Digital exclusion has become a major concern in policy circles. In rural areas, the problem is particularly acute, but doubly so in less affluent households. Policy Research Group researchers: Maxine Houston, Gordon Allinson and Paul Braidford undertook an evaluation of the impact of digital exclusion for social housing tenants in Northumberland. Householders were given reconditioned computers and six months free internet access. The aims were to: help give people access to economic and social opportunities; prepare people for digitisation of government benefit processes; and, identify possible advantages for social housing providers and Northumberland County Council from using online transactions such as rents and council tax.

The evaluation, which involved surveys, case studies, interviews and internet usage data, considered the social, cognitive and economic gains and contrasted the benefits people expected from the project and those which they actually achieved. The project was shown to be very successful, reporting many benefits. People used the internet more often and more widely than they had expected – particularly unemployed people, who keenly sought information about job opportunities. Older people improved their confidence and skills the most and felt committed to use the internet in future. While children and young people were enthusiastic about their experience, many families could not afford to commit to future spending once the period of free access ended.

The partnership of four housing associations Isos, Bernicia, Four Housing & Homes for Northumberland now wants to find affordable solutions so that all social housing tenants in Northumberland have the opportunity to access the internet’.

Policy & Practice have published their most recent report on the success of the Cabinet Office Social Action Fund. The report, by Professor Tony Chapman and Emma Dunkerley presents new evidence on why young people continue to volunteer after they have taken part on the government’s National Citizen Service programme. The research project evaluated youth work practice by Key Fund in North East England, Envision in Yorkshire and Humber, Youth Action in North West England and Connexions in Kent and Medway from 2012-13.

The Social Action Fund/Think Big programme was shown to be effective by helping young people to become more resilient and feel more in control of their destiny. What really made a difference for young people, whatever their backgrounds, was the trust invested in them to make good decisions and to be responsible for allocating the money invested in their projects wisely. As a social programme, the Social Action Fund also aimed to promote positive interactions amongst diverse groups of young people and the communities within which they live and widen social horizons, contribute to social cohesion and increase levels of empathy and tolerance. The report shows that the programme made good progress in achieving these objectives. Read the report here.

Professor Fred Robinson, of Policy&Practice, chaired an event on 28^th February for the Institute for Local Governance in Newcastle to discuss what contribution charities and social enterprises can make to local social growth. Jo Curry of VONNE explained that there are significant new opportunities for initiatives due to new money coming from the European Union and Big Lottery to tackle issues in Local Enterprise Partnerships in the north and south of the region. Karen Woods from NESEP positioned the social enterprise sector as key players in such developments, giving examples of their innovative practice.

Tony Chapman, from St Chad’s spoke about how to build the capability of social enterprises which were not yet ready to lever funds from new income streams and advised the use of ‘stress tests’ to make sure that organisations were serious about the change required to do such work. Chi Unwurah MP, Shadow Minister for Enterprise, outlined new thinking informing policy reviews for the Labour party. Details of future ILG events can be found here.

The Cabinet Office is supporting the ‘Step up to Serve’ campaign by investing £11m in its Youth Social Action Fund and Youth Social Action Journey Fund. Tony Chapman has been appointed to evaluate the National Youth Agencies contribution to the programme supported by O2/Telefonica’s Think Big programme by researching how young people, aged 14-17, can be encouraged to take part in voluntary action. Step up to Serve, which enjoys cross party support, aims to double the number of children and young people involved with social action by 2020.

Cabinet Office Minister Nick Hurd said “We want to make sure that young people develop the skils, values and confidence they need as they move into adulthood.” The aim of the research project is to see how to see how this can be done. The Step up to Serve ‘Generation Citzen’ programme, launched and supported by the Prince of Wales, can be found here.

Professor Fred Robinson was a keynote speaker at a national conference on university-community relationships which took place at the University of the West of England, Bristol on 23^rd January 2014. His presentation looked at what a university can offer disadvantaged communities – especially those communities close to their campus. He said that universities should be regarded as community assets and should recognise their wider roles and responsibilities. They need to do more to ensure that disadvantaged groups have fair access to educational opportunities; and they need to do more to open up their social and cultural facilities to local people.

Universities should also seek to maximise the beneficial impacts they can have on the local economy as big employers and as purchasers of goods and services. And Fred stressed that it has to be a two-way partnership: universities can gain a lot from their involvement with local communities. The educational experience of students is enhanced by community placements and volunteering, and research is enriched and developed through co-production and collaboration.

The presentation drew on a major research study produced by Fred, Ian Zass-Ogilvie and Ray Hudson for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2012 (see it here). The conference was organised by NIACE and its partner agencies, and the other keynote speakers were the Vice Chancellor of UWE, the Director of the National Centre for Public Engagement and the Director of Fair Access to Higher Education.

Tony Chapman and Emma Dunkerley have recently completed a three year study of the O2 Think Big project. This evaluation research has involved the collection of data from thousands of young people across Europe including Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. The UK study was the most intensively studied element of the programme involving observation, in-depth interviews and surveys with young people, employee volunteers and community stakeholders. The report focuses on how to develop young people’s resilience in difficult economic climate by encouraging them to undertake positive social action projects.

Read the report published December 2013 (pdf document)

Everyone is saying that charities are in a crisis, it seems, due to the long period of austerity and slow national recovery from recession since 2008. While some charities have seen their income fall substantially over the last two years, many more find that their income is stable or even rising. But what do charities and small voluntary groups feel will happen to them in the future? While the charity press is often somewhat doom-laden, respondents from a survey of over 1700 organisations in the North East and Cumbria seem to be rather more positive. Indeed a report recently published by Professors Tony Chapman and Fred Robinson suggests that many seem to be irrepressible optimists. The question is, are their expectations too high and if so, are they heading for a disappointment of their own making.

Read the report: http://www.nr-foundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Crystal-Ball-Final.pdf

Government is committed to invest in social action programmes for young people. The Cabinet Office funded Centre for Social Action has recently been established to oversee the success of such interventions. A new report by Professor Tony Chapman and Emma Dunkerley explores the success of a national Social Action Fund project run by the National Youth Agency in partnership with O2 Think Big. The project focused on the experiences of young people who were new to volunteering or who had been previously involved in the Government’s flagship National Citizen Service. The research shows that young people who graduated from the NCS become more heavily committed to social action in the future.

Read the report, published December 2013:

For the past three years, Fred Robinson has chaired the North East Policy and Representation Partnership. This important initiative has helped many voluntary sector organisations in the region to get their message across and get much more involved in shaping public policy. The Partnership has been hosted by VONNE (Voluntary Organisations Network North East) and was funded by the BIG Lottery.

The Policy and Representation Partnership has been awarded the 2013 ‘Impact Award’, a prestigious national award from Compact Voice in association with the Government’s Cabinet Office. The awards ceremony took place in London in November, with the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd MP. See

Read the news story: http://www.compactvoice.org.uk/news/compactawards2013announced

In November 2012, Tomohito Nakajima from Sanno University, Tokyo and Dr Hiroyuki Shimizu from Chiba University visited St Chad’s to discuss the contribution that social enterprise can make to the regeneration of areas which have suffered from economic decline and industrial restructuring. Professor Tony Chapman has been working with his Japanese colleagues in Tokyo and Yamagata for the last eight years comparing the experiences of social enterprise in very different policy and fiscal environments. A recent publication, The Routledge Companion to Urban Regeneration includes a chapter which is drawn from this long-term study.

Link to the publisher: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415539043/