Lambeth Community Hubs
An update from Lambeth Council:
Lambeth is one of the most diverse places in the UK and Europe. As with all local authorities, the borough faces considerable pressures to manage reductions in public sector funding in times of increasing need.
The council has come a very long way in recent years. Services have improved, as have relationships between residents and the council. The most important goal for the council now is to involve people in the planning, design and delivery of their services and become a Cooperative Council. Building on the work of existing local cooperatives and mutuals, we believe this approach will result in better decisions and services as we support residents in taking more control and responsibility within their local community.
Underpinning this work are the Council’s 3 priorities to be a caring borough, an aspirational borough, and a safe and secure borough. We have started our work with residents to explore neighbourhood approaches on the full range of public services to achieve their determined outcomes.
This is, in essence, the route through which Lambeth will review and channel resources and let communities have greater control of services and of the places where they live.
Within this context, the Third Sector Investment Plan is now shaping the local strategy to develop support required including local community managed hubs. They will offer flexible and economical space for groups, social enterprises and SMEs.
The council never has, nor will it ever meet the needs of the Third Sector, and coupled with the financial and policy challenges faced including provision of premises and facilities through which services and activities can be delivered. We need a new framework to deliver what is now required:
- A sustainable asset base designed to support Third Sector delivery
- Capital investment secured and invested into the portfolio of buildings
- Reduced council asset management costs
- Opportunities to address local concerns regarding ‘civic’ buildings with strong community identity
Given the increasing reliance on the local Third Sector, the programme to develop hubs must provide a home where community growth, community action, volunteering and enterprise can be nurtured. This will require capital to be invested ‘up front’ to create quality facilities on sites determined with local involvement; this will be provided. The hubs need to be in the right place, owned or managed by a capable independent and community-led body as these assets are transferred, yield the level of income required to be sustained drawing on the hub network for support and to realise operating efficiencies.
This rationale supports the community-led commissioning approach that gives local communities a greater voice in the design, delivery and commissioning of services to produce better outcomes, efficiencies and less expensive services.
A number of pilot projects have been developed with local partners and are all different in theme and scale. For example projects tackle quality of the environment, influence over provision of youth service provision, or the management of local public space. Change of the commissioning process will take time, impact across all council departments necessitating a huge shift in culture – providing for the physical space and resources to enable this to happen is pioneering work.