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Bryn Trefil

Communities scheme has 'had little impact' - watchdog

Quote:
A SCHEME which spent £214 million to improve some of the poorest areas in Wales has not had an impact, according to the public spending watchdog.

The Assembly’s Communities First scheme, launched in 2001, spent more than £34 million in Gwent, but the Auditor General for Wales said there was no evidence of an overall impact over the past eight years.

The project has 188 partnerships covering deprived areas across Wales, including 62 in Gwent.

A total of £34,006,384.70 has been awarded across Gwent since 2001 - £11,287,933 in Caerphilly, £12,455,997 in Newport, £2,654,102.70 in Blaenau Gwent, £6,656,502 in Torfaen and £951,850 in Monmouthshire.

The report, published today, said the Assembly’s own departments didn’t always make it a priority and it was not clear how much impact the partnership had on improving things such as employment levels.

Criticisms aside, the report recognised that despite a difficult start, there have been improvements to how it distributes money and monitors performance.

However, it wasn't until 2007 that action was taken to check if partnerships were being run as intended.

In response to the report, the Assembly said: “This report should not detract from the excellent work that is happening on the ground across Wales by local partnerships that are making a very real and direct positive impact on local communities.”

Auditor General Jeremy Colman said the Assembly needs to work much more closely with other public bodies to maximise contributions to the programme.

Communities First projects range from health workshops to training courses and environmental clean-ups.

The report said communities had generally benefited from programmes such as these, but made 11 recommendations to the Assembly, including prioritising Communities First and supporting bid applications.




http://tinylink.com/?tPCP7sBulm

If the report claims that communities have generally benefited then why claim they have made on impact at all in over 8 years? Why has it not been monitored before? Surely schemes like this should be reviewed for it's effectiveness on an annual basis? Rolling Eyes
DavidLL

Each Communities First partnership is monitored annually with a report and a visit by the regional implementation team whilst each co-ordinator has to submit a quarterly report on progress and usually the team makes a monthly or 6-weekly update to the partnership.

I have briefly read the full report by the Audit Office today and whilst I agree entirely with some of its conclusions, it effectively looked at a snapshot of selected partnerships as far as I can see together with a questionnaire approach. I can't comment on the majority of those partnerships although I saw what I consider to be wrong assumptions with regard to some I am familar with. The partnership I worked for was never approached for a full review.

CF staff in general work very long and hard and as was pointed out by a very senior academic in Cardiff University some time ago, the staff are often under resourced with regard to what they are tasked to do in very difficult circumstances.

When I worked in CF, my genuine opinion is that we achieved a good deal and addressed many of the issues the community highlighted working in conjunction with our partnership, which includes local councillors and voluntary sector members, and partners including the council, community council and most importantly other CF partnership especially Abertillery. Some of those were:

>Two food co-ops set up in Cwmtillery and Bournville
>Bournville play park funded and installed
>Cwmtillery Lakes now a local nature reserve with CLEAN group having a key role in maintaining the area and plans for the CALON project to develop the area to produce employment and training as well as community facilities
>Weekly walking group established and tourism walking and cycling trails in planning
>Upper Gwastod Allotments revived and revamped.
>Rose Heyworth Club being revamped for usage for near future at least as community venue
>Tools 4 Ur Future as a programme to help youngsters into employment - 100 pupils across BG schools engaged in this and some youngsters now in full employment or apprenticeships
>Outreach for elderly residents with age concern
> supported Witmay w Walli projject for immigrant workers with local support
>Worked with local schools on art and culture projects
>ABERFEST festival successfully established as a weeklong community festival

and more..........Over one year period we brought in nearly 200K in additional funding. These projects result from partnership working.

Yes I personally would have loved to achieved more and I know that the current teams in Cwmtillery and Abertillery and their partnerships are working hard to try to do that. I am happy to stand by that record whilst honestly acknowledging that even more could be done with extra resources and we also made genuine mistakes at times.

The report acknowledges successes and improvements although the headlines as always will look at the 'negatives' and my concern is that consequently CF staff and partnerships might be wrongly pilloried by those ignorant of how difficult it can be.
jools

What surprised me is that Blaenau Gwent had only been awarded 2.6 million  - 1 place above monmouth in the order of magnitude - and way below Newport. How was that award determined ?

And since when has Monmouth been classed as deprived ? Perhaps these lists we are top and bottom of (i.e worst area for xxxx) misspelt Monmouth as BG
Shocked

I'm not surprised they say there has been a lack of benefit if the money hasn't been awarded and therefore spent in the most deprived area in wales.

And what did we get for the 70 pence  Confused
Dai 6

jools wrote:


And what did we get for the 70 pence  Confused


That would be the staff Christmas party Laughing

One of the problems with Communities First is that it is a groundbreaking and innovative programme. Bureaucratic methods of monitoring and evaluation have not caught up and do not do it justice. These methods are all about numbers – how many people engaged, how many pounds spent and only looks at the immediate situation.

One typical example – a young person is excluded from school or just doesn't fit into mainstream education, their long term outlook is no qualifications, no job and going to be on long-term benefits. CF makes a connection with them through one of its youth activities, gets them some volunteer work or signposts them to one of the other organisation they work with, the young person gets a qualification or training and gets a job.
In bureaucratic terms CF reports it spent twenty quid for 1 young person to attend an activity and 1 person signposted – not much to look at.
In reality it's changed 1 persons life. Taking a wider view, even penny-watching bureaucrats are given cause to be pleased – around £2500 per year saved on Jobseekers Allowance, about the same again on housing benefit, extra money gained through tax, national insurance and council tax, the NHS benefits (a person in employment costs the NHS less than one out of work, even if you discount those unable to work through sickness or disability).
The cumulative benefit is enormous!

The welsh audit office is good at what it does, but CF is not about numbers – it’s about people.
You want a clearer report on the impact of CF Question  
Go along to one of their meetings and see what they do and the hurdles they face, or visit one of their projects and talk to those involved, then write your own. Exclamation

Its too late in the day (or early in the morning) to write much more, but believe me - i'm going to be on this subject like a dog on a bone Twisted Evil
DavidLL

Exactly Dai6 - what CF does is about people and their communities and so it is often difficult to assess success or otherwise using the sort of bare statistics that the Audit Office and others mostly deal in. There are some tangible things that can be monitored and measured and so they should be, but for example, 'capacity building' (can I say that?  Wink ) is not something you can simply hang figures on.....

Incidentally to re-emphasise the point I made in my original reply, CF is about partnership working and CF is most effective where it can help create or facilitate those partnerships as it is intended to do. A major problem is that sometimes those prospective partners you need to get something done don't want to be partners  Rolling Eyes

The CF partnerships in Blaenau Gwent as a whole have done a good job in my opinion in often very difficult circumstances...
Rocke

You may have seen me use the phrase 'powered by Communities First' a few times.

To me that sums up what I've seen of CF in action.

CLEAN ( Cwmtillery Lakes Environment Action Network ) is a classic example. People concerned about their local environment, wanting to do something about it and getting the professional - and energetic - support to do it.

I see CF as a way of directly injecting adrenaline into local communities.
The dynamism of the CF work ( and workers ) I've seen and heard about does have a positive effect.

Would Cwmtillery Lakes have had some of its uplifts without CF's support of the great people who decided to do something for their community ?
Or Bourneville's Play Area ?

Perhaps that's where some of the issues I think David's referring to have arisen.
Because each CF is a very small organisation they aren't burdened by the sheer inertia of the leviathans of local and central government.
Things move quicker, and the money they are allocated is injected directly.

I was disappointed that WAG didn't think the investment had done what was hoped. Someone really should take them on atour of some of the areas helped and see for themselves.

Up here The Lakes and Tools 4UR Future ( not forgetting others and I'm sure other CFs ) most certainly have made a difference.
The problem, as ever, is that you can't compare what could ( and what we could almost guarantee ) happen - the continued deprivation, downward spiral of morale, Aber becoming a complete dead-end town,  no hope for any youngster who's more capable with their hands than their brain.

Yes, we might think this place is in a state but when I envisage what could have been for the likes of E, K and the lads I've seen on Tools 4UR Future, what could have been for Cwmtillery without the Lakes improvements I'm very grateful that the CF programme was instigated.

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