Community influence
Considering the capacity and experience of communities as well as the roles and responsibilities of public bodies
Not only does local peoples’ influence contribute to better and more sustainable services and policies, it also builds trust in public institutions, builds partnerships with communities and ultimately helps to build social capital and stronger, more influential and resilient communities. (Jo Lancaster, Assistant Chief Executive, Wolverhampton City Council, echo workshop January 2010)
An introduction to community influence
The notion of community influence underpins much government policy and initiatives:
The latest ‘National Indicator’ set, developed for Local Area Agreements, illustrate the government’s interest in community influence. For example:
- NI1 - percentage of people who believe people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area
- NI3 – civic participation in the area
- NI4 – percentage of local residents who feel they can influence decisions in their locality
- NI6 – participation in regular volunteering
- NI7 – environment for a thriving third sector
From 2008, Local Involvement Networks (LINks) replaced Patients’ forums. A LINk is a network of local people/organisations that represent the community in each local authority that has social care services. LINks have the opportunity to comment on current social care and health services in their area and to suggest how they think the services should be improved. LINks are designed to give local communities a stronger voice in commissioning health and social care services and to enable them to influence key decisions about the services they both use and pay for.
An Action Plan for Community Empowerment
The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) set out the importance of devolution and giving local people a ‘voice’, to ensure that services are tailored to the needs of the community and in order for Britain to face some of its biggest challenges including obesity and climate change. There is an expectation on councils and their partners to take a more strategic and systematic approach to placing community involvement at the heart of everything they do.
Our perspective on community influenceInfluence isn’t just a one way street. Whilst undertaking research to ascertain what communities can do to become more influential, it became increasingly clear to us that there was another side to the story – that public agencies and partnerships need to be open and receptive to that influence.
‘Influence’ is interpreted – and understood differently – at different times, in different contexts and by different people. We can understand influence as being about attributes, methods and/or outcomes:
Attributes
What helps us to influence
Methods
Ways we influence
Outcomes
What happens as a result of influence
Six other approaches to influence that have emerged through our research are:
- Whispering – in the ears of influential people – private discussions which represent issues, opinion and priorities through a more influential ‘other’. Whisperers are the agenda setters – they don’t need to make any noise.
- Shouting – which could be about passion or about bullying or about frustration – it is not usually viewed as an effective form of influence but it can reap some reward.
- Negotiating – sitting at the right table at the right time, having all the information, skills and organisation you need in order to be an equal at the table
- Taking action – having a task and doing something. Making a direct impression – or contributing to a bigger vision.
- Being part of a bigger network – strength in numbers, division of labour and playing to each other’s strengths
- Shaming – drawing attention to poor decision making or embarrassing those who are not listening or taking account of people’s views
Community influence takes these ideas further towards the notion of collective influence. Groups and networks often begin with individuals but, if it only remains with them, then:
- the network is more vulnerable to an individual moving or withdrawing
- decisions are less likely to address the issues of the communities on which they impact
- the network is less likely to achieve community development outcomes around community empowerment and well-being
- public bodies and partnerships don’t ‘realise’ ‘community empowerment’ – they might get people’s views represented and change happening, but it is not necessarily about communities being empowered