Local Strategic Partnerships: Shaping their future

The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is an independent non-governmental organisation and charity. Its members come from a range of places where adults learn: in colleges and local community settings; in workplaces, prisons and universities as well as in their homes through the media and information technology. NIACE's work is supported by a wide range of bodies including the DfES (with which it has a formal voluntary sector compact) and other Departments of State, by the Local Government Association and by the Learning and Skills Council. The ends to which NIACE activities are directed can be summarised as being to secure more, different and better opportunities for adult learners, especially those who benefited least from their initial education. NIACE has development capacity in each of the nine English regions and in this work has engaged with LSPs.

Our response is based on these interactions and on our comprehensive research and development in the field on adult learning and skills, a very substantial portion of which relates to adult learning in disadvantaged communities and the role learning plays in regeneration.

NIACE knows from discussions with partners in the English regions that there is considerable interest in this consultation and its capacity to add value to the infrastructure arrangements as they affect adult learners.

NIACE’s response takes into account these views and focuses on the effects on adult learning of the proposed arrangements. In general the consultation concentrates on structures as opposed to what those structures will deliver, but where learning is mentioned it tends to be connected with the development needs of young people or the skills needed to deliver sustainable community strategies. Both aspirations are laudable in themselves but they are both connected to learning for adults referred to in the current Skills Strategy as personal and community development learning (PCDL). We strongly urge that due consideration of the pending skills white paper is taken in redrafting the paper.

From NIACE’s viewpoint, learning is central to both economic and social regeneration. Indeed recent work by the Learning and Skills Council in a number of English regions has stressed the importance of more joined up approaches to skills delivery. However much of this remains an aspiration rather than a reality. Arguably recent years have seen the emergence of competing priorities which have meant the privileging of a narrow skills agenda over that around inclusion, despite a statutory responsibility for the latter.

NIACE believes there is a clear role for LSPs, and the holistic vision that underpins the approach, in bringing together the skills and inclusion agendas.

In the regions there are also ambiguities which need to be addressed in government messages around regionalization, localness and national control. The review of LSPs provides an opportunity to resolve some of these and identify respective roles and responsibilities.

The restructuring of RDAs, Government Offices and the LSC reflect shifting priorities and the prioritisation of the children and young people’s agenda at the expense of lifelong learning. Government Offices have been issued with a list of essential and desirable responsibilities with adult skills as one of the latter. We urge that this does not continue in the establishing of LSPs.

LAA ‘blocks’ of activity are also largely unhelpful in taking forward the adult learning agenda in the regions. We have supported initial regional agency thinking in some regions around an ‘Every Adult Matters’ agenda to parallel those in Every Child Matters, in Children’s Trusts and LAAs. It is our view shared with government offices that we have worked with that these policies are interlinked with the development of regional skills partnerships.

We also believe some urgent thinking needs to be done in reconciling the concept of ‘contestability’ with the parallel and long-standing notion of partnership. If LSPs are to become the ‘partnership of partnerships’ for an area some critical thinking will be crucial.

The link with learning partnerships is less well developed in the consultation than we would have hoped. NIACE’s work in this area has shown that learning partnerships work best where they are aligned to LSPs (eg in Halton, Liverpool, Lincoln and Rutland). County Durham is developing the same model of alignment and local learning plans are being developed in tandem with regeneration elements to ensure synergy across the piece. Testbed Learning Communities developed through the Skills Strategy have proved their worth to LSPs in delivering on the Regional Skills agenda in deprived areas on the LSPs’ behalf. But there needs to be an investment in infrastructure that is able to support this alignment at a time when investment in adult learning not directly linked to the adult skills agenda is being squeezed. Indications are such that alignment is more easily managed where there are single tier authorities. We recognize that one of the challenges of the consultation is to work within an imperfect system where there are unitary, district and county councils.

NIACE believes that adult learning is key to the delivery of integrated local services, the aspiration behind LSPs. We also support the view that ‘partnerships only work well where they are developed locally and reflect the local situation.’ In doing so, in the most disadvantaged areas, they will necessarily involve those adults who have least benefited from the statutory education phase. For these adults, community engagement (in LSPs for example) will start with informal adult learning opportunities delivered in their own communities. For the development of LSPs not to reflect this well researched fact, will be in our view to omit the foundation stone from the whole initiative.

LSPs, Sustainable Community Strategies and LAAs

In principle we agree. The role implies a responsibility for ensuring the contribution of a wide ranging and inclusive set of stakeholders and groups, including the support and training of officers and local groups that would make this possible, with the process being a contribution to the achievement of the vision. The management of this level of collaboration will require enhanced skills for partnership managers. A comprehensive and transparent brokerage role in relation to the development of partnerships to deliver the vision is also implied.

NIACE believes that the role of learning in making sure the process is open and creative should not be underestimated. This is why adult learning, outside partnership capacity building, is important.

As noted earlier in our general comments, the LAA blocks may not be fit for purpose in all instances. We would urge ODPM to consider other approaches such as those indicated in NIACE’s initial research on ‘Every Adult Matters’ aligning PSAs to the same five themes as Every Child Matters. This is part of our work for government in the South East of England on Action for Communities.

Regional/sub-regional engagement

Greater coordination is essential especially where, due to national planning pressures, regional and sub-regional plans are ‘out of synch’ with Sustainable Community Strategies. To counteract this asynchronicity requires high level coordination between regional bodies and the LSPs . To achieve this communications need to be more systemic than they are at present.

By aligning planning processes and ensuring that planning remits, timetables and contact details for those with lead planning responsibilities are made widely available with GOs and the Regional Assembly or delegated regional group (such as Sustainability West Midlands in that region) having a specific responsibility developing a map of different plans/planning responsibilities and ensuring a widely known process for communication.

Clearly there needs to be explicit agreement on respective roles and responsibilities in taking this forward, and a greater understanding amongst partners of what other stakeholders have to contribute.

At our recent our recent Developing Skills for Regeneration Conference funded by the Northern Way regions, it was clear that some LSPs felt that they did not fully understand regional structures and the roles of regional agencies.

NIACE has been asked by GOSE to run a workshop for managers involved in supporting local authorities with the development of their LAAs to raise their awareness of adult learning and its potential to contribute to all four blocks of the LAAs. This approach to capacity building could become a model for assisting regional influencers and facilitators to understand the linkages between policy strands and to be able to talk confidently about joining up different aspects of local sustainable communities strategies with LSP colleagues.

Links to local plans

We believe it is very important that this link includes plans and planning arrangements for adult learning and skills which are sub-regional, regional and national rather than local. It is also essential if LSPs are to raise their credibility with their direct customers as commissioners of services.

Sustainable Community Strategies

Yes, but it is important to ensure that quantitative evidence is complemented by qualitative evidence that relates residents’ stories of how to live in an area. There needs to be more research on how to carry out impact measurement. As noted above, NIACE is concerned with the action planning process at this stage as the omission of lifelong learning will have serious consequences. We strongly urge that this is reconsidered and that GOs are given authority to make sure it happens.

The majority of individuals are focused on their part of the terrain and are not accustomed to cross-sectoral working and making links across policy and economic areas. It is crucial that LSP employees and leaders have these skills and others involved receive the training to do so. Structures and approaches to development should over time shift thinking so that those involved are able to work across boundaries more easily. Longer term, Sector Skills Councils, the Academy for Sustainable Communities and other relevant agencies should work with awarding bodies to identify generic skills and knowledge requirements and ensure that they become essential components of vocational and professional initial training and ongoing development.

Neighbourhood Engagement

In renewal areas a shift of emphasis from focus on deprivation to community credit would help by assisting those working in these areas to seek out the skills and potential contributions of residents. We are concerned about tendencies to ‘pathologise’ communities as deprived and therefore dysfunctional, whereas many can make very positive contributions given the opportunity and learning support to develop skills and most importantly confidence. Research has shown this is often a pre-requisite for getting involved in a whole range of activity. Learning is often the catalyst for such development.

NIACE would advise that LSPs develop more creative approaches to community consultation, using existing structures where they exist, to ensure that individuals from different communities in an area have opportunities to make their voices heard – and to learn from large body of existing research and good practice.

There is plenty of good practice out there to provide an off the shelf toolkit for LSPs. Some models developed within the Testbed Learning Communities initiative provide models for this. An example is the Blackburn with Darwen Neighbourhood Learning Planning provision where residents develop skills to make changes in their local areas.

To secure continued engagement of residents require mechanisms for feeding back where their views have gone, what has happened in response – or not. These should be accompanied by awareness-raising to ensure that those receiving the messages understand why they should listen.

In summary we believe that the role of the LSP should be to ensure

We believe this both to be the more efficient and effective option. The proviso is if the district level LSP has a good relationship with the top-tier authority and is able to work with the top-tier authority to achieve engagement for its functions. This will require greater levels of collaboration in some areas than hitherto exist.

Links with Local Development Framework

NIACE believes that there is an important issue here around how to make effective links between place-based policies (LDF) and people-based policies. The sustainable communities strategy offers opportunities to make sense of the interdependencies between the two. The role of the LSP could be to work with the spatial planning teams in terms of planning coherence and prioritization of local messages.

It would be helpful if a requirement to demonstrate linkages is incorporated into the guidance for sustainable community strategies.

Two-tier areas

Yes we believe that this is essential in order to avoid confusion of roles in the ‘middle ground’ . Further work needs to be done on how these roles interface

LSP as the partnership of partnerships

We agree. They should certainly be central to it, as long as key areas or issues for individuals and communities are able to be encompassed in the themes.

At one time Learning Partnerships were to be ‘learning arms’ of the LSPs. Learning Partnerships are now disappearing or changing shape as LSCs start to discontinue funding or determine a limited set of parameters or priorities, not always in consultation with local communities.

To retain lifelong learning as a cross cutting theme requires a specialist learning partner member that develops an understanding of the multiple contributions that can make to other themes including regeneration and sustainable development. This could also include training and capacity development for partners

While coterminosity can bring problems, it is difficult to see a more suitable solution. The anomalies thrown up by coterminosity trend to be known problems and thus easier to recognize and resolve.

It may be worth considering the model of Children’s Trusts in thinking about the response to this question, including the relationship that Children’s Trusts are developing with Children and Young People’s Partnerships and LSPs.

In relation to adult learning, one of the ideas currently being considered in relation to Action for Communities (in the South East of Engand) is whether the formation of something like an ‘adult trust’ might be a helpful way forward, incorporating the LSC’s recent commitment to establishing local planning partnerships for personal and community development learning, but going beyond these to offer wider opportunities to join up public service delivery, for example with health, social services and welfare reform.

Work in the North East on ‘Every Adult Matters’ (through the Regional Adult Learning Forum) endorses the approach in the South East, quite independently of its genesis.

Ensuring wide representation

No response.

No response.

Providing a legislative foundation

Yes, we believe that this is an effective approach adopted by other EU States.

There would need to be clear guidelines and boundaries.

Any obligations would need to recognise disparity between partners in relation to resources and staff capacity issues. We believe government should not establish requirements that in practice function as barriers to participation for small organizations.

No response.

Yes.

Accountability between partners

In principle a good idea if these are related to the level of resource partners bring to the table. Such protocols or ‘partnership agreements’ should be straightforward and generated through organic process arising from the work. It is important to avoid spending disproportionate amount of time creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Yes, without becoming too inspectorial, this should be part of a public value approach to sustainable communities which moves beyond measurement of success in narrow PSA output target terms and allows for a broader recognition of the importance of effective governance and processes that help to build communities’ recognition of the value of public services.

Involvement of local councillors

Linking with the democratic process, accountability and scrutiny.

A role in listening to community concern and ides for developing their communities, advocating the views of their ward residents in Local Authority planning and development and in reporting responses back to community voices. LSPs could be one vehicle for this and in brokering more grass roots activity.

No response.

As for Consultation question 6 above we reiterate our view about the potential of lifelong learning for equipping residents to engage and those carrying out engagement and involvement activities with the understanding and skills to do so. Work with local community activists and social entrepreneurs as they have the ideas, contacts and trusts to get things done.

This means working in different ways and responding to local priorities – an issue is tensions between these and organisation’s targets or funding priorities, but have to resolve if we are to have genuine dialogue and engagement.

Overall, we think the policy will be most effective if it is promoted as having longevity and not ‘just another initiative’. Having said that there is lot of good practice to learn from in this respect.

NIACE believes there is a need to develop progression routes from entry level to higher education through partnership of adult learning providers and awarding bodies. Motivation needs to be generated and community/learning champions and ambassadors are providing ways of stimulating involvement in Action for Communities and the learning needed to underpin successful involvement. Models should be developed at a regional level and translated into local provision available ranging from provision to meet specific skills or knowledge requirements, to entry routes to learning and training for work. This should draw on the curriculum developed by the Academy for Sustainable Communities.

Building on the experience of Testbed Learning Communities and wider learning cities and learning communities networks, NIACE is working with the LSC in the South East to develop a strategic framework for learning in communities, based on collaborative approaches to planning and funding at local and regional level. The intention is to support an ‘every adult matters’ agenda by co-ordinating a broad and balanced range of opportunities for adults to learn for a range of purposes: to improve their employability; to promote health and wellbeing; take advantage of cultural opportunities and support their engagement in a range of community activities.

LSPs are well placed to offer a community leadership role to these developments, brokering strategic arrangements at local level to offer fair and transparent ways for communities to engage with, influence and contribute to the development of their sustainable communities. The engagement of local people in creating sustainable communities is critically important. In our report to the Government Office for the South East South East Learning Communities Network Research (Dec 2004) we say:

‘The development of individual and collective learning approaches should go hand in hand in a learning community. Without a dual approach, individuals who succeed are more likely to move away, leaving the community disadvantaged. On the other hand, building the capability of communities and a collective base of learning and skills should go hand in hand with the development of sustainable communities.’

Need to develop understanding of principles of sustainable communities, especially centrality of people not buildings and structures, bringing about social justice and ensuring equality and diversity in context of the Egan skills set, political awareness and understanding of local political contexts.

Most important is to develop understanding of how to work in partnership. A recent study of skills needs and developing capacity in East Lancashire carried out by Elevate found that LSPs – and most other stakeholders - lacked understanding of overarching policy and planning, and of partnership working - how they could work together to improve delivery of their respective services in a partnering environment.

The study also identified a shortfall in leadership capability. The qualities required for successful leadership identified at our recent Northern Way Skills for Regeneration conference were: passion, motivation, charisma, vision, flexibility, open mindedness, being inclusive, confidence in uncertain environments, political awareness, effective community engagement skills, understanding capacity issues, creating common agendas, being a good influencer, having developed communication skills, listening well and using information well, and effective partnership working.

There was the recognition that individuals do not have all these skills but there was the need to build teams in which members’ skills are complementary. This learning does not all have to be through course-based provision. Work based approaches (eg mentoring, coaching, work shadowing, networking and skills sharing) offer alternative models.

Contact Officer:
Mark Ravenhall
Senior Development Officer
Regions