Partnerships
Guidance on developing partnerships, strategy and a Delivery Plan
| This document is published for archival/historical purposes. It will not be updated. |
This guidance has been prepared by the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (NRU) in consultation with Government Offices (GOs) and pathfinders. It addresses broad policy and process issues for round 2 Neighbourhood Management Pathfinders (NMPs), including developing a Neighbourhood Management delivery plan during stage 2 and specifying its format.
Title: Guidance on developing partnerships, strategy and a Delivery Plan
Author: Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (NRU)
Series: Round 2
Number of pages: 68
Date published: January 2004
The guide covers:
establishing a clear picture of existing conditions and problems in the neighbourhood
identifying targets for improvement
recognising how Neighbourhood Management can help achieve them
developing partnerships between communities
service providers and other agencies to assemble a Board
selecting a staff team to deliver an objective.
Aims and objectives of Neighbourhood Management
The objectives of Neighbourhood Management can be summed up as:
"Helping deprived communities and local service providers work together at the neighbourhood level to improve and 'join up' local services. And to help make those services more responsive to local needs and ensure they deliver priority outcomes on the ground."
Neighbourhood Management (NM) is a key part of the Government's overall National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal. The National Strategy Action Plan (A New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal) sets out an aim of narrowing the gap between deprived neighbourhoods and the rest of the country, so that within 10 to 20 years, no-one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live. The quality of public services depends not only on how much public money is available, but also on how effectively those resources are used. The work by the Social Exclusion Unit in developing the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal (NSNR) showed how core services in many deprived neighbourhoods have been compromised by their failure to work with each other, with local people and with organisations from other sectors. A response at the neighbourhood level is critical to addressing these problems. That is the level at which local people engage and at which change is delivered on the ground to improve outcomes for people living and working in deprived communities.
The Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy
The Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy is focused on delivering improvements in 5 key areas:
tackling worklessness
improving health
tackling crime and community safety
raising educational achievement
improving housing and the physical environment.
Neighbourhood Management is best managed or overseen by community based partnerships, involving local agencies and residents. The partnership board does not need to be entirely new, or set up only to deliver Neighbourhood Management. It might be a suitable body already active in and on behalf of a neighbourhood. But, while resident involvement is likely to evolve in the pathfinder's early years, local residents must play a central role in the development of the partnership and the development and delivery of its strategy from the outset. Therefore all stakeholders must be involved in all aspects of the partnerships guidance, alongside the Delivery Plan and strategy.
Building partnerships
The focus for Neighbourhood Management is delivering services to communities at neighbourhood level. It is therefore crucial that the Neighbourhood Management Board and the neighbourhood manager and his/her team establish effective relationships both with local communities and with the agencies providing services to them. Building the Neighbourhood Management team with the right skills will also be a priority. Partnerships may find the current "management" section of the NM Performance Management Framework (PMF) helpful in providing a detailed overview of issues to be considered in setting up a partnership's structure and procedures.
Delivery Plan
A Delivery Plan needs to:
provide a detailed assessment of the current situation
state the pathfinder's objectives
set out the partnership's overall strategy to apply Neighbourhood Management
explain in more detail how different topics within each key theme will be addressed in 2004-6, along with significant interventions likely to be used and their budgeted cost.
This guidance sets out the steps Partnerships will need to take in order to draw up their Delivery Plan and the format it should follow, but also covers the important process of building long term partnerships which will be vital to the success of Neighbourhood Management.
Strategy
Developing and implementing a strategy will be a demanding and time consuming process. In particular, NMPs are strongly advised to discuss emerging plans with GOs and to share drafts with them. This will most obviously be helpful where there are issues that might delay Delivery Plan submission as GOs can provide direct assistance, and will contract for assistance from Neighbourhood Renewal Advisors where appropriate. However, NMPs should keep GOs fully informed of progress in developing Delivery Plans even where there are no apparent complications. GOs are also responsible for government oversight of the Pathfinder programme locally and will be the main point of contact for partnerships, including processing grant claims. The NRU's role is to manage the overall programme at national level, working with GOs, to make sure that partnerships have access to training and information and to provide overall guidance to Partnerships and GOs.
Last update: Thursday, August 28, 2008