September 2011
1 post
Local communities influencing public service...
Posted by Rachel Rowney, NANM programme manager
The Cotmanhay Neighbourhood Management Group (CNMG) in Erewash, Derbyshire was a resident led partnership group which was formed in 2006 to lead the development and delivery of the Safer Stronger Communities Funded Programme. Supported by a neighbourhood manager and backed by a government grant the group worked to fund local community projects and...
July 2011
1 post
NANM to lead learning and networking for Big Local...
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM Director
Today it was announced that the Community Development Foundation (CDF) led consortium has been confirmed by the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) as the body which will set up and manage the new independent Big Local Trust which will distribute BIG’s £200m endowment to 150 local areas over the next 10 years. The consortium has been working on the business...
May 2011
1 post
Ex-Salford neighbourhood manager to star at...
With so many colleagues currently facing uncertain futures, it’s nice to hear of someone making a positive career choice and successfully pursuing their dream. One such story is that of Tony Walsh, a former Neighbourhood Manager with Salford MBC who will be Poet-In Residence at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. Tony is 6 feet 5 inches tall and is also known as Longfella!
Tony,...
April 2011
2 posts
Why playing it safe is the biggest risk
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM Director
John Houghton has blogged here about the tragic loss of services created specifically “because the frontline public services who were paid to help these people in the first place were repeatedly failing.” The gist is that if as much passion had gone into tackling failures in local public services over the past twelve years as has been seen in...
Salami slicing versus reform
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM Director
Salami-slicing is - cutting funding for neighbourhood-based staff who carry out home safety checks for older residents, even though this is a fraction of the cost of hospital stays for older people who have accidents at home.
Public sector reform is - brokering deals in which Primary Care Trusts pay neighbourhood management and Fire Service teams set fees for...
March 2011
3 posts
Community Organisers – what could it mean for...
Posted by Rachel Rowney, NANM programme manager
Locality (the organisation formed out of the merged DTA and Bassac) is now gearing up to train 5,000 Community Organisers having won the Cabinet Office contract. It is hoped that this new organisation will help realise the Prime Minister’s vision of an ‘army’ of individuals that are “catalysts of change and community action”.
But what are...
NANM gets EU funding for social media project
Posted by Rachel Rowney, NANM programme manager
We’ve just found out that the NANM, along with a number of European partners, have been successful in their grant application to the European Union. Together we will run a programme supporting neighbourhoods with high levels of ethnic diversity use social media to improve communication between communities and with local public sector bodies.
...
A vital brokering role in the new wave...
Posted by Rachel Rowney, NANM programme manager
Halifax Central neighbourhood management team have just won a well deserved place on NESTA’s Neighbourhood Challenge (out of several neighbourhood management teams who got onto the shortlist). A few months back Manton Community Alliance were selected as one of the Big Society Network’s participatory budgeting pilots. It wouldn’t be...
December 2010
1 post
From estates to neighbourhoods
Posted by ben Lee, NANM Director
Last week we were delighted to host the first working session of our new action team with social landlords which we’re facilitating with colleagues from New Realities. The five social landlords taking part are all in the process of developing neighbourhood agreements (or charters or whatever you want to call them) over the coming months.
We established the...
October 2010
2 posts
CSR cuts against localism
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM Director
The devil is surely in the detail of the Comprehensive Spending Review. However, the reaction so far from neighbourhood groups is that there is little to back up Coalition rhetoric on localism – the effect in reality may be the opposite.
Our post-CSR online poll of NANM members found only one in five thought the CSR helped localism and neighbourhood...
6 tags
The CSR - It’s not just about cost, it’s about...
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM Director
The most pressing CSR challenge to weigh up not just the raw costs of a service, but to hold those against the benefits – so even if new aircraft carriers were a ‘good deal’, they can only be justified if they bring the desired benefits (i.e. protecting us from the most likely threats). But in a growing number of councils, community and neighbourhood initiatives...
August 2010
1 post
'Do not sue' Part II: stories and leads wanted!
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM director
In our last blog post John P Houghton and I floated the idea of an Easy-Waiver (loosely based on what you’d sign to hire a mountain bike, go paintballing etc). We were also inspired by the Social App concept created by David Wilcox. It’s intended to help the public get on and do things like mow a grass verge, clear a patch of derelict ground etc which...
July 2010
3 posts
Building a "do" not "sue" culture
Posted by Ben Lee and John P. Houghton
At the NANM, we’ve been talking to people and swapping ideas about how to get round the practical barriers to taking small but important actions at street level.
One issue keeps coming up over and again. Local residents wants to do something simple and straightforward, like tidy up grass verges, clean up rubbish, turn a patch of neglected land into a...
Community Associations and the Big Society - send...
Just a quick one… Lord Wei, recently appointed as the Government’s Adviser on the Big Society, has invited the NANM’s Ben Lee to a breakfast roundtable at the Cabinet Office to discuss Community Associations in relation to the Big Society. If you have any thoughts, responses or questions you’d like Ben to pose on behalf of the NANM please email us before August 4th at...
Breaking down the barriers to the Big Society -...
At the NANM, we’re worried that people coming up with Big Society ideas in their neighbourhoods are still being frustrated by unimaginative and unnecessary bureaucracy.
To make the Big Society a reality, especially in the poorest neighbourhoods, local public services have to be responsive to communities’ efforts to do more for themselves.
But in practice, we know that the passion and...
June 2010
2 posts
The great re-wiring - explaining the big society
Posted by John Houghton
A number of people have asked for more on my “much tweeted” energy generation analogy that I used to describe the big society at a recent New Start/NANM roundtable.
Basically, I was arguing that the job of creating the big society is as profound, as problematic and as potentially rewarding as the move toward localised energy generation.
Both are focused on creating...
Last week's cuts to neighbourhood funding will...
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM Director
Last Thursday CLG announced £1.6bn of in-year cuts to local government - representing a mammoth 25% share of the overall Treasury cuts of £6.2bn. Within this £50m will be cut from Working Neighbourhoods Fund and £125m from LAA performance reward grant. In the breakdown some local authorities are set to lose over £1million between now and March 2011 from these...
May 2010
2 posts
Action not just Reaction
Posted By Ben Lee, NANM Director
Twitter: @NM_Association
Yesterday we co-hosted a lively roundtable debate with New Start. The aim was to explore how the coalition Government’s drive to create a larger role for civil society (aka the Big Society) might play out in practice – and how we might play our part.
A full report will be up on www.regenfuture.org shortly thanks to the efforts of...
Neighbourhoods - Will Push come to Nudge?
Posted by Ben Lee NANM Director
The new Government’s commitment to train community organisers in every neighbourhood has been derided by some - the most barbed put-downs often coming from the Right. If delivered however, this presents a massive opportunity. And for those asked to implement this policy it presents a real challenge – how exactly does Government become a ‘community enabler’?...
April 2010
2 posts
This one's urgent!
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM Director
Many of you will have seen the radical step we have taken of changing the cost of attending our 12 May conference to ‘Pay what you can afford’. It wasn’t something we did lightly.
So why have we done it? Simple - it’s a reflection of how important we feel it is to bring together colleagues involved in neighbourhood working, urgently in...
How Fair is the Big Society?
Posted by Ben Lee, NANM director
The idea of the Big Society is gaining momentum and truly it is appealing. But what worries us is can we use it to help citizens realise their fullest human potential, or will it mean those with fewer qualifications, less income, and lacking influential social networks, lose out? i.e. is it fair?
Increasingly we hear “fairness” dismissed as whinging, what...
March 2010
1 post
Community information a new way
A while ago we blogged on fixmystreet and now - in the same vein - comes the world of Nixle. Nixle is a community information service where location-based information is pushed out directly to the community by SMS, web and email. Nixle says it is the “first authenticated and secure service for connecting municipal agencies, schools and community organisations with residents in real...
February 2010
2 posts
Stop moaning and get local!
If Britain’s news media - and its tabloid press in particular - were a person it would probably be diagnosed with several or all of the following disorders: Clinical Depression (for its negative thinking), Schizophrenia (finding it hard to concentrate on a single topic for a sustained period, delusional thinking), Anxiety (constant worrying, irritability) and Bipolar Disorder (extreme mood swings,...
6 tags
Co-production doesn't have to be complicated
It can often seem that the more people talk about co-production the more complex it becomes. But if you look at examples where the concept has been put into practice it actually gets simpler - and people do just ‘get it’. At least that’s what we’ve seen through neighbourhood management…
Five examples from neighbourhood-based teams
1: Agreeing with community...
January 2010
1 post
The white working class
In a feature in Prospect on what was ‘overrated’ and ‘underrated’ in 2009 the magazine’s editor David Goodheart had this to say:
“The idea of the neglected white working class deserves less respect. For a start, 89 per cent of Britons are white and two-thirds self-identify as working class—so they are the majority. But they comprise so many sub-groups of varying fortunes that the category...
December 2009
2 posts
(Local) Knowledge is Power
Joseph Rowntree have just published research on a question which fascinates and vexes us: why are poorer streets dirtier than richer streets? Nothing can explain away this unfairness. Poor neighbourhoods don’t ‘deserve’ less clean streets; it’s a visible problem; and interventions are simple (road-sweepers, bins, repairs).
So why? Obviously deprivation factors overlap with factors linked to...
We hope the police speak to neighbourhood managers...
Today’s Policing White Paper announces support for at least ten ‘neighbourhood agreement’ pathfinders focused on community safety, justice and anti-social behaviour. These rights-and-responsibility ‘deals’ will be agreed between local public services and local groups of active citizens.
Neighbourhood agreements are accepted as an important tool in public service reform, and the localisation of...
November 2009
2 posts
The Lib Dem’s on localism
Yesterday Ben and I presented to the Lib Dem Localism and Decentralisation working group in Portcullis House, Westminster. We majored on the delivery and accountability of local services and were asked some tricky questions about the tension between councilors and neighbourhood management boards; the benefits beyond cleaner and greener; how much it costs and – crucially - whether It saves money;...
Wardens walk the plank
Here at the National Association for Neighbourhood Management we are only too aware of the impact that the end of ring-fenced government grants can have on neighbourhood interventions. While we remain relatively positive on the future of neighbourhood management post-central government funding there seems to be more uncertainty surrounding neighbourhood warden schemes.
In the past few months...
October 2009
1 post
The Smell of Virtue (or Smells Like Broken...
A new report by the Brigham Young University called the Smell of Virtue has revealed that people are unconsciously fairer and more generous when they are in clean-smelling environments.
Participants were engaged in several tasks, the only difference being that one of the rooms was scented and the other was not. The first experiment evaluated fairness - participants received $12 of real money and...
September 2009
4 posts
Want to boost the local economy? Print some money
Brixton has started printing its own money - the Brixton Pound (B£) - to encourage residents to shop locally and boost the local economy.
Following an online poll of local heroes the notes feature the pictures of Brixton Black Women’s Group founder Olive Morris, creator of Gaia theory James Lovelock, political theorist CLR James, and Vincent Van Gogh (who apparently lived in Brixton for 2...
‘Total Place’ driving efficiency
The need for greater efficiency in the public sector has moved from rhetoric into action with the launch of the Total Place initiative.
Total Place is being piloted across 13 areas, and involves adding up all public spending going into an area – through councils, police, health, benefits, courts, probation services and so on – then looking at new ways of getting the best value for that money.
...
Tories: control shifting to neighbourhoods?
On Tuesday the Conservative housing spokesman, Grant Shapps MP, addressed the Royal Institute of British Architects. He used the occassion to pick up the Control Shift Green Paper theme of devolving more power to communities.
It was the clearest sign yet that the Conservative policy machine has latched on to neighbourhood management - though while keen on the principle, they might still only...
August 2009
2 posts
Barnet Air
Barnet council in north London has taken inspiration from budget airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair in developing their new business model. The basic premise is that every local resident will be entitled to a core service but can access more or an improved service by paying extra. For example residents will be able to jump the queue for planning consents if they pay a charge (Easyjet’s Speedy...
Why e-empowerment is just as good for councils as...
A new report from the Cabinet Office highlights international examples of citizen-empowerment and talks about the empowering effect of online data and information e.g. crime maps, school exam results, services provided by nurseries etc. We agree, and that’s one reason the NANM team are big fans of the UK’s own Fix My Street website which lets users report local environmental problems, then tracks...
May 2009
2 posts
Pics from the NANM Spring Conference 2009
Study visit season is upon us
Our very successful study visits are back! We’ll be kick-starting the season with a visit to Together NMP in Tranmere, Wirral who have been busy ensuring the life of the NM team extends beyond its life as a CLG pathfinder. One of the few Pathfinders to be based within a housing association, the team is going to be continued with help from the local community development trust. In return the NMP...
April 2009
2 posts
Government belts set to tighten
On Wednesday Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected
to announce £15bn of spending cuts over the next few years when he delivers his
Budget statement. Labour thinking is not far off the Tories - with shadow
chancellor George Osborne’s warning that a Conservative Government would
be forced to implement spending cuts and increase taxes.
While the Tories have been careful about revealing
detailed...
The blogging conference
Welcome to the NANM’s new interactive blog!
The blog will keep you and your colleagues up to date with the latest in news and good practice in the world of neighbourhood working. Unlike anything we’ve done before it will be a ‘live’ resource for you, our members to enter into a dialogue, sharing your thoughts and experiences on all things NM.
We will also be holding regular opinion polls to...