Dealing with Social Exclusion

by Hilary Armstrong

New Ground 58
Winter 1999

Minister for Local Government & Regions, Hilary Armstrong outlines why tackling local environmental degradation must be at the heart of any strategy on social exclusion.

In addition to the strong moral and economic imperative, there are powerful environmental arguments for tackling social exclusion. As we have learnt from the experience of Agenda 21, when local solutions are deployed to global problems, local communities are incredibly resourceful at tackling complex problems in a sustainable way.

But to do this they need effective government action at all levels. This action needs to take a modern form - not only is it inadequate and indeed counterproductive to have a 'Whitehall knows best' attitude - nor is it helpful to supplant that for a 'Town Hall knows best' approach either.

As part of our strong commitment to passing power back to local people the Government is giving local councils new powers to promote the well-being of their communities. In doing this we expect them to have regard to sustainable development. We want to see local councils enabling their communities to develop pathways to social inclusion at the neighbourhood level.

This will mean creating modernised governance arrangements which maximise local participation and involve communities at an earlier stage in shaping the future vision of their community. Local councils will need to demonstrate that consultation is real - this requires new ways of working on the part of councillors and council officers alike - a more discursive approach to local policy making and a more open government locally.

In setting up the Social Exclusion Unit and outlining the Government's strategy for neighbourhood renewal, the Prime Minister made it clear that bridging the gap between the poorest neighbourhoods and the rest of Britain will require imagination, persistence and commitment. There are no quick fix solutions - it will require a long-term commitment but it starts by empowering local communities to shape a better future for themselves.

Whilst it is rapidly becoming a cliché, the key to developing sustainable local solutions is joined-up thinking and working at all levels. Nationally, under the direction of the Social Exclusion Unit, we have set up eighteen cross-departmental teams which have deliberately drawn on expertise from local authorities, the business community, the voluntary sector, faith communities and social entrepreneurs to tackle the 'wicked issues' and quickly propose national policy changes to facilitate better coordination and collaboration.

These Policy Action Teams or PATs were set punishing deadlines and have responded impressively with a series of recommendations which are now being drawn together within a new national strategy for neighbourhood renewal, which will be launched early next year. The PAT teams - looking at issues as challenging as teenage pregnancy, neighbourhood management, financial exclusion, and transport have drawn on best practice from across the country and further afield and have come up with exciting and radical holistic solutions.

The real challenge will be for Government - centrally and locally - to translate these proposals into effective local joined-up action which unlocks the potential of local communities and builds the capacity of communities to govern themselves. The lessons from Local Agenda 21 initiatives are that when you give local people the space to design their own local solutions they can be much more innovative and resourceful than they are often given credit for by planners and policy makers. Seeing a neighbourhood through the eyes of a child, for example - as many of the LA21 initiatives have sought to do through 'planning-for-real' exercises in schools - is very instructive and challenges many previously held assumptions about what is best for the community.

New Deal for Communities is not just about investing much-needed resources in run-down areas - it is about developing a new approach to community regeneration which maximises the involvement by local people in mapping their local futures and, crucially, ensures local people take ownership of delivering a better local environment. As communities have discovered to their cost there is nothing more soul destroying than to see new community facilities vandalised by the very people they were meant to benefit. This is less likely to happen if the disenchanted and disenfranchised are properly involved in the design and delivery of these community assets and a real sense of ownership is engendered from the outset.

In practical terms that means making sure that local people have the skills required to access the jobs created locally as part of neighbourhood renewal. It means linking up schools with the wider community in, for example, meeting the literacy needs of the whole family, whilst addressing the issues of standards in the classroom. It involves ensuring that we build connected communities and widen participation in lifelong learning. It can mean developing healthy living centres which offer holistic approaches to primary healthcare. It could mean ensuring those families who are vulnerable to loan sharks, have access to community credit unions.

But it also means we make sure that any new built environment created is properly planned and designed - by local people - to maximise community safety and access to green space, reducing dependency upon the car and encouraging people to walk. In many urban areas isolation is a major cause of ill health and social exclusion. We need to ensure that neighbourhoods in their very design foster neighbourliness - creating safer open spaces, investing in well-managed local parks with visible staff and safer play areas, initiating home zones - are all ways in which the public domain can enhance community life.

None of these things happen automatically. They require strong community leadership and clearly responsible neighbourhood managers to make them happen and ensure that the numerous agencies involved at local level work together effectively. Local people need to know who is in charge and want to have direct access to local decision-makers when things go wrong.

At a strategic level, they require visible leaders too. The Government is putting in place the framework but it will be for local councils - led in many instances by directly elected mayors to come up with local strategies to tackle social exclusion and foster sustainable communities. It will be for local communities to agree integrated transport strategies which may utilise congestion charges to invest in local improvements to public transport. And it will be for local leaders to champion the kind of urban renaissance our forthcoming Urban White Paper is designed to herald.

Many councils are already developing visioning exercises which feed into the development of their performance plans and involve a wider group of local stakeholders in mapping out local strategies. It is vital that these plans are not only endorsed by public sector practitioners but by the wider community too, through imaginative use of new consultation methods like citizens panels, juries and focus groups as well as locally-based more traditional surveys and public meetings. Experience demonstrates that given the opportunity to participate in devising local solutions to issues that affect their immediate neighbourhood local people do respond positively.