Participation and local strategic partnerships

A research project carried out for the CRE by the Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG) and Urban Forum

Published June 2007

Background to this research

Local strategic partnership (LSPs) are non-statutory, multi-agency partnerships, each covering the same area as a local authority. LSPs brings together representatives from the local public, private, community and voluntary sectors, to help them work together more effectively.

This report presents the findings from research commissioned by the CRE in 2006 to look at participation in LSPs by people from ethnic minorities, and to investigate the extent to which Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) is distributed to people from ethnic minorities.

The project forms part of the CRE's research programme on integration, which examines ways of strengthening social and political participation by all members of society.

The main aims of the research were to:

• identify the level of ethnic minority participation in LSPs; and
• see how NRF is allocated, and which groups benefit from it.

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Summary of main findings

Ethnic minority involvement in LSPs

Most LSPs in our survey did not monitor their members by ethnic origin. Although guidance from the NRU recommends that LSPs should monitor the ethnicity of members of the core LSP of the and wider LSP, 24 of the 31 LSPs had not done this. Five LSPs monitored the ethnicity of both core and wider LSP members, while one LSP only monitored the ethnicity of board members, and one only monitored sub-groups. Without monitoring, it is not possible to determine the overall level of participation by people from ethnic minorities in LSPs across the country.

Recruitment and retention

Only one of the nine LSPs responding to questions on recruitment had an open recruitment process for some of its core LSP places. None of the 31 LSPs in our sample monitored retention of members by ethnic background, while only one monitored retention at all. It was therefore not possible to develop any overall conclusions of whether ethnic minority members of LSPs stayed involved for shorter or longer periods than other members.

Performance Management Frameworks

Only 18 of the 31 LSPs surveyed sent in their PMFs in response to our request. The NRU's guidance on core requirements for PMFs advises that these documents should be made publicly available. Only three of the 31 LSPs had published their PMF on their website in a downloadable format, while 15 LSPs sent documents on request. The remaining 13 LSPs (just over 40% of the sample) either did not have a PMF, or did not send it, or sent other documents instead.

Allocation of neighbourhood renewal funds

Only a small minority of LSPs appeared to monitor ethnicity when they allocated NRF funding. Most of the people interviewed thought it was the outcomes that NRF funding was helping to achieve that mattered, and not who was receiving it, or how the money was being used.

The relationship between LSPs and leading statutory organisations

Responsibilities for promoting race equality were not generally being carried forward into the work of LSPs, even though the leading statutory body in the LSP (usually the local authority) was bound by the requirements of the Race Relations Act to promote race equality in all their work. Only four of the nine LSPs that were interviewed in depth reported working within the equalities framework set out by the local authority.

What did this report recommend?

Among the main recommendations made by this report are:

• The LSP performance management framework needs to be improved; the existing framework is not adequate for assessing whether ethnic minorities are involved in LSPs.
• Statutory government bodies, such as the NRU and government offices, should take a far stronger approach to ensuring that LSPs follow the NRU's guidance on monitoring ethnicity.
• Local authorities and other statutory partners in LSPs need to meet the requirements of the statutory duty to promote race equality and good race relations (referred to as the race equality duty) under the Race Relations Act. The CRE - and, from October 2007, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) - should use every opportunity to ensure that local authorities and their statutory partners understand that the race equality duty applies to their role as partners.
• The NRU and government offices should advise LSPs that a structure that specifically includes ethnic minority representation represents good practice.
• Future surveys and evaluations of LSPs should distinguish between the number of ethnic minority representatives involved in LSPs and the number of designated places for ethnic minorities in LSPs. Information should be collected on both, bearing in mind, however, that the former will be higher than the latter.
• Local strategic partnerships should continue to be required to include reviews of their partnership work as part of their performance management framework (PMF). The core requirements for PMFs should be strengthened to include a more robust assessment of the LSP's involvement of people from ethnic minorities, and a requirement for the LSP to carry out a race equality impact assessment on their functions and policies.
• The CRE and CEHR should take whatever steps possible to promote ethnicity monitoring of recruitment and retention as good practice which non-statutory agencies and partnerships should adopt.

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