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Local groups may lose trust of community

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Community-based organisations are in danger of being co-opted by government as it attempts to tackle social exclusion, according to a new Demos report called Inside Out: Rethinking Inclusive Communities. The report is being launched at an event on Wednesday 26  February 2003 with Barbara Roche, the minister for social exclusion.

The government has correctly identified community-based organisations (CBOs) as a vital link to socially excluded communities because they have developed trust by filling the gaps between mainstream services.

However the research found that there is concern among some groups that they are being used as ‘instruments of government policy’. The independence of CBOs could be compromised, and they risk losing the trust of the people they serve.

‘You’ve got a David-and-Goliath situation, where local groups don’t speak the same language as the official bodies that they are asked to work with,’ said Helen McCarthy, the report’s author. ‘It’s the fact that they are people-based rather than paper-based organisations which enables them to reach out to the community.’

Inside Out surveyed over 40 community-based projects funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, and looked at three projects in detail. The research was part of a review of the effectiveness of BCT funding in developing inclusive communities.

'Government is not playing to the strengths of community-based organisations,’ says Sukhvinder Stubbs, director of Barrow Cadbury Trust. ‘This report demonstrates the need for fewer initiatives, simplified funding regimes, and more flexible local structures.

‘It shows the potential of community organisations to deliver leadership and break down barriers to participation, which is critical to tackling social exclusion. Charitable trusts and government together can unlock this potential, but we need a results orientated approach, not red tape.’

The government has already acknowledged that there is an overload of initiatives aimed at tackling social exclusion. In October, social exclusion minister Barbara Rocheannounced that the ‘plethora of initiatives’ was to be simplified.

Community-based organisations have been identified as ‘gatekeepers’ to inaccessible communities because they have developed high levels of trust. However the demands of central and local government can create difficulties for CBOs which are not part of the same professionalised or bureaucratic culture.

‘The local authority doesn’t help community partnership – it tries to determine and direct them,’ said one CBO leader surveyed for the research project.

‘If the government really trusts community-based organisations then it has to recognise that they are not conventional service providers,’ says McCarthy. ‘These groups see empowering people as a priority – not delivering government policies.’

Inside Out sets out three principles for developing inclusive communities:

Service innovation and learning, which focus on people-based solutions;

Trusting community-based organisations, which in turn allows them to win the trust of the people they serve;

Creating a ‘new middle ground’ to enable community power-sharing and avoiding organisational mismatches.

The Barrow Cadbury Trust commissioned the report to help develop a new funding strategy to maximise the potential for community-based organisations to fight social exclusion. It will announce a new grants programme in the spring.

Notes to editors

  1. Demos is an independent think tank with a long track record of work on social inclusion and community capacity-building.
  2. The Barrow Cadbury Trust seeks to encourage a just, equal, peaceful and democratic society. It makes grants to support groups, usually registered charities, working to achieve such objectives.
  3. Inside Out: Rethinking Inclusive Communities is published by Demos on Wednesday  26  February 2003.