[WiLT] The end of CENs?

[WiL Admin]

The end of CENs?

Neighbourhood fund 'will undermine community decision-making'

The Government's new Working Neighbourhoods Fund will lead to the
closure of many community empowerment networks and undermine efforts
to involve deprived communities in decision-making, according to
umbrella bodies representing the community and voluntary sector.

The Department of Communities and Local Government announced that the
three-year, £1.5bn fund will focus on reducing unemployment. It will
be launched as part of the local government settlement next month,
replacing the DCLG's Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and the Department for
Work and Pensions' Deprived Areas Fund.

The DCLG explanation document says the Working Neighbourhoods Fund has
been set up to "empower local communities by putting employment at the
heart of neighbourhood renewal to find local solutions to local
challenges".

However, Toby Blume, chief executive of the Urban Forum, said the
replacement of the NRF by a fund exclusively for tackling unemployment
was "ill-conceived and inconsistent with the Government's devolution
agenda".

He said the removal of ring-fenced funding for community empowerment
networks would "write them out of history" and threaten the
involvement of deprived communities in decision-making.

He said: "With empowerment and community engagement high up the
political agenda, you could be forgiven for expecting the
Neighbourhood Renewal Fund to continue in its previous guise.

"Empowerment won't be achieved simply by reducing the number of people
on incapacity benefit. It is necessary to increase civic participation
and foster the conditions where unemployment is likely to fall. As
CENs go to the wall, we will have to reinvent them, no doubt at great
expense and with much of the learning derived from them being lost."

Kevin Curley, chief executive of umbrella body Navca, said the
voluntary sector had essentially lost the argument for ring-fenced CEN
funding and it was now up to networks to argue the case for funding at
a local level.

He said local authorities that took empowerment seriously would
continue to fund CENs, but the WNF would certainly lead to a
significant decline in the number of networks.

He said: "Unless local authorities take community engagement
seriously, they won't get the quality of input they need. This will
come back to haunt them if they can't demonstrate public involvement
in their Audit Commission assessments."

However, he said Navca welcomed the £1.5bn of spending on "one of the
worst examples of deprivation in poor areas". He said schemes aimed at
improving levels of basic skills in deprived communities had suffered
recently because the Learning and Skills Council was "only focused on
level-two qualifications".

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/773669/Neighbourhood-fund-will-undermine-community-decision-making/3ED38FF67116C8F0A90E781DD57B1557/

Posted on WiLT blog at
http://www.freecharity.org.uk/~womeninlondon/?p=488