Community empowerment and engagement

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Voluntary Sector North West
St. Thomas Centre

Ardwick Green North
Manchester
M12 6FZ
Tel: 0161 276 9300
Fax: 0161 276 9301
Email: info@vsnw.org.uk

This is a core agenda for VSNW and its members. It is at the heart of the voluntary and community sector's work and ethos.

Guidance on the Empowerment White Paper: Communities in Control

VSNW's empowerment work

VSNW has recently launched a new Network for paid voluntary and community sector empowerment practitioners, called the Third Sector Empowerment Practitioners Forum. It has been formed from the existing forum for Community Empowerment Networks to include all those working in the sector who are involved in community empowerment activity.
VSNW has a strong working relationship with Together We Can (Briefing #03), the empowerment partnership for the North West. For more information on the work of North West Together We Can go to www.nwtwc.org.uk.
VSNW has been a significant supporter of the largest group of Community Empowerment Networks (CENs) outside London.
Guidance on key empowerment policy issues, including the Empowerment White Paper: Communities in Control:

Empowerment White Paper: Communities in Control

The key ambition of Communities in Control: real people, real power (9 July 2008) is that “The state should be a platform under people’s feet, not a weight holding them down” (p.13).

Communities in Control outlines a significant number of tools and measures to realise this ambition and increase the power and influence of people and communities. It could have a significant impact on VCS work.

The Implementation annex on pages 132 -138 outlines 39 commitments. This includes:

- £70m investment in community led organizations in 2010/11(Communitybuilders Fund)
Develop a national strategy on participatory budgeting
Closer working relationships between third sector led Regional Empowerment Partnerships (Together We Can) and local authority led Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (just setting up, with their own significant budgets) to support local authority empowerment work.
Up to £6.5m to further assist community involvement in planning
Measures to tackle barriers to working faced by benefit claimants
Encourage pilot Local Involvement Networks (LINks) to expand remit beyond health and social care
Establish an Asset Transfer Unit
Launch a Social Enterprise Unit.

Some of the actions of the implementation plan do not need legislation and will be implemented by lead departments. Many will be delivered through the Community Empowerment, Housing, and Economic Regeneration (CEHER) Bill, which we expect to have a formal consultation process. This is the same bill that will formally introduce the new Single Integrated Regional Strategy, as part of the Sub-national review, which our region is currently implementing.

Good briefings on the empowerment white paper are available from:

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