Today IPPR North publishes a new report on volunteering in Northern England by Professor Tony Chapman,  Policy&Practice and Jack Hunter, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Based on research findings from the Third Sector Trends study, the report recognises that the volume of voluntary activity in the north is enormous – about 930,000 people regularly volunteer and deliver over 76m hours of work.

The bulk of volunteering is organised through the tiny charities and groups. Those with income below £10,000 produce about a third of all volunteering opportunities, and over two thirds of volunteering hours happen in small organisations with an annual income below £100,000.

The report shows that It’s not just about the volume of time that volunteers give, it’s about the ‘quality’ of their contribution and the ‘depth’ of the social impact it achieves. The bedrock of civil society is its core of small and informal groups where people have come together to make a difference to their local areas. Most of these organisations have no employees and their financial resources are often very limited. But they survive and thrive because of the hours of work put in by their unpaid volunteers.

Policy makers are urged to recognise that it can be difficult to assess in conventional evaluation terms the impact of small charities that work with and rely upon volunteers the most. But just because it is hard to measure their contribution does not mean that it should not be valued – so national and local funders need to keep this in mind when allocating money to local charities – they may not be able to measure the impact of what they do – but they would, like as not, be able to recognise the loss to the locality if they were no longer there.

A blog by Tony Chapman on the research findings can be read here: https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/76580532/posts/76

And the full report is available from IPPR North, The Value of Volunteering in the North

People are often confused by the complexity of civil society. For example there are so many ways of describing what is sometimes known as the ‘third sector’, ‘voluntary, community and social enterprise sector’ or ‘civil society sector’. This problem is compounded when we try to define specific types of organisations. Community business is a case in point: how are these organisations defined, and how do they differ from others such as social enterprises or community or voluntary organisations?

This new report looks at where community businesses sit within this wide range of organisational types and draws a distinction between them and other third sector organisations (TSOs) which engage in trading or those which have no reliance on earned income. to the report helps readers to recognise what is special about community businesses, how they contribute directly to their localities and what opportunities and challenges they face compared with other types of TSO.

The report presents data from the 2016 Third Sector Trends study which covers the whole of the North of England. It is a large long-running study with more than 3,500 responses of which 612 survey respondents (17% of the sample) were identified as community businesses. As a category of organisations, community businesses tend to be larger than other TSOs (60% have income over £100,000 compared with just 27% of general charities that earn some of their income). They tend to have been established more recently (47% since 2000 compared with 35% of general charities that earn income). Community businesses are more likely to work in urban areas, and particularly deprived urban areas.

Read the report: Community Business in the North of England (2018) Policy&Practice

A blog is also available from Power to Change and Policy&Practice By Suzanne Perry, Tony Chapman and Tanya Gray which can be located here

Devising visible strategies to address hidden problems

A seminar organised by the Institute for Local Governance at MEA House, Newcastle,Friday 7th December 2018, 9.30 – 13.00

THIS SEMINAR IS NOW FULLY BOOKED

In October 2018, the Government launched A Connected Society: a strategy for tackling loneliness. It is a wide-ranging document which recognises that loneliness can affect people in all stages of the life course and is often compounded by social isolation.

The seminar aims to explore the underlying meanings and causes of loneliness and isolation so that informed debate can ensue on what can be done about it for different constituencies of people. We can’t cover everything, so in this seminar we will look at either end of the life-course, focusing on the experience of young people and older people – to see what experiences they may have in common and those which differ.

Tackling loneliness, as the seminar will show, is not an easy thing to do. Often feelings of loneliness and isolation are associated with social stigma – this can potentially undermine well-meaning attempts to tackle the problem through, for example, generalised approaches to social prescribing. This was recognised in the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness report ‘Combating loneliness one conversation at a time.’ Simplistic strategies which look for easy answers will not work.

So the seminar looks at a variety of approaches which have been taken in North East England to consider their merits, but also learn from the difficulties they encountered in reaching and supporting people with diverse experiences and needs.

The seminar will be chaired by Cullagh Warnock, Trust Manager, Millfield House Foundation, and speakers will include:

• Professor Thomas Scharf, Professor of Social Gerontology, Institute of Heath and Society, Newcastle University: on understanding the similarities and differences between loneliness and isolation.
• Lesley Carberry-Campbell, Head of Regions, England and the Channel Islands, Silverline: on the provision of out-of-hours and weekend support for lonely or isolated older people.
• Dr Stephen Crossley, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, Department of Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing, Northumbria University: on a multi-agency intervention to tackle loneliness and isolation in Gateshead. 
• Helen Mills, Chief Executive Officer, Age UK Northumberland: on the priorities to be tackled when addressing loneliness and isolation amongst older people.
• Steve Watson, Development Advisor, Youth Focus North East: on raising awareness of isolation and loneliness amongst young people.

The seminar is free to attend, but places are limited and they tend to book up quickly, so please register your attendance via: Janet Atkinson, Institute for Local Governance, Durham University janet.atkinson@durham.ac.uk.

The Institute for Local Governance is a North East Research and Knowledge Exchange Partnership established in 2009 comprising the North East region’s Universities, Local Authorities, Police and Fire and Rescue Services.

Seminar presentations can be downloaded as pdf documents below:

Steve Watson – Loneliness and Isolation 7th December 2018

Tom Scharf – Loneliness and Isolation

Silverlline – Loneliness and Isolation Seminar

Helen Mills – Loneliness and Isolation

Perspectives on the purpose of town centres in North East England:

A seminar organised by the Institute for Local Governance at Teesside University, Darlington, Friday 23rd November 2018, 9.30 – 13.00

THIS SEMINAR IS NOW FULLY BOOKED

Town centres provide options for working, socialising, shopping and pampering ourselves. But they are more than just hubs for such activity, they also represent a focal point for civic pride and sometimes protest – they tell us something about our local culture, our sense of place and about who we are.

Recently, however, alarm bells have been ringing about the decline of town centres. Some of these challenges are not new.  For years, critics have argued that there has been an over-production of retail space. Certainly, North East towns have experienced increased competition from out-of-town shopping centres – especially from supermarkets, DIY, furniture and electrical goods outlets.

But the growing popularity of online shopping is now threatening other high street staples. The closure of banks and other high street institutions such as Marks and Spencer has been accompanied by an inward rush of discount stores and charity shops. Empty shops look like scars on the urban landscape – offending the integrity and prominence of towns.

This seminar aims to challenge doom-laden accounts of town centre decline and will look at recent positive thinking on how to reshape urban space, reuse buildings and renew social pathways into the town as a socially inclusive cultural, working and, once again, residential arena. In so doing it will try to balance debates which prioritise economic wellbeing with those associated with social and cultural growth.

The seminar will be chaired by Councillor Chris McEwan, Deputy Leader, Darlington Borough Council, and speakers will include:

• Rachel Anderson, North East England Chamber of Commerce: on the diverse challenges facing five town centres in North East England.
• Professor Colin Haylock, University College London and Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation: on planning and urban design with more varied uses to enrich the role and reshape the experience of town centres.
• Richard McGuckin, Director of Growth and Development, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council: on town centre cultures and the journey of transformation.
• Chris Watson, Head of Land and Communities, Groundwork NE & Cumbria: on the engagement of the community with town centre regeneration strategies.

The Institute for Local Governance is a North East Research and Knowledge Exchange Partnership established in 2009 comprising the North East region’s Universities, Local Authorities, Police and Fire and Rescue Services.

Unfortunately, Chris Watson was unable to speak at the seminar.  Issues surrounding community engagement were discussed by Tony Chapman, but this did not discuss the work of Groundwork North East.  All other seminar presentations can be downloaded here.

Colin Haylock – Whose town centre is it anyway

Tony Chapman – Whose town is it anyway

Rachel Anderson – Whose town centre is it anyway

Richard McGuckin – Whose town is it anyway

St Chad’s College Lecture, Thursday 18 October 6.00-7.00pm, Williams library. ‘The Comprehensive University: why we need to rethink academic selection in higher education’, chaired by Professor Fred Robinson of Policy&Practice.

In this hard-hitting paper, Tim Blackman, a serving Vice-Chancellor, calls for a much less hierarchical higher education sector.  He shows how this will benefit students, the quality of learning and social mobility and, most importantly, he shows how to get there.

The Comprehensive University can be downloaded here: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hepi-The-Comprehensive-University_Occasional-Paper-17-11_07_17.pdf

Tim Blackman is Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University and Professor of Sociology and Social Policy.  His previous roles include Pro-Vice Chancellor and Acting Vice-Chancellor at The Open University and Head of the School of Applied Social Sciences and Director of the Wolfson Research Institute at Durham University. After leaving school he worked at sea for a year before undertaking a degree in Geography, a spell as a community worker in Belfast and a PhD on housing policy.

He started his academic career at the University of Ulster before moving into local government for five years and later returning to higher education as a Deputy Dean at Oxford Brookes University and subsequently Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law at Teesside University. He has written on urban policy, housing, social care and health inequalities, worked as a government adviser on the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

As Policy&Practice gear up for the fifth wave of the Third Sector Trends study in 2019 across North East England, it is crucial to understand the link between the wellbeing of the charity sector and philanthropic giving.

A Festival of Philanthropy and Giving, jointly organised by the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland and Newcastle University is looking at this important link in the chain of understanding.

Philanthropy is about giving money, time and resources to help others. Generosity – past, present and future – binds individuals and communities together, making the North East a special place to live and work. In November 2018, through a series of activities, debates, performances, the Generosity Festival will:

• Celebrate and raise awareness of what philanthropy has achieved in the North East;
• Question, debate and inform the future role of philanthropy in the North East;
• Encourage more philanthropy in all its forms, by demonstrating the joy of giving and the good it can do.

On 7 November 2018, at The Generosity Festival will be launched in Newcastle, details can be found here: https://www.generosityfestival.co.uk/

In recent years, debates on social mobility have been dominated by discussion about access to elite higher education institutions. The danger of this is that other routes to adult life can be dismissed, wrongly, as lesser achievements. In this recently published article in Discover Society, Professor Tony Chapman, Director of Policy&Practice, and Honorary Professor of Social Policy in the Department of Sociology summarises the pitfalls of focusing too much on individuals’ responsibility to commit to long-range social mobility at the expense of more proximate and realistic ambitions.

In the European philosophical tradition,  equality is associated with social justice, liberty and citizenship, while in the United States the focus has been on meritocracy and self-determination  to  ‘get ahead of the pack’.  Policy makers and practitioners in the UK, it is argued, are now  moving in this direction – one consequence of which is that ‘winners’ see themselves as worthier than ‘losers’.  Thus Theresa May’s announcement on the steps of Downing Street that ‘we will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you’ (BBC News, 13th July 2016 ) has pejorative undertones.  What happens to those who are judged to have less ‘talent’, ‘ambition’ or ‘character’?

The article, together with contributions from several leading commentators can be accessed here: https://discoversociety.org/2018/10/02/real-goals-for-real-people/

Interactions between businesses, public authorities and charities. A seminar organised by the Institute for Local Governance at Council Chamber, Hartlepool Civic Centre, Hartlepool Friday 26th October 2018, 9.30 – 13.00

This seminar will explore the potential of community business to contribute to the economic and social wellbeing of localities in the north of England. Community businesses work across a wide range of sectors including, for example, employment support, training and education/business support, housing, health and social care, transport, sports and leisure, arts, libraries, pubs, shops, catering and food production, energy, craft and manufacturing, finance and environment/nature conservation.

It is generally accepted that community businesses are distinctive because they are locally rooted, they trade for the benefit of the local community and, as such, they are capable of achieving community impact. While community businesses may be located in communities and contribute to them socially and economically, to what extent are they accountable to communities; and if so, how might that be assessed? Furthermore, the seminar asks: does community accountability matter if they are providing jobs, facilities and services?

Putting too much emphasis on the ‘accountability’ of community businesses could be counterproductive in that such organisations may be expected to bear too much of a burden of responsibility for the wellbeing of their communities – and to do so autonomously – when the reality is that such responsibilities must be shared by other third sector organisations, private businesses and public authorities.

Indeed, the seminar asks, how should these sectors interact to secure the value community businesses can bring to localities and what is reasonable to expect from community businesses in social, political and economic terms?

The seminar will be chaired by Councillor Kevin Cranney, Chair of Hartlepool Borough Council Regeneration Committee. Speakers include:

• Suzanne Perry, Senior Research Officer, Power to Change Research Institute: on current investment to secure a future for community business.
• Professor Tony Chapman, Policy&Practice, St Chad’s College, Durham University, on the distinctiveness of community business in comparison with other third sector organisations.
• Tom Johnston, Chief Executive Officer, Glendale Gateway Trust, Wooler, Northumberland: on the journey of established community businesses. 
• Sacha Bedding, Manager, Wharton Trust: on supporting the development of community business.
• Stuart Macdonald, Associate Director and Grace Brown, Researcher, Centre for Local Economic Strategies: on the interactions between community businesses and their localities.

The seminar is now fully booked.

The Institute for Local Governance is a North East Research and Knowledge Exchange Partnership established in 2009 comprising the North East region’s Universities, Local Authorities, Police and Fire and Rescue Services.

Further information about the content of the event can be obtained by contacting:- tony.chapman@durham.ac.uk or john.mawson@durham.ac.uk.

Seminar presentations can be downloaded here:  Presentation 1 Suzanne Perry ; Presentation 2 Tony Chapman;  Presentation 3 Tom Johnston; Presentation 4 Sacha Bedding; Presentation 5 Stuart MacDonald and Grace Brown

Interactions between communities, public authorities and charities.  A seminar organised by the Institute for Local Governance

Middlesbrough Town Hall, The Old Fire Station, Albert Road, Middlesbrough TS1 2QJ, Friday 21st September 2018, 9.30 – 13.00

The settlement of migrants and refugees can lead to sensitive political, social and service delivery challenges including how best to approach and manage the process at the local level.

The seminar draws on contributions from speakers currently engaged in research, policy and practice initiatives surrounding issues of migration, ethnicity and community cohesion in the North of England. Taking as its starting point the, Integrated Communities Strategies Green Paper, the seminar will look at long-standing and newer initiatives to promote community cohesion in northern towns, cities and rural areas.

Policy makers may consider that the arrival of migrants in already established ethnic minority communities will achieve an easier transition or that densely populated communities will be more amenable and capable of adapting than is the case in towns and rural areas.

However, such assumptions and the complexities surrounding settlement in areas with different geographical and socio-economic characteristics needs to be fully understood and openly debated. This event will also address the challenges and opportunities of settlement in areas where migrants or refugees are very much in the minority.

In analysing these issues, attention will be given to the journeys individuals follow and how their adaption to new local circumstances is influenced by a range of factors such as personal and wider social networks as well as the individual’s economic, social, cultural and demographic characteristics. In seeking to provide outside assistance it is important not to presume that all individuals need the same kind of support or will share the views of others as to the lives they wish to lead.

Personal journeys are also shaped by the reception migrants and refugees receive from established communities and neighbourhoods and the support they get from public authorities, voluntary and community organisations. It is therefore important to consider how such engagement can be provided in the most positive and effective manner and how the support can be offered in a complementary way which avoids duplication of effort and thereby maximises impact.

Speakers include:

Professor Gary Craig, Visiting Professor University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Chair, North East Race Equality Forum, will look at current challenges and will ask where we hope to be in ten years’ time.

Amria Khatun, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, will provide an overview of the Green Paper and consider ways of tackling challenges different areas may face.

Shahda Khan, Strategic Cohesion and Migration Manager, Middlesbrough Council, will look back over the last ten years on integrated interventions by public authorities, charities and community groups to bolster community cohesion.

Georgina Fletcher, Chief Executive, Regional Refugee Forum North East (with Alison Holland and Chris Ford), will look at interactions between public authorities and charities to effect successful approaches to settlement across the North East.

Speaker presentations can be accessed here:

Amria Khatun 21st September 2018; Georgina Fletcher, Alison Holland & Chris Ford 21 September 2018;  and Shahda Khan 21 September

The results from an evaluation of the My Money Now programme, run by the National Youth Agency and evaluated by Policy&Practice has now  been published.

The My Money Now project, delivered by the National Youth Agency was initiated to help young people, aged 16-21 years, to improve their knowledge about financial matters and to help them make good decisions about finances in the future. To ensure that participants could benefit significantly from additional support, the project was designed to cater for young people who had started apprenticeships, had joined or been placed upon employability programmes and/or were still in full-time vocational education in school or college.

When completed, the programme delivered 61 training sessions to 591 young people; 34 sessions were led by peer educators and 27 were delivered by established trainers. Apprentices participated in the programme in 17 of the centres (n=208), in the remaining centres most participants were on employability or vocational training programmes and a very small minority in self-selected ‘open’ sessions. The training was delivered across England. The evaluation had two elements:

• Impact evaluation to examine how well received the programme had been by young people; whether they had garnered the skills and knowledge intended; and, if they felt that the acquisition of knowledge and ideas may change the way they thought about and managed money in the future.
• Process evaluation, to assess whether the NYAs preferred option of using ‘peer educators’ to deliver the My Money Now programme made a tangible difference in terms of: delivery of the curriculum; experience of participants; and the likelihood of changed attitudes and behaviour by participants.

The evaluation was designed to capture qualitative and quantitative data from a range of standpoints to ensure that robust analysis could be undertaken through the triangulation of data. These included:

• Collection of quantitative data using two survey questionnaires which were completed by all participants; at the start of training, and immediately after its completion.
• Assisting in the training of peer educators (and subsequently, 4 peer associates) in reflective practice and observational techniques, and to mentor peer educators before, during the process of undertaking the programme and at its end.
• Undertaking telephone interviews with up to 60 young people three weeks after they had been engaged in the programme so that they had an opportunity to: make a retrospective appraisal of the quality and efficacy of the training.

More evidence on financial capability is available on the Money Advice Service Evidence Hub which can be accessed here.

The full report by Tony Chapman and Stephanie Rich is available here. Money Advice Service My Money Now Evaluation Report