Richard Commission Presentation

10 Minute Presentation to the Assembly’s SWW Regional Committee

2^nd July 2004, St Paul’s Parish Hall, Sketty, Swansea

Mike Durke, Chief Executive/Communities First Co-ordinator, Phoenix Community Development Trust, Townhill, Swansea,

Tel: (01792) 479800.

Web: www.phoenixcdt.co.uk.

Email: mike.durke@phoenixcdt.co.uk

‘The Phoenix Centre is not only our flagship project but also the cheapest and best training and conference venue in south west Wales.’

1. Introduction

Good morning. I am pleased to have this opportunity to address the South West Wales Regional Committee of the Welsh Assembly on The Report of the Richard Commission. My aim is to present my views in a context I am familiar with and that is community regeneration.

I want to tell you about the Phoenix Community Development Trust. I want to be specific about my perspective of the Richard Commission and to make a few suggestions about where we should be heading especially in the light of the Assembly’s Communities First programme. I hope to give a perspective which mirrors my current role.

2. The Phoenix CDT Ltd.

The Phoenix CDT Ltd is a company limited by guarantee with charitable aims.

We have a board of directors with half coming from the Townhill ward (Townhill and Mayhill communities known collectively as ‘the Hill’) and half coming from a wide range of agencies. This board of partners who live and work in the Townhill and Mayhill communities is also the Communities First Partnership Board for the area. The Trust was created in September 2000 as a vehicle to build on the foundation laid by an URBAN Community Initiative which ran to the end of 2001. Approximately half of the £6 million spent by this initiative came from Europe with the majority of match funding coming from the City and County of Swansea. Without the Council’s support we would never have come into being.

Our flagship project is the Phoenix Centre in Townhill which was the first community enterprise centre of its kind in the whole of Wales. ‘The Phoenix’ has won numerous awards including a UK National Award for Tackling Social Exclusion. This year we were the only Welsh project to be invited to a world-wide urban regeneration event. Part of the Barcelona Forum 2004 will involve a major United Nations exhibition of best regeneration practice with 60 projects from across the globe and just 3 from the UK - we have been given the honour of flying the flag for Wales.

3. Communities First and ‘power’

Social inclusion is a key theme of the Assembly. In an address to the Richard Commission the Minister for Social Justice and Regeneration has described ‘Communities First’ as the flagship programme for tackling poverty and social disadvantage in Wales’s most deprived communities adding that the programme is about devolving power to local communities. The Hill has benefited from the programme by being able to support 2 brilliant social inclusion programmes driven by local people, along with an advice project and a church hall refurbishment (You need to visit us to learn more!) This work was progressed by applications for funding being approved by the partnership board and then being submitted to the Assembly for final approval. The Assembly has final say about whether projects supported at partnership board level go ahead or not. This makes me ask how much power our board really has if we are dependent on the Assembly’s permission to progress with priority areas the board has identified. However, we are in the early days of the programme and I’m sure such issues will diminish as time passes.

4. Comments on The Richard Commission

Go for it! Let’s make Wales as autonomous a country we can without spoiling what we’ve already got. I have a few comments on the main recommendations:

• There should be a legislative Assembly for Wales. Our lawyers are no less qualified than their counterparts elsewhere, and our politicians have the inviolable position of being democratically elected and accountable – to us;
• We need to work with and not against the UK government as far as this is possible. We have our own Ministers, do we need a Secretary of State for Wales?
• Tax varying powers are desirable. How about tax benefits for communities that successfully reduce their dependence on the public purse by reducing crime or unemployment numbers? What better incentive could there be to encourage participation in the Communities First programme?
• The number of Assembly Members should be increased to a more appropriate number.

5. Devolution

There has been a steady devolution of power from London to Cardiff to Communities. If we are serious about giving power to communities let’s do it, but for heaven’s sake be mindful of the pitfalls. Areas like ours do not have lawyers, accountants, business men and women in abundance standing in line waiting for the power to come. Give too much power too quickly and the whole Communities First programme would buckle by the weight of the burden. This is where the link with local authorities is extremely important. They have huge resources at their disposal and have been around forever. Their role as facilitators rather than leaders of Communities First needs much attention. We have some exciting and forward thinking local authorities in Wales but others are lagging behind. Elected members of both Councils and the Assembly have a key role to help some old dinosaurs come of age. Similarly, officers must be directed to support the programme and training is the key at both officer and elected member level. I’m sure a poll to ascertain current levels of knowledge about Communities First would be extremely interesting.

The First Minister is quoted in the Deputy Minister for Social Justice and Regeneration’s Review of Communities First as having said, “Our commitment now as a government is to make sure communities are empowered to regenerate themselves and tackle the social problems inherited by neglect and economic starvation.” Is the suggestion therefore that there will be less neglect and economic starvation if communities are empowered to regenerate themselves? If so, he has an excellent point. Should any public funding be spent in our least affluent Communities First areas without the written approval of our partnership boards? Why shouldn’t the different Council departments like housing, social services, environment, education, regeneration, culture and recreation be obliged to seek the written approval of Communities First partnership boards before any major investments are made in these communities? Responsibility for the many millions of public funds being ploughed into our worst off communities must surely be shared with these new and dynamic partnership boards, boards with devolved ‘power,’ and that word ‘power’ really is such a big word, to cater for the needs of their own communities.

6. ‘Horses for Courses’ – areas for experts

If you look at the stated purpose of Communities First and the associated themes of the programme there are clear lines of responsibility to be drawn with areas of professional interest and expertise. For example, Health and Well Being has close connections with Nurses, Doctors, Sports, Nutrition and so on. We could quite justifiably ask, ‘What is the point of having a Communities First programme if we already have numerous officials in post taking care of their specific areas of concern.’ What could this regeneration programme possibly bring to the party?

I would suggest that the purpose of Communities First is to make better use of existing public funding by concentrating the minds of the officials with their hands on the purse strings on the main issues. Local people are the experts on their own communities and they need to be trusted to take on increasing responsibility as their capacity for doing so develops. Officials, directors of Council departments and their equivalents in Assembly Sponsored Public Bodies, need to be told, to be directed, to be contractually obliged to glue themselves to communities and listen to what is said about identifying priorities and working with communities and not, as so often is the case, against them.

7. Commit!

Funding for Communities First comes in 2 year dribs and drabs. We cannot plan beyond this short time span and all our jobs are therefore temporary. This hardly inspires confidence amongst Communities First officers and the communities we serve. The Assembly’s stated commitment to pass on the power, to giving power to the people, to regenerate our most disadvantaged communities, pales somewhat when it is only willing to do so on such a temporary and insubstantial basis. Setting projects up over such a short time span and then pulling the rug from beneath their feet would cause untold damage and distrust in our government.

8. Conclusion

Finally, I have to point out that the Phoenix has been visited by literally hundreds of individuals and organisations in the last few years from all over Wales, Europe and different parts of the world from Wrexham and Anglesey, to Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, from Poland and Brussels to Malta and Lithuania, from Johannesburg to Hong Kong. They all say they are inspired by our approach. 2005 will see the launch of a series of seminars under the umbrella of ‘Phoenix Training’. We would ask that the Assembly supports us in the attempt to help communities all over Wales learn from our experience – we have international acknowledgement as a body that knows something about community regeneration – similar support from the Assembly would be appreciated.

In Wales we may not have moved many mountains so far but I am convinced that Communities First has great potential some of which has been realised already. Closer to home, I am also convinced that with the support of our partner agencies and the commitment of our community we have certainly shifted one very important Hill in Swansea.

Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee.

Mike Durke

Chief Executive/Communities First Co-ordinator,

Phoenix Community Development Trust,

Townhill, Swansea,

Tel: (01792) 479800.

Web: www.phoenixcdt.co.uk.

Email: mike.durke@phoenixcdt.co.uk