The highlights, a checklist, and doing small things better

Self-Assessment Checklist 1: Fit for purpose

Delivering effective facilitation in coastal areas is not an easy option. To be successful requires the necessary drive, ambition and appetite to meet the challenges. The first checklist aims to help Local Authorities consider whether they are able to deliver effective facilitation. Answering the questions will enable you to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of the authority, and highlight areas for change. Getting the conditions right is an important first step in being able to demonstrate to other bodies that they should work with you for mutual benefit and to deliver the vision for the area.

Effective Leadership.

The delivery and effectiveness of LAs are maximised when underpinned by focussed political leadership and clear, well understood management objectives. When this leadership approach is coupled with a commitment to supporting coastal regeneration, it empowers and gives confidence to local authority management at all levels. It also provides a strategic direction which can bring partners together and provide a focus for joint working. Relationships rely upon mutual trust built from a commitment to follow through on promises. Sometimes this may mean accepting a level of calculated risk (both material and perceived) with which local government is often uncomfortable, and that may lead to failure. Progressive coastal LAs highlight the importance of the following:

Political leadership that signals clear priorities and style for the authority.

Self-assessment questions.

How has the Council demonstrated that it is committed to supporting coastal delivery?
Is the commitment reflected in the Corporate Objectives?
Do political leaders and chief officers accept that they will need to take some calculated risks and are they willing to do so?

2. Enabling management

'Enabling management' is characterised by a management style that gives freedom and responsibility, and fosters initiative. The management culture within a LA will offer sufficient autonomy to all stakeholders (both within and outside the council) to allow relationships to thrive.

Roles and responsibilities will be allocated based on a clear understanding of objectives and resources. The focus is on achieving successful delivery and using resources flexibly, making changes to traditional structures and practices if it is necessary to do so. An enabling management structure is one which is prepared to back colleagues if things go wrong.

A 'can do' culture gives confidence to local authority management at all levels. Where external partners look for a strategic direction it can bring partners together and provide a focus for joint working. 'Enabling management' can:

When these conditions come together the capacity to get things done is considerable.

Self-assessment questions.

How many 'business units' in the Local Authority are involved in coastal service delivery?
Is there mutual trust between the 'unit' managers, and with lead Members?
Is there a commitment to work together? Are communications between managers and between managers and lead Members frequent and open?
Are structural changes necessary to bring the relevant business units closer together?
Does the management style enable and empower staff to deliver the coastal development objectives?

3. Resource generating - an ability to find the resources, internally or externally.

Leadership and management need to be backed up by the resources necessary to do the job. Effective facilitation requires officer time and other technical resources. These may be available from a variety of departments within the authority e.g. planning, construction management, finance and IT.

Having the right people in the right places is a key to success. Facilitation has worked well where there has been a strong officer commitment, and these attitudes appear to be self-generating as like-minded people are attracted to posts within such organisations.

A 'can do' culture is of significant value when seeking out and securing resources. Proactive Councils demonstrate a willingness to approach the resourcing of activity in a creative way. This may be an internal commitment to funding valuable posts, or lateral thinking prompting access to funding programmes that might not immediately seem appropriate.

This commitment is also evident in a council's approach to the management of its own human and technical resources. Successful facilitators offer access to these resources to local delivery groups in order to get things done, but also to increase the value of a project and so maximise the cash element in funding.

Self-assessment questions.

Have the corporate objectives led to a prioritisation of council resources for coastal facilitation?
Do the council staff have the skills and knowledge to access external resources?
Is there a willingness to learn from other authorities and partnerships?

4. Oil the wheels of participation - a willingness to develop delivery capacity

Facilitation of coastal regeneration is all about enabling delivery by the local community (in whatever form that might take). To do this successfully and achieve disproportionate outputs relative to available resources requires a real commitment to engage with external organisations, groups and networks. Engagement and consultation is the first step to identifying those individuals and groups who can play a more substantial role in delivery.

Effective local authorities recognise that constraints on resource, coupled with responsibility for delivery of core services, mean that often they cannot realistically deliver everything themselves. They must instead identify the most effective delivery vehicle, support its development, build the necessary capacity and then facilitate its delivery activities. Only in this way can local projects be fully sustainable, and enjoy a life span that extends beyond any immediate funding programme.

Councils have developed delivery capacity through:

• Learning about local distinctiveness and understanding the issues from a local and regional perspective
• Reflecting back local expectations and priorities into local and regional plans"    Supporting the development of autonomous delivery bodies
• Aligning expectations with regional strategy, and proposals with policy. Plans developed by local groups need to be consistent with the wider programme context to gain support
• Supporting and enabling - helping with funding applications, recruitment, administration and personnel management
• Making connections - for example with the work being done at other local authority levels
• Sharing resource - using the resources (human, technical and physical) of the council to add value to projects and project delivery
  

Self-assessment questions.

Is there a willingness to build real working relationships with local communities, businesses, voluntary and community groups?
What evidence is there that the Authority is focussed on the customer? Does the ethos of the Council put customers at the centre of service delivery
Are there plans in place to get feedback from customers?
In two tier areas, do working partnerships exist between the County and District to support local delivery groups?

5. Make friends - a commitment to break down barriers to partnership working

Where resources and capacity are thinly spread a commitment to partnership working has been an essential pre-requisite to successful facilitation. Whether through Local Strategic Partnerships/Local Area Agreements or through specific regeneration partnerships, good facilitation is characterised by real working relationships that extend beyond the superficial. They will challenge organisational boundaries and methods of working to break down cultural barriers.

Successful facilitation strikes a balance between the strategic and local through pragmatic, effective partnership. The key to achieving this is establishing a representative partnership and ensuring effective communications between partners. Strategic partnerships should include regional bodies wherever possible. This ensures that the coastal agenda maintains a voice in regional and national policy making, and that local strategies remain relevant.

The SNR and the Framework for Regeneration processes are focusing regeneration and economic development on the local delivery level and it will therefore be increasingly important that all 'business units' of a Council are working together and moving in the same direction.

Self-assessment questions.

Would statutory and non-statutory partners agree that the Council is committed to collaborative partnership working? How do you know?
Are economic, social and environmental issues all taken into account through one partnership structure?
Do changes need to be made to current structures to ensure that all the key players are represented?
If the partnership is not the LSP, does it dovetail with the LSP structures?
What role does the Council play in supporting the partnership?
Is the partnership set up in such a way that it can ensure there is a link between local delivery organisations and the main partnership representatives?