Looking at employment - Nacro

Tony Blair meetsworkers on the HollyStreet estate in eastLondon at the launch ofNew Deal forCommunities, 15Photo: Evening StandardThird, the Government has created 18 cross-cutting action teamsof civil servants and outside experts to draw up plans fortackling underlying problems of regenerating local economies,improving housing and neighbourhood management, enhancingprospects for young people, increasing access to high-qualityservices and making the Government work better.Among a wide range of questions, the teams will be consideringhow best to get the most disadvantaged people into work,prevent anti-social behaviour, build and support communityorganisations, involve parents in their children’s education,engage people in poor neighbourhoods in arts, sport and leisure,and reduce youth disaffection. More ambitiously still, teams willbe asking how shops, insurance and financial services can beencouraged back into poor neighbourhoods, along with capital tostimulate business start-ups.There is no faulting the breadth and ambition of the strategy,although the true test as always will be whether the army ofstakeholders at central and local level will be able to ‘walk thewalk’ as well as ‘talk the talk’. The flavour of the analysis isfamiliar from earlier SEU reports on truancy and exclusion andon rough sleeping, which emphasised the importance of morejoined-up government and better inter-agency co-operation, quiteas much as the need for more resources.Perhaps the most innovative idea is that all of the local authorityand other public agencies providing services to a community -social services, health, housing and police - work in multidisciplinaryteams under a ‘neighbourhood manager’. As well asovercoming the fragmentation of different schemes andprogrammes often going on in the same area - what the SEUcalls ‘initiative-itis’ - neighbourhood management, throughaccountability to a neighbourhood board and the development ofa local plan, should enable problems to be addressed in a moreholistic way and for resources to be shared in a much moreplanned way.What are the key issues which will determine the success orfailure of the latest in a long line of initiatives? First, the extentto which the new partnerships genuinely engage local peoplewill be crucial. Tony Giddens in ‘The Third Way’ argues that ‘inorder to work, partnerships between government agencies, thecriminal justice system, local associations and communityorganisations have to be inclusive - all economic and ethnicgroups must be involved’ (Giddens, 1998). What this analysisignores is the often highly divided nature of the mostdisadvantaged communities.Forthcoming research by NACRO into social crime preventionmeasures in two northern cities shows the importance ofproactive efforts to involve and engage local people - the young,the isolated, victims of crime and offenders - but achievinggenuinely inclusive consultation and participation is a prizeworth having. NACRO’s Huyton Community Crime Preventionproject, which has been funded by the Single RegenerationBudget in Merseyside, will try to put the lessons of this researchinto action.The carrot of funding will help in the NDC areas, but elsewherecommunity involvement will not just happen. Indeed the rolewhich it is envisaged that the police will play will not beuniversally welcomed. While the idea put forward by Giddensthat the police ‘should work closely with citizens to improvelocal community standards and civil behaviour using education,persuasion and counselling instead of arraignment’ is muchpreferable to using their powers to sweep undesirables off thestreets, it will need to be implemented thoughtfully.Second, the SEU report places great faith in the ability both ofNACRO SAFER SOCIETY MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 1999 12