Hazel Blears Announcement at DTA Conference

The Community Sector Coalition is an active member of the National Empowerment Partnership, announced this week by Hazel Blears. You can read the transcipt of her speech here.

What is the National Empowerment Partnership?
(formerly Every Voice Counts)

The National Partnership Empowerment (NEP) is a national partnership of interested parties set up to improve the quality, co-ordination and evidence of empowerment across England. 

The partnership will support and inform the government to help implement its vision of a truly participative society and promote the fundamental role of empowerment in achieving a more equal, cohesive and democratic society.

What is empowerment?

Empowerment is not the same as engagement.  It is the result of strategic and practical actions - such as engagement, participation, partnership working - that increase the capacity of people to influence the decisions that affect their lives and is central to community development principles and practices. 

Why is the partnership’s work necessary?

Currently, there are numerous community empowerment projects and community engagement initiatives already taking place at a local level and some have a long history. However, investment in these is often sparse, scattered, unstable and of variable quality. In addition, the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work has not been uniformly compiled at local, regional or national levels.

How does the NEP intend to address this issue?

NEP will work through the regions, local areas, with its partners and government to centrally gather information about community empowerment.  It will show the difference it can make to individuals and communities, quality assure processes to achieve good empowerment and promote examples of good practice across the country. NEP believes that this is the best way to ensure that community empowerment initiatives are well supported across the country, thereby increasing the numbers and capacity of people able to influence the decisions that affect their lives and improve the quality and function of relationships between citizens and government.

Who is involved in the Partnership?

NEP is a national consortium comprising of the Community Development Foundation, Community Sector Coalition, Urban Forum, Community Alliance, I&DeA, the Young Foundation, Federation for Community Development Learning, Community Development Exchange, the Take Part Network, ‘V’ youth volunteering, Community Empowerment Network, Academy for Sustainable Communities and Involve.

In each of the nine English regions a range of organisations from the voluntary, community and public sectors have drawn together a regional consortium which will work in tandem with the national consortium to achieve its aims. 

Other organisations will soon be approached to contribute expertise and knowledge to NEP.

What will happen at a regional or local level?

A network of regional consortia in each English region, supported by CDF, will carry out much of the practical work and build relationships with the local authorities and partners in their area.  A nominated lead body in each consortium will work to an agreed action plan for their region.  Each regional consortium will draw members from key public bodies, voluntary and community sector networks and community development practitioners, and will link with its Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership to ensure productive dialogue with local authorities. The regional Government Offices have played an important advisory role in identifying and supporting the regional lead bodies and will continue to be key partners.

How will communities be represented / involved in the process?

The national partnership is not intended to act as a delivery body as such. It has been established to map and set up a framework to enable organisations and communities at a regional and local level to share and maximise existing skills, expertise, knowledge and networks which will improve the conditions for empowerment.
Many of the national organisations involved in the national partnership are membership organisations and so their members will have an opportunity to feed in to this information gathering and giving process, taking reference from their local communities and own members.   Each regional consortium will also need to demonstrate how they will connect with and listen to concerns from local areas.

What impact will it have on communities?

Ultimately, the impact of the National Empowerment Partnership and the initiatives outlined by Government will be the empowerment of citizens.  The National Empowerment Partnership is an important first step towards creating a more participative society.