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Blears - supporting communities to support individuals

COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT News Release (004) issued by COI News Distribution Service. 12 January 2009

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has today unveiled measures that will see young people from some of the nation's most deprived areas getting involved in activities that will introduce them to a world beyond their immediate neighbourhoods, involve local communities in efforts to raise their aspirations and aim to break the cycle of deprivation that blights some of our communities.

Over the last eleven years, Government investment and reform has meant that many of this country's most deprived neighbourhoods have changed for the better and, in turn, so have people's opportunities and prospects.

But there are still streets and estates with high levels of unemployment. This Government is determined to ensure that nobody's chance in life should be determined and nobody's opportunities should be limited by the place in which they live.

Targeted programmes within schools are turning around low achievement. But, it's no surprise that if you grow up on a street where no-one works, where people tell you that you won't go far, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. However there is nothing inevitable about the link between growing up in a deprived neighbourhood and what you can go on to achieve. Young people with the support of parents, peers and communities grow up to excel and it is within that wider community that some of the solutions to the problems of low aspiration lie.

As part of wider measures published today in the New Opportunities White Paper the government is setting out plans specifically targeted at turning around the life chances of some of our poorest kids. We will provide £10 million over the next two years to support the creation of a network of fifteen 'Inspiring Communities' where parents, schools, business, third sector organisations and local agencies believe that their young people can succeed and will work together to make it happen.

The funding will be used to support local communities to design their own solutions to the particular barriers they face in order to ensure that the limits of our children's aspirations are not defined by the street or neighbourhood in which they live, including:

Community pledges - where local people set ambitious goals for local kids such as getting to university and meeting those goals becomes a shared endeavour.

Encouraging more young people to get involved in volunteering - volunteering is a great way to boost ambitions, build confidence and responsibility and can be a pathway to employment. These schemes will bring people of different backgrounds and ages together and foster a sense of pride and attachment to the local community.

Support young social entrepreneurs to develop and deliver positive activities for other young people in their area.

Twinning between different communities - we know that people can benefit from connections with a wider range of people and opportunities outside of their immediate neighbourhood. We are keen to see diverse communities working together to get kids out of their normal setting in order to expand their horizons and their experiences.

Inspiring Communities neighbourhoods should be selected and ready to launch their individual Inspiring Communities campaigns in August 2009.

Hazel Blears said:

"For some people, the streets around their house constitute their universe. If the only people they interact with are out of work and they don't see education as being a realistic route to improving their lot then we will continue to see generation upon generation stuck in a vicious circle.

"What happens in schools is vital but it is not enough. We need to give our young people the chance to meet a wide variety of people, experience new opportunities and new places. We need to give communities the tools they need to change their own lives. By getting local parents, teachers, businesses and others working together to encourage, support and collectively strive for the best for their kids there is a real potential to turn things around."

Local people, organisations and partners are key to tackling local problems. Local communities are often the source of support that people need to get on - neighbours giving neighbours a lift to work, local people setting up local business, friends helping people make the contacts that will get them a into a job and helping to keep local kids on the straight and narrow.

Building on the progress made through programmes such as Sure Start and the New Deal for Communities the Government wants to make more of local networks and harness the energy and commitment of communities in finding solutions that will improve life chances, especially for the next generation. In particular government want to get a better understanding of how to tackle stubborn and persistent deprivation with an emphasis on involving local people.

We have regenerated many of the most deprived estates and made a genuine difference to quality of life, and the education and employment of the people living there. The gap in educational achievement has closed, crime has fallen, estates have been regenerated and hundreds of thousands more people are in jobs. Despite this progress, some estates still have entrenched problems.

The problems facing communities can differ from street to street. Over the next two years £15m will be available to the new Homes and Communities Agency to work with around ten local authorities with the most deprived estates. The work will draw heavily on the crucial lessons that we have learned from our work on regeneration to date. This tells us that the local residents who have the crucial insight into what the problems in their area must be involved. We also know that more attention needs to be paid to the wider economic development - and the opportunities for work that can exist outside the estate.

So, in each area, residents will be involved in designing plans for the future. In the short term they will identify quick wins which can offer immediate improvements to their estate. In the longer-term the aim will be to better link these estates to new opportunities to turn things around - and halt familiar cycles of renovation and decline. This could mean developing better transport connections to work, ensuring residents have the skills to get jobs in nearby areas, improving local parks and green spaces, or developing community organisations which support residents to help themselves, and making better use of existing private and public investment - the solutions will be different in each area.

Rather than residents having initiatives done to them we want to empower communities to do things for themselves. By drawing regeneration work down to this intensive neighbourhood level and getting the right teams of people in place to support communities we hope to transform not just the physical environment but the quality of life more generally including health, employment and education and crime.

The intention is to build up a range of good practice that could then be shared with local authorities.

The measures being outlined today in the New Opportunities White Paper and are part of a broad package of measures aimed at ensuring that each successive generation can gain better jobs, which in turn will improve their wealth and wellbeing; and creating a society where everyone is able to realise their potential and have fair chances to access these better jobs, regardless of their social background.

Notes to Editors
This press notice applies to England

1. The policies being outlined by the Communities Secretary today are included in The New Opportunities White Paper http://www.hmg.gov.uk/newopportunities

2. The 'Inspiring Communities' policy is a response to the joint Social Exclusion Task Force / CLG / DCSF short study into the 'aspirations and attainment of young people in deprived communities' published in December 2008. The evidence pack for which available at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/109339/aspirations_evidence_pack.pdf

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