than £10,000. Every community benefits from the activities of both national, brand name charities, but perhaps even more significantly from the huge numbers of very small and very local VCOs.

3.2 VCOs play three very important roles:

they provide information and give advice, to individuals or communities
they enable people's voices to be heard, by supporting and encouraging people and communities or by acting as advocates (very often for marginalised groups who may not have any other way of being heard)
they provide activities or services. - Some of these activities and services may be publicly funded, or delivered under contract for a public body, but many more are independently provided as their core purpose, for example social clubs, sports, community groups

3.3 In carrying out these three roles VCOs interact with local authorities and other local statutory organisations in numerous ways and at numerous levels. But more importantly, these activities play a crucial role in the health and well-being of the local community. VCOs are widely recognised as playing a key role in generating and mobilising social capital [Social capital refers to the social networks between groups and people as well as the outcome of those relationships - behaviours, attitudes and trust.]: strengthening associational life; building bridges within and between communities; and linking people into decision-making structures. Building social capital is vital in order to strengthen communities.

3.4 Voluntary activity plays an important role in fostering social cohesion and creating a sense of community. - But in addition to this, there is evidence to suggest that voluntary action, and strong civil society, in turn supports and promotes civic engagement, that those involved in volunteering and voluntary action are more likely to be involved in local governance and democratic processes. [Robert Putman, 'The prosperous community: social capital and public life', The American Prospect, Volume 4, Number 13, 1993]

3.5 Both the VCS and local government have a shared objective: to improve the lives of people and communities. - By working effectively with VCOs at the local level, local government can ensure it has a better understanding of the needs and concerns of the community it works for than if it simply works alone. It can access a wider range of voices, and by supporting and promoting the local VCS it can help people feel more connected to the area in which they live.

4. Democracy and legitimacy

4.1 Both local authorities and VCOs are legitimate and key components of the democratic process. The local VCS can and does play a valuable role in enabling a diversity of views to be expressed, giving voice to a range of different interests and concerns (including dissenting and unpopular views), supporting or promoting the concerns of particular parts of the community and in fostering citizen engagement through volunteering and a strong civil society.

4.2 However we recognise that local government has a responsibility towards the whole local community. It must listen to all voices and then negotiate and mediate between competing interests and claims. It has to meet, and where necessary reconcile, the needs of an increasingly diverse citizenry. In many cases local government must make hard decisions and choices between competing views. In our view, both of these roles have vital strengths and are needed for a strong and healthy society.

The legitimacy of elected local government and representative groups

4.3 Local authorities are democratically elected bodies. - As such, they have a clear role to play in providing leadership for a local area. That role includes the specific statutory duty to improve the social, economic and environmental well being in their area. As part of the community leadership role, local authorities are ultimately the body responsible, and accountable for the LSP, Sustainable Community Strategy and the delivery of the Local Area Agreements (LAAs).

4.4 However, it is not sufficient to depend entirely on the legitimacy afforded by electoral democracy, particularly when turnout at local elections is poor [identified by the Lyons inquiry as 'on average between 30%-40%' (National prosperity, local choice and civic engagement, May 2006, p65)]. - A good local authority will make effective use of a variety of different forms of representative and participatory democracy. - They will also work with others in the community who are perceived to have a mandate or to perform a community leadership role. For example many local VCOs, particularly community groups or residents groups, are perceived to have, or do have, a different form of legitimacy amongst local communities than councillors do. The democratic mandate that the local authority has must be supplemented with other local and community interests: a local authority cannot assume that it has the support of all parts of the local community, that it alone is best able to identify issues or solutions, or that it is able to access all parts of the community.

4.5 NCVO therefore welcomes the current discussions on empowering local neighbourhoods and communities ('double devolution'), which recognise the need to strengthen local democracy and representation and engage more widely with local communities. [NCVO's response to the speech by Rt. Hon. David Miliband MP, Minister of Communities and Local Government. 'Empowerment and the Deal for Devolution' March 2006] Enabling greater participation through devolved decision-making is an important step toward reducing the local democratic deficit, and truly engaging with people. VCOs can play an important role in helping local people and communities to participate fully and therefore any new local governance structures must be actively encouraged to work with the VCS. We believe that the proposals being put forward by the Government and also by the Lyons Inquiry offer important opportunities to strengthen the relationship that local government has with the VCS: a strong local infrastructure organisation can be key to this relationship, but such local infrastructure needs to be supported and fostered by the local authority. Indeed it will be imperative that local government works with local VCOs if the desired improvements to local democracy and local services are to be achieved.

Role of the Councillor and the Role of the Community Activist

4.6 Locally elected councillors play an important role in local communities, providing both representation and information and advocacy for their communities. - The Local Government Act 2000 introduced new executive models of governance and the overview and scrutiny function for non-executive councillors. The role of both 'executive' and 'backbench' councillors is now evolving, as local authorities take on greater responsibilities for partnerships in an area and new forms of neighbourhood governance emerge.

4.7 Local representation and local accountability must be effective in order to enable people and groups to inform and shape services, as well as to hold decision makers to account. - Further developing, clarifying and strengthening the role of the councillor, is one way in which this can be done. Councillors can be supported in their role by local VCOs, who can provide knowledge, experience and expertise of local issues and a link into and out of communities. It is important that elected councillors and other community activists, whose roles do complement each other, are encouraged to work together. The local VCS is able to enhance the role of the local authority, but cannot and should not be a replacement for democratically elected representation.

4.8 There is a clear cross over between elected local leaders and other community activists. NCVO's recent research into parish councils and community governance [A Broader Parish - Working together, improving rural communities, due to be published autumn 2006] showed that most parish councillors were also directly involved with local voluntary groups, often as trustees. - However it also showed that whilst the majority of councillors had experience of the VCS, the reverse was not true: whilst some VCS community activists were also engaged in local politics, very many were not but preferred to direct all of their efforts through the VCS. - It is therefore important that ward councillors should be encouraged to build relationships with all of the VCOs in their area, and not just those with whom effective working relationships have already been established. Care needs to be taken to extend the reach of the council, and councillors, to VCOs who may not have such direct links, who either do not want to, or perhaps do not know how to engage with the local authority.

4.9 Finally, it is important that community activists are valued and the contribution they make to local communities recognised. - There can be a tendency to dismiss such people as "the usual suspects". A recent Joseph Rowntree publication Whose town is it anyway? The state of local democracy in two northern towns discusses the contributions made by a small minority of what it terms instead "super-activists". These "super-activists" often work at the most local level, and can often provide a crucial link between local residents, their ward councilors and local public officials. We agree with this, and believe that discussions should avoid using the term "usual suspects" in reference to individuals and groups who regularly turn up and participate.

Partnership working

4.10 NCVO welcomes Sir Michael's support for placing a statutory duty on public sector partners to cooperate with one another: a frequent problem experienced by VCOs is that the various statutory agencies they work with seem unable to operate in a joined up way. Such a duty would help address this problem. However we believe that there should be a wider statutory duty on local authorities to engage effectively with other stakeholders and potential partners from the voluntary and community sector and also the private sector. There are legislative precedents for this type of involvement in the Local Government Act 1999 (Best Value) and the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. It is crucial that local authorities engage with their non-statutory partners, not only on their LSP but also within the LAA thematic partnerships.

4.11 We also believe that there is still much to be done to promote understanding of the benefits of local compacts and to encourage more effective use of these tools. - Local compacts should be agreed between each local authority and the local voluntary and community sector. They should set out agreed ways of working, including how partnerships will operate and how VCOs will be engaged in and contribute to local decision making.

4.12 Partnership working between local government and the VCS should bring benefits to all partners and, more importantly, to local communities. - However, the growth in partnership working has placed increasing demands on the time of VCOs. Many front line VCOs will take the view that their primary responsibility is to their users and stakeholders, not to local statutory partnerships. Even where a VCO sees a clear value to engaging with a partnership, it may lack the capacity (in terms of skills or time) to play an effective role. The capacity and skills of the sector to engage must be properly addressed in order to ensure that VCOs are able to fully participate in local strategic decision making. There are a number of ways in which this can be done, including through financial incentives, assistance with staff training and other assistance in kind.

Priorities and Performance

4.13 If local government is to be more locally accountable, and better able to meet local needs and concerns, then priorities must be locally agreed, monitored and managed, within a nationally agreed framework. NCVO therefore supports the Lyons Inquiry and the LGA's recent call [LGA - closer to people and places; a new vision for local government (May 2006)] for greater emphasis on locally agreed priorities, to meet local needs, within the context of a national framework albeit with fewer national priorities. Similarly we agree that a local authority's performance against these targets should be largely monitored and held to account locally, with greater use of peer-led and citizen review.

4.14 However it is essential that the processes of both priority setting and monitoring are robust if they are to have credibility with the local community. The VCS can play a key role in helping to identify and set priorities and monitoring the performance of local services, and must enabled to do so [ On the radar; developing the relationship between local authority overview and scrutiny committees and the voluntary and community sector, CFPS, September 2005]. VCOs can have knowledge and expertise in relation to particular services and can facilitate communication with, and engagement of, a range of stakeholder groups and communities. Building up strong relations with the sector will benefit local authorities, and other statutory partners. It can provide a channel through which they are able to access those who are often the most marginalized in society. By working closely with VCOs local government may also give a greater opportunity for 'bottom up' pressures to be heard, which can highlight issues or problems and act as a catalyst for change.

4.15 In addition, as part of the performance monitoring process, we recommend that local authorities and LSPs are encouraged develop sources of local information and tools to monitor local satisfaction with an area in order to gauge how effectively they are working.

5. 'Place-shaping' and the role of the local VCS.

5.1 Sir Michael Lyons defines place-shaping as:

"-..a way of describing my view that the ultimate purpose of local government should not be solely to manage a collection of public services that take place within an area, but rather to take responsibility for the well-being of an area and the people who live there, and to promote their interests and their future. Place-shaping should both reflect the distinctive identity and aspirations of the people and area, and function as a means of safeguarding and promoting their well-being and prosperity."

We share and welcome Sir Michael's holistic approach to a local area, and his recognition that place shaping is primarily about civil society and community, not about the formal structures of local government. The VCS has a potentially huge role to play in this. Place shaping is an intrinsic part of the work of the VCS: VCOs have a crucial role in enhancing the social, economic and environmental well being of an area. Indeed, it is often through engagement with a VCO, and the social interaction it provides, that people develop or express their sense of community.

What is a community?

5.2 In order to effectively undertake a "place-shaping" role and to strengthen local communities, it is important to understand the different ways in which community can be understood. Local government policy tends to focus on geographic communities, that is a group of people who live in the same area. However, people will define their geographic understanding of their community in different ways, and the 'natural neighbourhoods' with which people identify are rarely coterminous with ward boundaries. Indeed, they often cross both ward and council borders. VCOs are less constrained by these boundaries - indeed both VCOs and citizens are often unaware of the precise boundaries. This flexibility needs to be understood as a strength and encouraged. In order for this to happen, statutory bodies need to become more effective at working with neighbouring partner organisations.

5.3 However, communities are not always defined by geography. - A community may also be defined by a shared interest and hence geographically dispersed. Communities of interest (which include but are not limited to faith and cultural groups) differ from communities of 'place', yet allegiances can be just as strong, if not stronger than geographically based groups. Local governance bodies must ensure they take into account the needs and concerns of communities of interest, however because they can be harder to access because there may only be a few people from a particular interest group within a particular geographic area. Careful thought needs to be given as to how to enable the voice of communities of interest to be heard. The VCS can be an important partner in this respect. VCOs with an interest-based mission are just as integral to any devolved local or neighbourhood level structures as area-based organisations. -

How do you access communities?

5.4 Engaging with citizens is not something that a local authority can do on its own. A local authority will need to develop a variety of approaches and work with a range of partners who bring different skills and the ability to access different parts of the community. This should be recognised in the review of local government functions and finance and the recommendations to be made in the forthcoming Local Government White Paper.

5.5 Local authorities need to give more thought to both when and how they engage with citizens and communities. All too often engagement occurs at a very late stage in the process and as a result appear to pay little more than lip service to the notion of community engagement. It is not sufficient for a local authority to simply consult at the end of the process on two or three options for delivery. Proper citizen engagement should begin much earlier. There needs to be greater appreciation of the benefits of "bottom up" policy development. Communities should be involved from the outset, they should be given the opportunity to identify their concerns and priorities, and be given opportunities to help design solutions.

5.6 Partnership working between all public bodies, VCOs and businesses at the local level should continue to be seen as an intrinsic part of any new arrangements for devolving power to the neighbourhood level. Any new arrangements should complement the LSP and LAA frameworks in an area, working alongside and feeding into them. It is essential that statutory bodies at the local level develop and maintain close working relationships with one another, and with their non-statutory partners.

5.7 The Joseph Rowntree report Devolving governance: area committees and neighbourhood management (March 2004), suggests that devising a successful programme of inclusion requires close working with representatives of VCOs and recommends using innovative participatory models to engage traditionally hard-to-reach groups, wherever possible, designed in partnership with representatives of those groups. - NCVO supports this suggestion. The local VCS can work extensively with local statutory bodies, businesses and other VCOs in determining and influencing many of the different strands that make up successful place shaping. Local VCOs can provide much needed background and knowledge, as well as access to under-represented, often marginalised groups in society.

5.8 However, most VCOs have only limited capacity to engage with statutory partnerships and consultations: quite rightly their primary focus is on working to deliver their core services. - Therefore, if there is to a greater emphasis on community engagement and partnership working, local government will need to be able to support and facilitate this. Community capacity building, engagement and representation will need to be encouraged, championed and supported by local authorities. Such support may vary from direct financial support (grants or contracts) to providing resources such as training, providing free meeting spaces or the provision of advice and operational support.

6. Public services

Public service reform and co-production

6.1 The government remains committed to reforming public services and to enabling the VCS to take on a greater role in public service delivery. NCVO has always argued that, where VCOs want to do so, they should be encouraged, supported and enabled to deliver public services. Our position has always been, however, that delivery is only one aspect of the public service reform agenda. VCOs play an equally important role in helping citizens and communities have a voice in debates about what services are needed and how they should be provided, and in ensuring that citizens and communities have access to the right information to help them make access the services they need and are entitled to. - Our position on the sector's role in public service reform is set out in our 2005 report, The reform of public services: the role of the voluntary sector.

6.2 Government has recognised the need for a number of reforms to facilitate the delivery of public services by VCOs. - We support these recommendations and hope to see them fully implemented by both national and local government bodies as swiftly as possible. However NCVO has argued that these recommendations only partially address the ways in which VCOs could and should be encouraged to play a role in helping to achieve a genuine, lasting and positive transformation in the public services that people receive. Our recent policy paper How voluntary and community organisations can help transform public services sets out the radical approach that we believe is needed in order to achieve a real transformation of public services.

6.3 In his interim report, Sir Michael Lyons discusses the concept of co-production at the local level:

"-local authorities can help to influence such lifestyle decisions by enabling local people to co-produce services, letting them have their say about what they want and need from public services. By involving local people in their design and delivery, local services are also likely to be more efficient and effective." [National prosperity, local choice and civic engagement, Lyons Inquiry, May 2006]

We fully support Sir Michael's belief that co-production should play a much greater role in public services. - This reflects closely our view that real transformation must be focused around the needs of citizens. The key findings of our transformation report are that, in order to achieve transformation the approach taken must:

Place the agenda of citizens and communities, not just individual consumers, at the heart of the reform process
Ensure public services are designed and delivered in a way that enables the voice of citizens and communities to be heard and acted upon, as well as providing them with a market choice
Recognise the need for a holistic approach, which provides effective, joined up services to citizens
Apply more sophisticated understanding of the efficiency agenda, which gives as much weight to effectiveness as it does to cost savings

It goes on to explain the contribution that the VCS can make to delivering this new approach.

7. Summary of key points

7.1 It is essential that local authorities understand and support the invaluable contribution VCOs make to their communities. - VCOs play three very important roles: they provide information and give advice; they enable people's voices to be heard; and they provide activities or services.

7.2 Both the VCS and local government have a shared objective: to improve the lives of people and communities. - By working effectively with VCOs at the local level, local government can ensure it has a better understanding of the needs and concerns of the community it works for than if it simply works alone.

7.3 The local VCS cannot and should not be a replacement for democratically elected representation. - However the democratic mandate that the local authority has must be supplemented with other local and community interests: a good local authority will make effective use of a variety of different forms of representative and participatory democracy. VCOs can play an important role in helping local people and communities to participate fully and therefore any new local governance structures must be actively encouraged to work with the VCS.

7.4 NCVO welcomes Sir Michael's support for placing a statutory duty on public sector partners to cooperate with one another. We also believe that there should be a wider statutory duty on local authorities to engage effectively with other stakeholders and potential partners.

7.5 There is still much to be done to promote understanding of the benefits of local compacts and to encourage more effective use of these tools.

7.6 NCVO supports the Lyons Inquiry and the LGA's recent call for greater emphasis on locally agreed priorities, to meet local needs, within the context of a national framework. - The VCS can play a key role in helping to identify and set priorities and must be enabled to do so.

7.7 We share and welcome Sir Michael's holistic approach to a local area, and his recognition that place shaping is primarily about civil society and community, not about the formal structures of local government. - Place shaping is an intrinsic part of the work of the VCS: VCOs have a crucial role in enhancing the social, economic and environmental well being of an area.

7.8 Local authorities need to give more thought to both when and how they engage with citizens and communities. Communities should be involved from the outset, they should be given the opportunity to identify their concerns and priorities, and be given opportunities to help design solutions.

7.9 Engaging with citizens is not something that a local authority can do on its own. - A local authority will need to develop a variety of approaches and work with a range of partners who bring different skills and the ability to access different parts of the community.

7.10 We fully support Sir Michael's belief that co-production should play a much greater role in public services. - This reflects closely our view that real transformation must be focused around the needs of citizens.