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Lloyd Taylor Associates

Thornham Local Community Partnership – Evaluation of effectiveness 2010 - 2012

Executive summary: findings and recommendations

The London Borough of Thornham commissioned Lloyd Taylor to undertake an evaluation of its local community partnership’s progress over the first two years. This is the summary of their findings and recommendations.

August 2012

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Executive Summary - key findings and recommendations

As is the case for local authorities across the country, Thornham’s local strategic partnership (LSP) has been replaced by a local community partnership (LCP).

Whilst similar in many respects to the old LSP it differs in that its agenda – including for each and every meeting – is subject to consultation with residents. This takes place through the Local People’s Group (LPG) established for this purpose.

Each ward has a LPG neighbourhood forum which meets monthly and chooses a representative to attend the quarterly meetings of the LCP.

The LCP Board contains the chief executives and nominated representatives from all major local partner organisations including, the PCT, the police, the local hospital, the local college, the university, a representative of the local housing associations operating in the borough and a representative from the local voluntary sector umbrella organisation.

There are six thematic networks that support the work of the LCP Board. The group is responsible for developing and refreshing the community strategy and the associated borough priorities. Increasingly there is a move towards the Board discussing financial partnerships, pooled budgeting and joint outcomes opportunities.

In order to learn from successes and spread good practice, and to plan the activities of the LCP over the next few years, the London Borough of Thornham commissioned Lloyd Taylor to undertake an evaluation of its local community partnership’s progress over the first two years.

Our key findings and observations are:

• Community interest in becoming a part of or contributing to the local people’s group (LPG) is lower than in other areas of London and under other LCPs. There is evidence that other community-led forums (such as Thornham’s independent ‘ecogroups’) are of greater appeal than the LPG and these groups are taking up much of the residents’ time and energy. The council and LCP should examine the appeal of these groups over the LPG.

• Partly as a result of this lack of community interest, the LCP has been able to continue with a set of tasks much the same as those of its predecessor body. Whilst this has made for a smooth running of the group the level of debate and innovation is low and the group is not achieving as much as it could do or contributing as much as it could to local democracy and decision-making.

• The lack of interest has led some councillors interviewed for the evaluation to complain about instances when the LPG has been hijacked by local left-leaning interest groups – a stimulation of interest and greater variety and representation of participants might yield a broader spectrum of views.

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• The LCP’s social networking engagement pilot is a welcome step in the right direction when it comes to widening participation in decision-making processes; however this has, as yet, been under-resourced, and has therefore not achieved its full potential.

• There was initially a healthy interest in the LCP when it was established and the partnership board contains high profile representatives of the public, private and some of the voluntary groups working in the borough. These individuals should be used as assets more so than they currently are and should provide the opportunity to enhance the profile of the group.

• Given that Thornham has a large, diverse and reasonably healthy voluntary and community sector, the LCP needs to consider how it can give representatives of this sector a more substantive role in influencing the LCP.

• The PCT is a powerful player in the partnership; however, the evaluation found evidence of Council and PCT chief executives acting bilaterally in many instances, and in so doing reducing the credibility of the wider partnership.

• The local police force have, as yet and by their own admission, not been able to play as active a role in the LCP as they would have hoped, due to the pressures caused by having to respond to operational matters including the demands of the Olympics. Opening this channel of engagement must be a priority for the LCP.

• Members of the Board generally act in a cooperative manner, but there are a number of conflicting priorities exacerbated by increasing financial pressure, and opinions differ over the best way to manage funding and resource allocation. The pooling of budgets and looking at cross-agency efficiencies has only been tested in limited ways and remains a challenge for the main players on the LCP. Concerted efforts should be made to address this.

• Thornham’s role in, commitment to and success in sub-regional partnerships – as coordinated through the LCP – has been inconsistent. There have been some notable successes around challenging problems for instance, work in partnership with parents and community members to prevent and minimise drug and alcohol abuse by young people has now been replicated across a regional London partnership with support for other borough’s in implementing strategies and projects coming from the experienced team at Thornham.

• However, the sub-regional partnership Thornham joined with the aim of better managing energy consumption and lowering carbon emissions has had little success compared to similar sub-regional partnerships across London. The partnership has not dedicated much time to the problem, efforts made by the partnership have been somewhat ineffectual and the opportunity to innovate has not been seized.