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Whatever Next? Introducing New Talent |
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SD-scene newsletter Jan/Feb feature
Creating genuinely sustainable communities involves new ways of working, a whole raft of skills and the inclusion of many players. Taking the example of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), we look at new efforts to increase skills to ensure that sustainable development is firmly embedded into the way that we all work:
'It's not what we do, it's the way that we do it' If you want to understand sustainable development in action, Oldham Partnership's 'speed dating' workshop comes highly recommended. The workshop, which aimed to provide a way of overcoming barriers between different members of the partnership, is also part of Oldham's impressive submission to this year's Sustainable Communities Awards. Oldham Partnership, one of the 360 LSPs now established in England, is a pioneer of new ways of working. Its efforts - in its own words ' it's not just what we do, it's the way that we do it' - have earned it a place on the shortlist in the Partnership category of the awards. To qualify, LSPs have to demonstrate that they have established effective 'partnership working', deemed essential in creating genuinely sustainable communities. "Sustainable Development is a way of working. It can be as much about process as content and how people work together in practice is crucial to achieving it," suggests Jenny Barker, senior strategy advisor for Forum for the Future's local and regional programme. Local Strategic Partnerships are uniquely placed to help in the creation of sustainable communities. Lead by councils, they are designed to bring together the local views of the private, voluntary and community sectors with the particular priorities for an area and then to take the strategic lead in that region. As the current consultation document, LSPs: Shaping their Future, points out, a lot is expected of them.
The
document describes the increasingly responsible, strategic role that LSPs
are required to take in delivering genuinely sustainable communities,
providing as they do the opportunity to work across agencies and with
the inclusion of those who live and work in the community they serve.
Chris Church,
an adviser on sustainable development to local authorities explains: This is backed up by research for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which found that while LSPs were 'hot' on community safety, healthy lifestyles and social inclusion, fewer were tackling sustainable consumption, sustainable design and construction, climate change, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
"An LSP already has a lot that it has to deal with and there's always a lack of time" explains Chris. "However," he adds, "lack of skills in many of the key players contributing to LSPs is a problem. Sustainable development representation in partnerships can be very thin," he concludes. "At the moment, there is a capacity problem."
The need to engage people across a wide range of occupations and develop their skills - particularly in their capacity to integrate social, economic and environmental issues - is also recognised by the Government in its consultation document, LSPs: Shaping their Future.
Stepping up to the challenge is the recently created Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC). Its new chief executive, Gill Taylor, describes its approach: "There is a whole raft of new skills that need to be developed. It's not just about plugging technical skills gaps in communities - architects, planners, surveyors - it's much broader than this. It's about building generic skills capacity. We're looking at, for example, developing skills like project management, community engagement, partnership working and leadership... We're also looking at how people can work together more effectively and ways of breaking down organisational silos."
In order to create a cohesive, national picture of the range of problems that face sustainable communities and the impact that improved skills can have on projects, ASC is establishing a series of Learning Laboratories around the country - about thirty over the next three years. These live testing programmes, sited in a cross-section of communities, will identify and address shortfalls in skills capacity.
"Learning Labs are about piloting new approaches and encouraging innovation," says Gill. "It's about what works where and why, so we can develop people's skills where there's a need."
Leading the field According to the Academy's definitions of generic skills, 'leadership' involves inspiring others, leading change, and communicating vision.
"Leadership is crucial to sustainable development," says Jenny Barker at Forum for the Future. "Whether they get there through a 'road to Damascus' moment or a gradual realisation, leaders need to have an understanding of sustainable development, a belief that it's important and a commitment to achieving it. I think, at the very least, you can teach people to become better leaders."
It's
a skill that Chris Church would like to see developed in the sustainable
development champions that do exist in communities and especially those
involved in LSPs:
Back in Oldham, the Partnership has developed ways of overcoming the barriers to community activists getting more involved in decision-making. Over a series of courses, called 'Bridging the Gap', more than 150 representatives from the voluntary, community and faith sectors were helped to develop the techniques and skills needed to contribute to the process of creating a sustainable local community. These included assertiveness, negotiating skills, handling difficult people and managing meetings. LSPs demonstrate the obvious need for skills capacity amongst both sustainable development champions and the many different professions charged with delivering it on the ground. The emphasis placed on generic skills by the Academy supports the view that sustainable development can become embedded in communities through new ways of working. As Oldham Partnership highlights, it's not just what you do, it's also how you do it that counts.
Further Information
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Updated: 21 March 2006 |
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