This section reflects on some of the challenges that the project faced, the lessons that were learnt, and the ways in which Take Part Exeter overcame these challenges and achieved its targets and outcomes. The aspects that will be considered are:

• Opportunities and Challenges involved in the delivery of a Pathfinder
• External Policy Context
• Take Part at Exeter CVS: Project management and delivery
• Partnership working.

1.1     Delivering a government pilot

Take Part Exeter was one of 18 national pilots and one of ‘phase one’ Local Pathfinders, which started in January 2009. The reason for Exeter having been able to be involved under phase 1 was its previous involvement in the Active Learning for Active Citizenship hub between 2003 and 2005.

Being a Pathfinder brings with it a great number of opportunities, as well as some challenges. These will be considered in turn.

3.1.1. External policy context

National context

The Pathfinder programme came into being in 2009 towards the end of the third term of the New Labour government. It could be argued - and it was felt by project staff – that the project was met with some cynicism or weariness in the general population. Times were certainly very different compared with the first term of New Labour where initiatives like New Deal programmes, Sure Start Centres, etc, were received in a more receptive or optimistic climate, compared with 2009-2010. It is hard to evidence to what extent the Pathfinder’s timing affected the speed with which it got off the ground or how subsequent political changes – locally and nationally – inhibited or encouraged people to respond to the opportunities provided by Take Part. It was evident that the Big Society agenda raised a lot of curiosity and questions, at least among those already involved in the sector or in their community – proof of this was the high level of debate about the Big Society generated at the Take Part Exeter final conference in February 2011.

The point to make in this context is that no government social policy programme, pilot or pathfinder can be isolated from the political environment it inhabits, and that people will react by either engaging or refusing to engage in some programmes, each with their own motivation.

Local political context

The timing of Take Part Exeter coincided with a Local Government Reorganisation initiated by the Labour Government, with the intention of creating a Unitary Authority in Devon. Devon then was a two-tier authority, with Districts (in our case, Exeter City Council) and the County Council.

Encouraged by Plymouth and Torbay Unitary Status, and by its civic history, Exeter City saw this reorganisation as an opportunity to apply for Unitary status, despite its smaller population size. At the same time Devon applied to become the Unitary Authority for the whole county, emulating Cornwall and Wiltshire. The latter option would have abolished Exeter City Council and risked under-representing the specific urban character of Exeter in an otherwise large rural county.

For these reasons, the two authorities became locked into a fierce competition over who would rule Exeter. Because of its small size, the Boundary Committee requested Exeter to resubmit its bid by extending its boundaries, in order to make the authority more viable. Other district councils in Devon challenged the County’s unitary bid, and all of this resulted in a long period of uncertainty and resources being put into competing bids, for over two years.

It was not until the general elections in May 2010 that the new government squashed all these plans and confirmed Devon’s status quo of a two-tiered structure. Understandably, Take Part Exeter was affected by this uncertainty, as tensions pitted the authorities against each other, and cooperation between them became difficult despite the best efforts of the individuals officers.

An example of how this affected Take Part Exeter directly was also, for example, in the area of information provision, where the role of the two respective councils and different types of Local Councillors had to be explained. How-to Guides could not be finalised while the outcome of the reorganisation was pending, and the How Your City Works course had to go into great length to explain the current division of responsibilities and the possibility that this might change under unitary status.

1.1.1    Opportunities

Exeter CVS was very pleased to have been given the opportunity to coordinate a Pathfinder in the South West region, building on and developing its active citizenship learning and support for various user groups, and its partnership work with statutory agencies.

‘Making Your Voice Heard or ‘Speaking Up’ had been a long-standing strand of work at Exeter CVS with service users, carers, people with mental health experiences, Learning Disabilities, people from BME groups and others. As part of and in addition to the learning, people were given opportunities to practice involvement in the form of attending and speaking up at meetings, forums, or even through training professional staff in their understanding of the issues that a service user group might face.

Exeter CVS had also run training in governance roles through its Trustee development programmes; and just prior to the Take Part it developed learning, through the Devon Consortium, in Representation in the Voluntary and Community Sector. At the core of Representation and ‘Skilling Up for Stronger Voices’ was the intent to build the capacity of individuals to engage with and influence issues and developments in the Voluntary Sector, and created links with wider partnerships, such as Local Strategic Partnerships.

The aims of the Take Part Pathfinder opened up new areas for active citizenship, which Exeter CVS with its Statutory Partners were keen to seize. In a community engagement pilot, Exeter CVS had offered training on Speaking Up to residents in communities as part of the ‘My Neighbourhood’ pilot with Exeter City Council. However, as this was a short and small pilot, there was not enough time or resources to support this work.

The Take Part Pathfinder programme was linked to the New Labour policies in Community Empowerment, having been announced as part of the 2008 White Paper, Communities in Control, Real People, Real Power. Partnerships between voluntary sector and Local Authorities were fundamental to the set-up of Pathfinder programmes, and Exeter CVS was well placed with both Local Authorities in its area to take previous work forward.

In addition to Community Empowerment, the Pathfinders aimed to increase the uptake of civic roles, and to broaden participation in this type of involvement to underrepresented groups. This was a new perspective and challenge for Pathfinders, even if some collaboration in civic roles already existed at Exeter CVS with the Youth Justice System and the Policy Authority, who used the Volunteer Centre for recruiting to these roles.

However, Take Part Exeter was given a long list of other civic roles to consider, involving new partnerships and requiring substantial research up-front.

The management of the 18 national Pathfinders by CDF, and a national support programme, meant that the Pathfinders were supported to work together and encouraged to share resources and best practice. Regular national Pathfinder meetings were held for practitioners to meet, and an online directory was compiled and a community of practice was set up to facilitate the sharing of information and materials provided by individual Pathfinders and their partners.

This proved to be an invaluable resource, which made it easier for Pathfinders to import ideas and resources from other pathfinders and practitioners. Take Part Exeter both benefited and contributed to this sharing. Whilst this saved a lot of time, new learning resources or information materials, such as How-to Guides always had to be adapted locally before they could be used.

1.1.2    Delivery challenges

Whilst involvement in the Pathfinder gave the partner organisations the opportunity to develop new areas of work, to try out new approaches - or old approaches to new areas  -  the Pathfinder status also imposed some constraints.

Targets

First and foremost, this Pathfinder was set some considerable targets in terms of learner numbers to be achieved (1225) and programmes to be developed (40 accredited courses). In order to achieve these targets, the Pathfinder had to plan its delivery accordingly, for example by offering a majority of shorter sessions, including introductory courses and tasters, rather than more longer learning programmes. The disadvantage with shorter sessions is that, unless learners do a number of them, the learning is spread more thinly. It is evident that the longer programmes that were delivered predominantly during the second half of the Pathfinder had a deeper impact on learners, and may have achieved more.

Short courses

Due to high learner number and course targets, a lot of short learning programmes of one to three sessions were delivered, sometimes to groups with despondent members. This had implications on the tutor who was delivering this unaccredited training; it was difficult to build a rapport and relationships, and establish a learning culture with learners over such a short period. The tutor also felt that with short courses, learners would not receive long-term benefits. Some groups were also resistant to learning. Individuals also came from transitory groups, such as Women’s Refuge, who dealt with women experiencing abuse. Vulnerable learners such as these were difficult to engage in learning activities when they were dealing with personal problems. However, due to high learner targets the tutor felt pressurised to work with such groups. There was also a sense of demoralisation when partnerships, e.g. with Women’s Refuge, broke down due to issues out of the pathfinders control.

Longer courses, such as ‘Taking a Lead in Your Community’, and accredited courses, were particularly successful and enjoyable for the tutors and the participants. The key message from this is to encourage the development of courses that consist of a number of sessions, in order to capture the audience, build trust and establish strong relationships with learners, and as a result, increase the likelihood of learners gaining long-term benefits from the training.

Monitoring and Evaluation

In addition to keeping a record of people involved in learning programmes, the Pathfinders were asked to collect information in order to be able to identify learners in terms of their status as ‘underrepresented’ or belonging to a disadvantaged community, and to measure their progress during and after their involvement with Take Part. These monitoring requirements meant that a long list of questions needed to be asked of learners from the moment of them first enrolling with the programme, and again later on at the end of their programme, and after that for the evaluation. Questions included:

• How / where learners found out about the course
• Their motivation for attending a session
• Equal opportunities monitoring
• Current involvement in, and experience of civil and civic participation
• Ability to influence public decisions

These were to provide a baseline for the project evaluation, but resulted in a rather long-winded form. This did not seem appropriate for the informal learning style of Take Part learning, and especially for shorter/ introductory sessions, as there is always a risk that people resent the bureaucracy and the giving out of personal data, before they even had a chance to appreciate the free training they were offered. In short sessions the tutor had to make time for the paperwork, which was cumbersome.

The evaluation included not only questions about the effect and impact the programme had on participants but also a repeat of the question ‘do you feel able to influence decisions on services that affect you?’ Being able to demonstrate improvements to this indicator was one of the Pathfinder’s key aims, especially in the context of the Community Empowerment policy agenda.

Learners were also asked in the course feedback forms whether the programme had encouraged them to take any new active citizen action. It was clear that this question would in most cases be asked too early, and therefore, in order to measure impact more effectively, all learners were asked to participate in a project evaluation towards the end of the programme. Even then, the real impact will continue to emerge in the months and years to come, so any form of short term evaluation will have a limited scope.

Case studies and evidencing success

A government pathfinder programme brings with it further requirements, including short-term requests by ministers for case studies. Preferably, these case studies have to make the case, succinctly, of particular desired outcomes of the programme (and more, if possible). In addition to the difficulty described above of being able to measure impact so soon after people had experienced the programme, another is to capture the desired outcomes in a way that reflects people’s personal priorities and experiences. Individual case studies can have an empowering effect on participants, but it also exposes them to potential scrutiny, and to publicity about their ‘disadvantaged’ status of one kind or another. It could be argued that the ethical implications are not always fully weighed up in these instances and could outweigh any benefits gained from exposure and publicity, in particular when it is for political short term expediency.

Learning Resources Collection

In 2010 the national Take Part Network, a new organisation that represented the ALAC hubs from 2003, was given the opportunity to collect, collate and publish the learning and information materials developed under the Pathfinder programme, to enable a legacy to continue beyond the Pathfinder programme, and to share resources with other practitioners, beyond the Community of Practice.

Whilst its purpose was laudable, the Take Part Exeter Pathfinder staff struggled with finding the necessary time to prepare the learning resources so that they could be shared with others in a suitable format. Each session uses materials but these are often adapted to the particular group of learners, and used very flexibly. It would have been easier if the preparation of the Take Part legacy had been known about and built into the programme from the start, rather than half way through the programme.

Gender differences among learners

Overall, the project was successful at reaching underrepresented groups. The main difficulty was attracting equal numbers of men and women to courses. Only one quarter (26%) of participants were male. The tutors found women easier to work with, as they appeared more appreciative of the learning that was offered. This was particular apparent when working with both the Sure Start and SPAN parent groups. It is also important to note that learning programmes were delivered to one BAME women parent group, and in two Sure Start centres (predominantly attended by women), on more than one occasion. This was because females from disadvantaged or underrepresented groups were easier to access. According to research conducted on the topic of men and Sure Start centres, findings concluded that men perceive the centres to be primarily for women, and do not think that the services cater for them[1]. The same study found that due to cultural perceptions, this attitude was particularly profound among young BAME men.

The challenges of attracting men may have been due to the course titles themselves. Men were more likely to participate in courses about civic and leadership roles, for example as a Magistrates or a Charity Trustee. According to external research, 72% of volunteers are female[2], a rate similar to the take up of learners registered with Take Part, which suggests that gender differences in enrolment numbers would have been inevitable.

Civic roles workshops and underrepresented groups

Compared with other learning programmes, men were more likely to participate in workshops about civic roles. Out of the 106 learners on these courses, 63% (67) were female, a rate of around 10% less than the overall Take Part learner figure. The Charity Trustee and School Governor workshops were however predominantly composed of women (75% of the 17 learners from these courses were women).

Perhaps of greater interest is how well these courses attracted people from non-white groups, as the stereotype for these roles is white and middle-class. The Pathfinder attempted to address this issue by using images of non-white people in its advertisement for the courses. Unfortunately, the social class of learners was not recorded, so this analysis is restricted to ethnicity. Overall, 11% (11) of civic role course participants were from non-white backgrounds. Although this figure is less than the average percentage of non-white Take Part learners (17%), this is considerably higher than Exeter’s proportion of non-white residents (2.4%). The Charity Trustee course had a particularly high non-white representation of 33% (three out of nine learners). In this regard Take Part Exeter has been successful at reaching underrepresented groups with its civic role courses.

Partnerships

Take Part Exeter relied on working with partners to deliver its activities, in particular for reaching its different target groups and for engaging statutory providers with citizens.

Whilst Exeter CVS offered a strong network and relationships with both voluntary and community organisations and with different Statutory Partners, the Pathfinder was nevertheless reliant on the willigness of partners and on their capacity to support this work. In most areas this worked well, but in others, the achievements remained limited.

For example, one of the Pathfinder’s target groups were residents and tenants in Housing Associations and Council Housing. Whilst Housing Associations and the City Council Housing department have officers responsible for engaging and supporting tenants, their capacity varied between organisations and over time. Take Part Exeter ran several workshops with both Council Housing and Housing Association Tenants, but it was felt that there could have been more potential. Evaluation talks with officers confirmed that capacity had been an issue, rather than lack of commitment.

1.2    Take Part Exeter at Exeter CVS

1.2.1    Assets of an established CVS

The ethos of Take Part followed on from the Active Learning for Active Citizen (ALAC) hub run by Exeter CVS between 2003 and 2005. The organisation also embraced the project as it was relevant to its missions and objectives, and aligned with its core values. Within the organisation it was hoped that Take Part Exeter would bring staff from different parts of the organisation, e.g. from the Volunteer Centre and from the Learning and Development department, together, improving internal networking, and become embedded into the work of other projects. As a result, most of the management team at Exeter CVS were involved in Take Part, in order to achieve this synergy across the organisation.

However, these objectives were challenging to implement. Despite the previous ALAC pilot and repeated presentations to staff, not all staff members identified the Take Part aims as similar or complementary to their own areas of work, and some struggled to see its relevance to their work. Contributing factors were that the Take Part Exeter team was from the start particularly focused on delivering its targets; in comparison with some other projects it was perceived that Take Part was well funded, given that it could afford a team of four staff; and other staff at Exeter CVS tended to focus on their own projects.

It was only until the third and final year of the project that the achievements of the pathfinder started to make a distinct impression right across the CVS. The lesson learnt was that new, especially pilot, projects take time to get established and become fully understood by others; to integrate new work is a slow process, and one that depends on the willingness of individuals to engage with others.

1.2.2    Take Part Exeter team

The Take Part team staffing structure was designed to cover the different aspects of the project:

• Coordination: partnership development, steering group, reporting/ liaison with funders
• Take Part Exeter tutor: development and delivery of learning programmes; supplemented by a CVS tutor, ‘Speaking Up’ worked with take Part
• Information and publicity officer: provide marketing and publicity support to the project, and develop information on opportunities
• Administrator: project administration, learning programme monitoring and project support including event organisation

Management involved different senior managers and monthly team meetings, headed by the CEO, and to allow coordination across the organisation with a view to embedding the work.

The pathfinder team had a strong focus on Active Citizenship, and worked tirelessly to meet the high targets set for the project. The project coordinator brought local expertise from previous projects (including Active Learning for Active Citizenship), and local contacts to Take Part Exeter, which was instrumental for founding the project in the local community and voluntary sector.

When in October 2009 the project coordinator resigned to pursue a PhD on Active Citizenship through collaborative research with Exeter CVS, this was seen as a great opportunity to strengthen the Take Part evidence base, but it required the appointment of a new project coordinator part-way through the project.

The new coordinator had brought extensive project management experience and great skill to the project. However, his lack of familiarity with the Exeter area and local key players probably meant a delay in the pursuance of partner coordination. Subsequent long periods of sick leave did affect the team’s progress, with partner development having been one of the key areas affected. Nevertheless, this challenge –and further staff changes in the team -  were successfully overcome, due to committed staff, support at Exeter CVS, and the early achievements in the project. It could be said, though, that the learning programmes shifted in their emphasis form working more thinly with a number of target groups and organisations through short sessions to consolidating learning programmes of longer duration with new and repeat learners who had joined Take Part on shorter courses.