This has been
designed to help you and your organisations address the priorities
under the Community section of the LSC Strategy for Sustainable
Development and will address each of the six priorities in
turn. (You must bear in mind that this strategy was published in
2005. Whilst the priorities contained within it provide a good
framework for action you should always be alert to the latest
research, Government strategy, guidance or developments that might
help to refine or improve your plan).
The six priorities:
1
- Community engagement
Ensure good communications and involvement exists with the local
community at all levels, including employers
Stakeholder Engagement
As mentioned previously, you and your organisation will have a
wide range of stakeholders within the local community such as:
- Local residents and residents associations
- Staff
- Learners and parents
- Local authorities
- Police
- Religious groups
- Health providers
- Voluntary and not-for-profit organisations
- Local businesses
- Disadvantaged individuals
- Black, minority and ethnic groups
- Schools
- Local universities
- Other LSC funded providers and initiatives
- Libraries
Techniques of engaging with your stakeholders will vary
according to your local circumstances. Some broad examples are
given below:
Have a provider community council to bring together
representatives of the provider and local stakeholders including
the local authority, community groups, businesses and key
employers, business links, the Local Strategic Partnership etc.
This approach has a two-way benefit; it enables the provider to
promote its curriculum and provides the local community with a
better understanding and awareness of the provider’s
activities.
Encourage local links make links between the activities of the
provider and the interests of the local community. For example, the
provider could encourage stakeholder participation in its ongoing
research or training activities such as with food-related Centres
of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs).
Develop and publicise a skills strategy to meet the economic and
learning needs of the local community including key indicators for
monitoring performance such as the organisation achieving an
accreditation as an Action for Business College
Work with partners on international community projects but adapt
them according to local circumstances and share best practice in
the dissemination of results phase. The Memento
Project is an example of an international community based
project.
Employer Engagement
The FE system has a key role to play in the vocational skills
delivery required under FE White Paper and The Leitch Review &
Implementation Plan and in generally providing provision that meets
employers’ demands.
Employer engagement can be seen as an important part of the wider
stakeholder engagement process. Providers can benefit from having a
wide range of interactions with local or regional employers.
Providers can be a source of new employees for the businesses, can
provide training or other courses to employer staff, and can host
lecturers from local companies. They can also be a recipient of
voluntary or charitable exchanges with local employers. For these
kinds of reasons it is very important that providers maximise the
level of engagement they achieve with employers and become their
partner of choice.
Bishop Burton College provides a good
case study on successful employer engagement.
There are many best practice initiatives being undertaken by
employers working in partnerships to improve links with their local
communities. You can use these as examples or, potentially, become
involved in them. Many inspirational case studies are contained on
the Business in the
Community website from companies such as Ginsters, KPMG,
Lloyd's and Toyota. Seeking recognition for good links with
employers and business can provide an excellent focus for activity
as well as an outcome to celebrate and support. A new employer
standard developed by the LSC in collaboration with key employer
representative organisations will soon be launched. This will allow
providers to demonstrate their flexibility in helping sectors and
individual employers and their ability to design and deliver
provision that meets the needs and demands of the local
economy.
2 - Local and Regional Networks
It is important that as a learning provider, you establish good
dialogue with the key partnerships within your local area, and that
you are also engaged with regional partnerships and policy issues
at the regional level.
Active membership of local networks can help to ensure that the
different stakeholders are able to collaborate productively and
that the sustainable development ethos is at the forefront of the
local community’s aspiration. Examples of ways in which you
can make a meaningful contribution towards relevant local networks
include:
- Participating in “communities of practice” shared
sectors, industries, activities etc.
- Contributing to local websites, newsletters or other media
outlets
- Participating in local events, fundraising, or other
communitywide projects.
- Developing your branding as a provider so that it actively
promotes your links with the local community.
- Working with professional organisations, e.g. the Environmental
Association of Universities and Colleges (EAUC) purchasing
officers, to ensure best practice and to share experiences with
other FE providers.
Examples where you can become effectively involved in wider,
more strategic networks, partnerships and initiatives to both
assert your own influence and to better understand what is
happening at the local and regional level include:
- The Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) is a key stakeholder that
providers could become involved with. LSPs represents a range of
the most relevant interest groups they bring together organisations
from the public, private, community and voluntary sector within a
local authority area, with the objective of improving people's
quality of life and will have also have direct links to regional
debates, particularly through the development of Local Area
Agreements.
- Local Area Agreements are three year agreements, based on local
Sustainable Community Strategies that set out the priorities for a
local area agreed between Central Government, represented by the
Government Office (GO), and a local area, represented by the local
authority and other key partners through Local Strategic
Partnerships (LSPs). Providers should be actively contributing to
the development of a Local Area Agreement with the LSP, ensuring
that new initiatives and ways in which the organisation can benefit
or contribute are appropriate both for the provider and for its
neighbours.
- Become involved in relevant planning decisions at the local
level. For example, a provider can provide feedback on Local
Development Framework documents (The Local Development Framework
(LDF) is a non-statutory term used to describe a folder of
documents, which includes all the local planning authority's local
development documents) as well as related sustainability appraisals
as part of the public consultation process.
- Help to shape other plans e.g. the Local Transport Plan (The
plan sets out the resources predicted for delivery of the targets
identified in the strategy. Local transport plans should be
consistent with the policies and priorities set out in the Regional
Transport Strategy as an integral part of the Regional Spatial
Strategy). A five-year integrated transport strategy, prepared by
local authorities in partnership with the community, seeking
funding to help provide local transport projects.
3 - Local
Markets and Ethical Trade
Individuals and organisations are increasingly aware of the
important contribution that they can make to local economies
through informed purchasing decisions. Many providers are now
implementing policies through which they can support local markets,
contribute to the local economy and to other socially responsible
initiatives within the community. Many also support ethical and
fair trade in international markets.
Providers are large consumers and purchasers with significant
purchasing power. They can have a real impact by purchasing
responsibly, opting for goods with sustainable credentials and by
demanding goods with higher sustainability credentials through
clear specifications. Procurement specifications should consider
not only the source of the materials the product is made from and
its longevity in the work place, but also its eventual redundancy
and disposal.
Providers should think about putting together a specification /
purchasing policy that prioritises procurement of goods with the
emphasis on local sources and also to cover issues such as:
- Examining the product's life cycle analysis this looks at the
sustainability impact of a product from cradle to grave.
- Building partnerships with suppliers to develop more
sustainable supply chains for all the products.
- Ensuring that the ethical and green credentials of all
suppliers and sub contractors are built into any bid and quotation
process.
- Ensuring a transparent tender process.
- Ensuring any catering / canteen food is fresh, local,
genetically modified organism free, and ideally, free range, fair
trade and organic.
- Reducing the contribution to climate change by prioritising the
purchase of low energy products, having energy efficient buildings
and transport fleets and buying energy from renewable sources or
installing micro-generation of energy
- Ensuring that the chemical products used do not adversely
affect the health of residents, staff or the environment.
- Ensuring that ethical trade is covered in the curriculum e.g.
materials use in fashion and design courses.
- Encourage learners and staff to think differently e.g. have
days to promote buying Fairtrade products.
Some useful guidance on sustainable procurement is outlined
below:
- Forum for the Future, working with the Welsh Assembly
Government's Procurement Initiative (Value Wales), have developed a
Public Sector Sustainable Procurement Assessment Tool. This is a
Self-Assessment Tool that enables a health check of where your
organisation currently stands in its capacity to delivery
sustainable procurement. It helps to identify strengths and
formulate a plan to address deficiencies. This is not available on
line but can be obtained from Sarah Hills.
- There are also opportunities to engage proactively with
environmentally and socially responsible employers in a
provider’s local community. They can be approached to
identify ways in which the provider can use the business as a local
resource. Organisations such as Business in the Community can
provide good examples of relevant businesses. Their directory of
members provides a list of more than 750 companies, including 71 in
the FTSE 100. For example, the Cooperative Group, with headquarters
in Manchester and 70,000 employees nationwide, promotes sustainable
development principles, including fair trade, ethical policies,
environmental and corporate community involvement.
- The section on Buildings and
Estates Management provides more detailed guidance on how to
procure locally, ethically and green goods and services.
4 - Share
Facilities
An immediate and often very successful way of promoting
community relations is to share facilities with outside groups.
This is an excellent use of resources and there are many examples
of where this has worked successfully, for example:
- Summer schools or summer courses can be very popular. Offering
access to appropriate courses for local residents can provide wide
benefit to locals and to provider staff and learners alike.
- Sharing sports, library or other facilities can ensure that
these facilities are fully utilised, can help to draw in additional
funding, and can contribute to the overall level of facilities
within the community.
- Building a portfolio of joint ventures between learners, staff
and residents can add to the overall level of approval of the FE
provider by its neighbours.
- Developing sustainable transport partnerships can be a way of
providing good quality transport for both learners and local
residents which may be unobtainable for each group
individually.
CASE STUDY: Greenwich Community College
provides a good case study here.
5 - Local Economic Strategies
The Learning and Skills sector can make a valid and strategic
contribution towards a better understanding and delivery of
employer demand in the context of future skills and employee
needs.
You should be aware and supportive of and connected to the local
and regional economic strategies drawn up and developed by local
authorities and Regional Development Agencies. In particular you
need to understand, be responsive to and be able to influence local
education infrastructure priorities, budget implications relating
to education and the wider community as well as the ongoing debate
about future skills needs. You should also ensure that you are
aware of new grant or funding opportunities such as European Social
Fund, initiatives by local agencies and the priorities of new local
employers such as apprenticeships or foundation degrees.
To achieve this, you will need to engage closely with the
development and implementation of local policies and strategies.
Engaging with the LSPs, as mentioned previously, will be one
effective route for you to have some influence and gain a better
understanding here.
6 -
Volunteering
Promoting volunteering is a direct and visible way in which
providers can make an active contribution locally. There are a
great number of ways in which learners or staff can be volunteers,
and each provider can have different opportunities depending on the
local situation. As a useful benchmark, Business in the Community
believe that effective volunteering means that at least 25% of the
organisation should become involved in volunteering activities.
There are a number of effective measures that you can take to
kick start volunteering activity amongst staff and students in your
organisation:
- Have links with a range of local non governmental organisations
in a wide range of areas can help potential volunteers identify an
activity that most appeals. These areas could range from
environmental projects, disability, mentoring, arts or design,
etc.
- Have volunteering days that everyone in the organisation must
take within a year.
- Enable learners to act as mentors to younger learners in local
Saturday schools for example.
- Get involved in British
Trust for Conservation Volunteer (BTCV) projects for learners,
for example with learning difficulties.
Monitoring, Reviewing,
Reporting
Regular monitoring and review of progress is central to
achieving effective community engagement. Successful engagement
should also include setting targets and developing a clear
implementation plan. This approach can be used to evaluate progress
and performance against objectives and targets, and as a means of
developing or revising objectives and targets for the future, with
a focus on improving performance.
Regular reporting is also very important. Reporting delivers an
internal overview of progress against stated values, and
performance against targets. It also provides a powerful tool
through which the organisation strengthens its engagement with
internal and external stakeholders. It provides a route through
which feedback on progress can be incorporated into future
strategic and tactical reviews to achieve further improvements.
You should consider revising your approach to annual reporting
by providing an annual sustainability statement, which includes
environmental and social impacts as well as financial outcomes or
student achievements.
One tool that can be used to help providers measure their
overall performance in terms of sustainable development and
community engagement is: "Community Engagement and Sustainable
Development". (This is currently under development and being
produced by the Worldwide Fund for Nature and CAG consultants).
The main purpose of the tool is to evaluate the impact of
community engagement on people’s behaviour with regard to
sustainable development. The tool has been developed for use by
practitioners with two aims in mind:
- to help practitioners evaluate the impact of projects,
programmes or interventions for their own use
- to gather information to feed into a wider WWF / CAG research
programme which will explore the impact of community engagement on
sustainable development behaviour
The research flowing from the development of the tool will
examine when and in what circumstances, community engagement leads
to change, and will be used to inform policy makers and
practitioners alike.
There are also other, more formal (voluntary) routes that can be
used to publicise how good a corporate citizen a provider is:
- Corporate Responsibility: organisations can have their policies
and procedures externally verified by independent companies. They
can also sign up to Business in the Community's CR Index the
UK’s leading benchmark of responsible business, helping
companies to integrate and improve responsible business across
their business and providing a systematic approach to managing,
measuring and reporting their impacts on society and the
environment. See Leadership and Management for more
information
- The Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is an accredited
Environmental Management System under which organisations must
publicise their environmental statement and have this externally
verified. See Buildings and
Estates for more information.
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