Tenants associations, school boards, and community projects are being dominated by the same small group of well-connected members, whereas a more desirable governance would reflect the contribution of a much wider range of types of participation. This is the key finding of a new report on community participation in governance by Demos for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Recently, the Government has made significant investment in community participation, suggesting that all residents are benefiting from stronger community links.
Community participation: Who benefits? questions this assumption and looks at whether good governance is really achieved through current practices and if community participation really does work for anyone.
Report co-author, Paul Skidmore, said: "Whilst it makes sense that social networks encourage communities to tackle problems themselves and access external resources such as money or support that traditional public services perhaps wouldn't achieve; the reality is that the school governor is the same person as the chair of resident's association.
"It is these already well-connected people that are making all of the decisions and as a result becoming even better connected."
In its current state, there are a number of barriers that make participation in local governance difficult for those not already involved.
The study identified inequity - the small, dominating group; exclusivity - not what you know but who you know; and dependency - the tendency to over-use key people, as the main influencing factors of participation.
Existing practices are unlikely to ensure stronger links between community participation in governance and social capital.
Participation needs to extend beyond the current small group to reflect a much wider range of type of participant. This is also more important than getting everyone to participate.
Governance structures need to fit people's participation rather than people fitting existing structures. For example, mothers gather in the school playground every morning; governance opportunities should be taken to them rather than assuming that if they don't turn up to meetings they are not interested.
True devolution of power would also be an incentive for participation. Participants need to know that the power they have will make a difference to the whole community.
"We need to change the culture of participation rather than invent more structures of participation. The long-term goal would be both to increase and to diversify the pool of people involved in governance," said Mr Skidmore. "Participation should be something we expect of all communities, and the Government should reward neighbourhoods with the appropriate funding and support."
Birmingham City Council embarked on a major recruitment of tenants to lead the way in making further improvements to local housing services. Following successes in other sectors, the Council used a large volume recruitment process called Accelerate, hosted by the recruitment organisation Trinity, to identify nearly 100 new tenant volunteers.
The purpose of the recruitment process was to get tenants involved in setting up new Constituency Tenant Groups. Ten new groups across the city will work with officers to increase tenant involvement, service improvements, and decision making at constituency level.
Over 1,000 tenants were invited to take part in one of two assessment days. Invitations were issued by postcard to all of the city's council homes, through posters and leaflets as well as direct phone calls to over 4,000 tenants.
Over 250 people attended the assessment days, where they took part in a series of group exercises and an individual interview, to assess their skills and commitment to take part in the new Constituency Tenants Groups. If successful, candidates will join the new group in their constituency when they are launched in December.
The recruitment process was able to draw on a cross-section of Birmingham's diverse communities, meaning that the make up of Constituency Tenant Groups will reflect the tenant population. Half the participants were aged under 45 years and over a quarter have a disability.
It is hoped that through the initiative, tenants will:
Source: 24dash.com
