Community Network
The Role and Remit of its Representatives
1. Context and background
1.1. The City of Durham District Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) is one of seven LSPs in County Durham. Of the seven, three of these do not receive Neighbourhood Renewal Funding, of which City of Durham District is one.
1.2. Part of its role is to encourage the public, voluntary and community groups to work with other agencies responsible for the delivery of services.
1.3. A clear statement of the role and remit of the community network representatives on the City of Durham District Local Strategic Partnership is based on the following principles -
- It is the voluntary and community sector and the wider community, when, combined, make up the community network. It is this network that is able to play a full and equal part in partnership working to bring a wide range of contributions and perspectives.
- The community network involvement is seen as key to long-term sustainable change and as a pool of ideas, knowledge, skills and experience that can drive change.
- The network and forums can help draw local organisations and people into partnership working. The LSP need arrangements for communities to feed in directly to developing strategies.
- Support from the Durham City District Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) is maintained through the allocated resource of the Community Development Officer.
- This document should be read in conjunction with the Terms of Reference for the Community Network of The City of Durham District LSP.
2. Statement of role of Community Network Representatives
2.1. The role of Community Network representatives is to help the Partnership to work in an inclusive way, i.e. helping the Partnership to fulfill its responsibilities to communicate effectively with local people, taking their views and concerns into account. Community Network representatives do this in two ways:
- Assist in bringing forward a voluntary & community and the wider community perspective to the activities of the Partnership from the organisation that they are nominated from, which may be a community or voluntary sector organisation;
- Encourage the Partnership to consider wider community involvement issues when necessary and advise on how this can be done.
2.2. Community network representatives are valuable to the Partnership, bringing resources to the table in terms of their knowledge of local communities, the issues that matter to them, and their skills in community involvement and participation.
3. The remit of community network representatives
To carry out their role, community network representatives need to:
3.1. Reflect the diversity of community opinions - they are not expected to be delegates putting forward a single view for all the people in their organisation or network.
3.2. Communicate to the Partnership their awareness of any local needs and issues that may influence its strategies, plans and activities.
3.3. Carry out their responsibilities in a fair and balanced way, not favouring the views of one particular community or interest group at the expense of others.
3.4. Help the Partnership bring in views from the wider community, particularly those who find it hard to be directly involved.
3.5. Help the Partnership be aware of the impact of decisions on local people.
3.6. Encourage the sharing of information about the Partnership with the wider community, by working through their own organisation's networks and structures.
3.7. Help explore ways for communities to influence the work and decisions of the Partnership and individual partners and making sure that the Partnership feeds back information to partners and communities adequately.
3.8. Encourage the Partnership to communicate clearly, to be inclusive and to work together effectively.
4. Effectiveness of community network representatives
The effectiveness of the representatives will be enhanced by adopting the following principles.
4.1. Representatives need to be clear about the role of Local Strategic Partnerships - where they fit alongside other representatives and what decisions are taken where.
4.2. All partnership members need to be clear about the role of community network representatives and the benefits they bring to the Partnership and to communities.
4.3. The level of community network representation needs to be adequate.
4.4. Shared aims and purpose are important.
4.5. Good communication is needed throughout the different levels of the structure.
4.6. More time is needed for community voices to come through.
4.7. There should be opportunities for communities to influence the Partnership's agenda.
4.8. Arrangements should be flexible- not fixed systems and structures set in stone.
4.9. Partnerships need to develop ways of engaging a variety of people at opportune times - not just through representatives and networks.
4.10 All partners should feel able to participate as equals.
4.11 The representatives have a commitment to being proactive in promoting
the work they do and that of the partnership.
5. Proposals for action
In order to support the role of community network representatives and enhance the inclusiveness of the Partnership, the following actions are proposed. The initial action point is as follows, as a full action plan is currently being developed.
5.1. The Partnership agrees the definition of The Community Network and the role and remit of its representatives.