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A NIACE briefing
Published: April 2000
Since 1998, the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) has worked to develop a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal in response to a brief from the Prime Minister ‘to develop integrated and sustainable approaches to the problems of the worst housing estates’.
NIACE welcomes many of the recommendations emerging from the work and has produced this briefing to encourage a wider discussion of these important issues among everyone concerned with adult learning. Responses to the Government’s consultation from individuals and organisations concerned with education and training will help better inform policy decisions in the future.
The main drivers of the strategy have been Policy Action Teams (PATs), each comprising Whitehall officials from different Government departments, outside experts and people working in deprived areas. Teams have examined particular areas of policy and their impact on these neighbourhoods and each has had a ministerial champion, to fast-track policy thinking in order to develop a long-term strategy. The PATs have made over 600 recommendations that are now being considered by Government departments, in cross-Government groups and in the 2000 Spending Review. At the same time the Government has published a framework for consultation, highlighting particular strategic recommendations.
This NIACE briefing summarises major themes in the framework and the key points of analysis and recommendations in the PAT report, Skills for Neighbourhood Renewal, which was published in 1999 and has fed into the framework.
Over two decades poverty has worsened in the UK, becoming more concentrated in particular neighbourhoods and estates. With poverty come serious social problems and challenges. Twenty-five per cent of crime occurs in 10 per cent of places; in deprived areas mortality rates are 30 per cent higher than elsewhere and there are 25 per cent more people with low skills and literacy in deprived neighbourhoods than elsewhere. Some have unemployment rates six times the national average.
The roots of the problem are multiple, complex and deep-seated. Those with the "get up and go" have often got up and gone, leaving a residual population with impoverished social capital. Poor neighbourhoods usually have poor services, despite special area improvement programmes. Generally the state response has been thin and ineffective, applying sticking-plaster treatment of small-scale, short-term regeneration programmes. There has been low investment in local infrastructure and in local people and little leadership or joint action which might have created a more integrated response to the failure of mainstream policies.
The neighbourhood renewal strategy aims to arrest and reverse this decline and prevent its recurrence; and to narrow the gap between deprived areas and the rest of the country, particularly on jobs, educational attainment, crime and health. A coalition of policies is needed involving action on four fronts:
 | reviving local economies; |
| reviving communities; |
| providing decent services; |
| joint action to make this happen. |
There has been a major decline in urban employment, particularly in unskilled and manual jobs. The benefits system has made low-income employment unattractive and there have been few role models in communities with little culture of work. This has contributed to and been compounded by family stress and breakdown. Some neighbourhoods have become isolated from their surrounding areas. People need networks and routes out of poverty, otherwise they simply encounter mirror reflections of themselves.
The quality of public services in these areas is generally poor. It is a struggle to recruit and retain staff. These areas have not been sufficiently prioritised, outcomes have been disappointing and the public sector is often seen as part of the problem, not the solution.
It has proved difficult to promote enterprise and jobs in these communities. There has been little incentive for employers to invest. There has also been discrimination in recruitment by race and by postcode. Levels of social capital have been low. Trust and community spirit have been undermined by a rapid turnover of people and increased fear of crime, The absence of social stability and community self-help have contributed to neighbourhood decline. Competing funding priorities and the demand for short-term results have rubbed against the grain of longer-term capacity-building.
Interventions by the state have not always been helpful. There has been insufficient spending on these areas by core public services, often leaving that to area initiatives or special funds such as the Single Regeneration Budget. Local authorities have seldom taken account sufficiently of the levels of deprivation when spending in these areas. There have been boundary disputes between departments and agencies and, until recently, a lack of partnership approaches. The failure to generate joined-up approaches has meant the exclusion from policy formation of key players who could make a significant contribution – not least the community itself and business interests.
There has been limited information and intelligence available about these small neighbourhoods where disproportionate levels of deprivation are concentrated. This has made it difficult to analyse and respond to local problems. There has also been a lack of information about ‘what works’ elsewhere and therefore consideration of its transferability to other contexts and situations.
The revival of local economies and communities depends on local people having the skills needed for work and for playing a full part in the life of their neighbourhoods. Typically, people who live in areas suffering severe social disadvantage are disproportionately likely to have few or no qualifications; poor literacy and numeracy skills; low self-confidence and coping skills. Many will have had unsatisfactory experiences of learning and will lack the motivation to improve their skills.
To be effective in the modern labour market people need a portfolio of skills including literacy and numeracy, other key transferable skills, such as teamwork and problem-solving as well as occupationally-specific skills. However, employability means not only having these skills but also being able to deploy them: the ability to present oneself and navigate one’s way through the labour market and the complex web of available opportunities for learning and development.
Despite the massive investment in education and training (£33 billion from public sector sources in 1997-8) and the direction of a significant amount of that towards socially disadvantaged areas, things are still going wrong. The PAT believes that there are three major reasons why this is so:
1. The education and training system does not, for a variety of reasons, address the needs of socially disadvantaged adults adequately
| Failings | Remedies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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NIACE believes that outreach work is essential. The size of the challenge calls for a major injection of in-service training and staff development since this aspect of provision has largely been neglected over the last 20 years and the skills have been lost. A national programme to train, deploy and support outreach workers is required to help build the infrastructure and recruit learners at local level.
NIACE also believes that it will be important to provide training and support for local people so that they can become champions of learning in their neighbourhoods. There is likely to be a limited supply of such people and it will be necessary to provide them with networks of support. It is encouraging that Government recognises the need for ‘first-rung’ confidence-building opportunities. Careful thought needs to be given to the planning and delivery of such provision. We know from projects supported by the Adult and Community Learning Fund that local communities are finding ways of building their capacity. Lessons learned from these projects must be distilled and disseminated.
It will be important for the voice of learners from disadvantaged communities to be heard in the Learning and Skills Councils. They may not always say things that providers want to hear but if responsiveness is to be ‘designed in’, facilities for feedback from users (and non-users) on the quality and accessibility of programmes have to be provided.
2. Local capacity to develop and sustain initiatives which can help improve skills is usually weak, as is local involvement in and ownership of learning activities
| Reasons for weakness | Remedies | ||||||||||||||
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Funding proposals for new post-16 education systems are insufficiently adult-friendly at present. NIACE will advise Learning and Skill Councils, nationally and sub-regionally, on how funding regulations can be made more flexible and sensitive to the needs of all adult learners – especially those from disadvantaged communities who may encounter re-entry problems.
While recognising that voluntary and community organisations have an important part to play in providing opportunities directly to learners, NIACE recognises that not all will want to do so. Support and a sensitive funding regime will be welcome. This is a long-term strategy requiring patience, perseverance and trust.
3. Local residents feel they have nothing to gain from learning and that it will make no difference to their prospects in the labour market
| Reasons for people to doubt the benefits of skill improvement | Remedies | ||||||||||||||||||
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NIACE’s view is that sensitive guidance services are crucial to encourage participation by those who live in disadvantaged areas. There is much good practice to build on and develop. People need more than information; they need advice in interpreting it and support in making choices derived from it. A proliferation of databases is not sufficient. Informed, accurate, customised personal advice on a one-to-one basis is vital, as the New Deal has shown.
Specifying aspirations is probably a wiser strategy than setting targets, when they are locally derived. Some of these neighbourhoods are subject to volatile changes in the wider socio-economic and demographic environment which can make both the setting and achieving of targets a hazardous business.
Overall there is much to welcome in these reports and recommendations. Frankly, there is much that can be re-discovered from work done in the 1970s to join up various aspects of education provision, including adult education, youth work, basic skills, family learning, community development and leadership, supported by outreach workers and tutors running workshops in local centres and on housing estates. For many people for whom education has meant little, this provides the first steps on a learning journey leading on to higher education and professional training.
The Government is keen for all concerned about neighbourhood renewal to respond to the consultation about its proposals and is open-minded about ways to take the strategy forward. It particularly wants to know whether the ideas under discussion are right and how local authorities, other service providers and voluntary and private sectors can contribute. The consultation period runs until the beginning of July 2000.
Copies of the reports can be obtained from the Social Exclusion
Unit’s website:
http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/seu
or by phone on 020 7270 6315. Views can be fed in by e-mail to the website, by attending one of the consultative events which are being held, or in writing to: Sasha McFarquhar, Social Exclusion Unit, Room 131F/1, Horse Guards Road, London, SW1P 3AL.
National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal: Framework Version for Consultation Social Exclusion Unit, 2000, available from SEU, address as above.
Skills for Neighbourhood Renewal: Local Solutions
Final Report of the Policy Action Team on Skills, DfEE, 1999, ISBN 1 84185 185 X
NIACE would welcome details of your response. Please write to Bryan Merton, NIACE, 21 De Montfort Street, Leicester LE1 7GE.
NIACE, the national organisation for adult learning, has a broad remit to promote lifelong learning opportunities for adults. NIACE works to develop increased participation in education and training. It aims to do this for those who do not have easy access because of barriers of class, gender, age, race, language, culture, learning difficulties or disabilities, or insufficient financial resources.
