The highlights, a checklist, and doing small things better

Checklist 2: How to facilitate coastal delivery

Local Authorities can rate their leadership and delivery capacity using the second checklist. Applying 'effective leadership' and 'enabling management' will lead to a focus on the customer, working through partnerships. Delivery can be assessed by examining the resources, skills and quality of provision.

1. Going interactive - Engaging local communities, listening to customers

Facilitation has been most successful there has been a commitment to building long-term engagement with coastal communities. A continuing dialogue enables local people to see the decision-making and investment as legitimate. Consulting communities regularly  builds confidence and thus, the process strengthens effective governance.

Engaging communities can be time consuming and resource hungry and will be quickly seen through if it is in any way token. Nevertheless effective engagement can be done on a relatively modest scale by supporting communities to take the lead.

Listening to customers can be measured by the tangible difference made to the actions that are planned and implemented. The engagement process should take the opportunity to add value to proposals, and develop greater ownership and responsibility.

Self-assessment questions.

 - your  success in building long term engagement? Does the public trust the process?

- your use of consultation to influence the planning and delivery of services? Are there examples of feedback being used to change service delivery?

-your effectiveness at communicating the results of consultation? Are you really reaching all groups of the population?


2. Policy development and reviewing strategies.

Local Authorities have an important role to play in enabling the partnership to develop a Strategy or Action Plan to guide their work. Local strategies will need to be in line with regional plans, if they are going to attract external resources. There will increasingly be a requirement to ensure that plans are consistent with the sustainable development framework. A broad based partnership will be able to link economic, social and environmental plans and policies.

Successful facilitation strikes the balance between the strategic and local through pragmatic partnership. Establishing the right representation and ensuring effective communications between partners is key to achieving this. Local authorities have the knowledge, drawn in many cases from their statutory responsibilities and dedicated resources, to understand conditions at the local scale. They can use the EA to help all stakeholders build a shared understanding of local issues. Furthermore, the Council can demonstrate its leadership through aligning its own plans and actions with that of the partnership.

Some LAs consider that their entire area is a coastal economy, and have subsequently aligned their Corporate Plan with the Strategy or Action Plan prepared by the local partnership. Others have focused on a set of actions and objectives as the priority and have set out to deliver activity on the ground that will support the core objective (e.g. job creation).

How do you rate?

- your understanding of and involvement in regional plans, and plans of stakeholders?

- your skills to facilitate the development of a shared vision, involving partners and the local community?

- your dedication to the local economy? Are the   authority's own functions focused on finding new ways of realising rural revival?

- your experience of using local intelligence to develop strategies? Are there examples of innovative solutions to local problems?

Servicing the partnership.

Partnerships are essential in the activities of many LAs, and not least in resort regeneration where there are extensive internal and external delivery organisations. Delivering coastal regeneration increasingly relies upon the resources of a wide range of organisations operating locally, regionally or nationally. LAs have been responsible for bringing those organisations together into mutually reinforcing partnerships. In so doing, LAs have provided strategic direction without necessarily having to lead, have developed local sensitivity for delivery of mainstream services, and ensured maximum access to competitive funding regimes.

Local Authorities do not have to lead partnerships or be seen to dominate their activities. Nevertheless it is important to support the organisation through guidance and administration. Membership criteria and the roles of members are often set out in a written constitution or other form of agreement.

Servicing the partnership will include

• organising meetings and maintaining records,
• enabling members to network and share information 
• encouraging all stakeholders to take part
•  managing sensitivities between partners
• providing training and development to enable all partners to contribute fully to the partnership
• communicating activities and successes to the partnership
• creating links with other relevant strategic and community partnerships
  

How do you rate?

- your resource availability to guide and administer the partnership? Can you support the structure long term?

- your understanding of the responsibilities, history and aspirations of members?

- your ability to communicate and network with members on a continuing basis?

- your support for the partnership through sound procedures and administration? Is accountability clear?


4. Building local voluntary and community capacity.

Successful facilitation organisations achieve greater value for money when projects are delivered jointly with other delivery agencies. These agencies may be official bodies (e.g. GOs, RDAs), a local forum (e.g. town centre partnership, residents group or chamber of trade), or a community group dealing with one issue (e.g. after school club, local charity or trust). The capacity of these partners to deliver will substantively influence value for money.

A vital pre-requisite is to apply the 'can do' culture and encourage the delivery organisation to do the same. One committed officer spending a few hours a week supporting a specific project can make a great deal of difference. Similarly, investment in developing a local champion can go a long way towards developing the capacity of their community.

Aspects of building delivery capacity include

•  initiating new forums and action groups, and supporting local champions
• assisting groups to identify their needs and priorities, and understand options for change
• encourage commitment and involvement
• brokering joint working between groups
  

How do you rate?

- your commitment to deliver through voluntary and community organisations? Are you ready to work alongside volunteers? Are grants available for administration?

- your capacity building skills to enable groups to hone their own priorities? Are delivery bodies encouraged to lead?

- expertise to work with all target groups, including the least affluent or articulate? Are there examples of connecting with hard-to-reach-groups in your area?
 
5. Accessing and managing fund

Local authorities can make a significant contribution to financial management through the facilitation process. Councils have financial procedures and systems in place and valuable expertise, for example, tendering, accountable body. The capacity to run projects through local authority accounts and making use of technical expertise can be essential to a project's success. The authority needs to remember, however, that it is managing the funds on behalf of the project partners. Whilst in some cases it may legally own the assets, in other cases it will not, and in all cases it does not 'own' the project.

Accessing and managing funds will include

• making applications for programme funds which can be distributed locally to projects, including carrying out the administrative role of accountable body
• advising on or carrying out tendering
  
• bankrolling projects either by managing activities through the Council's financial systems or by loans which are repaid once grants are received
• making use of external funds to employ project staff
• using internal mainstream funds to support projects and develop assets
  

How do you rate?

- knowledge of funding programmes and success in making bids? Have external funds been used to support development officers?

- finance departments' preparedness to manage project accounts? Can they produce the right information to meet claim, monitoring and audit requirements?

- willingness to take on lease, purchase and tendering tasks? Would the Council do this even if it didn't own the asset?

- readiness to bankroll or make loans to community-led projects?

6. Organisation, delivery and project implementation

Extending the delivery capacity of partner organisations ranges from something that can add value to particular projects to being absolutely fundamental to a facilitation organisation's chances of success. Very often the relationship that emerges between council officers and local groups is one of mutual respect and moral commitment. This is especially true in rural coastal areas, and where elected members take an active part and support the officers within the Council.

Developing community groups can be a substantial commitment, and is by nature a long-term investment. However, it is very often directly aligned with the council's obligations to deliver core services, and is necessary to inform the development of a valid Community Strategy.

Facilitating project delivery will ensure that the local group understand that the responsibility for action and delivery lies with them. Continuing guidance and support may be required on

"    administration and financial management
"    grant claims and how to collect monitoring information
"    sharing knowledge of exemplar projects
"    training and development
"    building or project management

Practical assistance may be given through grants for administration, arranging training, enabling groups to make use of external funding streams, and commitment of officer time to carry out specific tasks. Facilitating LAs have understood that the better equipped their delivery partners, the greater and more sustainable the outputs and return on investment. 

How do you rate?

- how do the council deal with setbacks and find solutions when problems arise with project implementation?

 - do you have staff availability and expertise to work with communities?
-   
 - do you have experience of development training for the voluntary and community sector? Are you aware of national and regional bodies or local experts with this capability?

 - in two-tier areas is there a willingness to work in partnership to maximise the strength of both?
 
- do Member exhibit understanding and enthusiasm for facilitating rural delivery?

- is there partnership commitment in all the business units' of the authority?


7. Local planning and resource management.

Councils will need to keep an overview of projects, internal resources and funding to ensure that expectations can be fulfilled. It is inevitable when a local authority formally engages with a local community that expectations can be raised. It is therefore important that capacity is extended in a manner that scopes and manages expectations. Failure to grasp this nettle will lead to a mutual lack of respect and can materially prejudice local capacity to deliver.
Authorities may need to reallocate resources if the regional or local partnership strategies change. Delivery bodies may need specific support through transition periods.  Exit strategies need to
be in place to manage time-limited external funding. Similarly, authorities can keep a lookout for new funding opportunities which will help to meet identified needs. Councils can bring them to the attention of the local partnership and delivery bodies and make speculative applications on their behalf.

How do you rate?

- are resources available to continue to support existing and planned activities? What are the risks associated with the availability of staff time, technical support and money?

- are you reliance upon time limited external funding? What measures are in place to ensure a smooth transition to sustainability?

- do abilities to spot and take advantage of new funding or other resource opportunities exist? What examples are there in the authority?


8. Monitoring and evaluation frameworks, maintaining an evidence base

Effective evaluation and monitoring is a key part of successful facilitation. It informs policy and prioritisation, and demonstrates what has been achieved. An effective monitoring framework -

Measures progress against objectives and outcomes
Measures the impact of actions
Assesses how efficient service delivery has been
Demonstrates what has changed to external bodies, funders and the local community
Benchmarks activities against other areas and initiatives.

The consistent use of accessible and relevant indicators, rather than reliance on 'high-level' themes which may be more appropriate to an urban area, provides a clearer picture of the outcomes of activity. Even when recorded at ward level, 'traditional' indicators can give a distorted picture; negligible unemployment rates can mask a very low wage and seasonal economy, high property values and levels of car ownership might obscure a local problem of access to affordable homes and limited public transport. Local measures provide a hard currency to inform partners and stakeholders.

How do you self-rate?

- your understanding of the local economy? Is there a set of local indicators that are relevant to the Strategy or Action Plan of the partnership?

- are there processes to monitor the outcomes of individual projects?

- do you have skills in interpreting and presenting the information to local partners and the community?

- what is your experience of sharing information and benchmarking with similar organisations? Can you access expert advice from a local Research Observatory? Are they part of the partnership?

  - do you have processes to provide feedback and measurement of the experience and perceptions of customers and stakeholders?

The sharing of indicators and performance information between coastal resort councils can provide both benchmarking and performance data for the purposes of continuous improvement. Intelligence is shared through partnerships, member and officer networking, attendance at national and regional training and conference events. Also, coastal experience shows that speaking to the customer and getting a first hand view of delivery at regular intervals can be a more powerful form of evaluation than hard statistics.

While still scouring the horizon of hope for  the Big Bang solution, much can be achieved in coastal resort regeneration by doing a hundred small things better. You can start that process now by joining our virtual topic groups and sharing your expertise, concerns and ideas with you fellow coastal regeneration practitioners.