Empowerment White Paper – Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power

NTRC

The new empowerment white paper was published last week by communities minister Hazel Blears…so what do you need to know?

Firstly, let’s just clarify what we think empowerment is. Here is the Communities and Local Government definition:

“Community Empowerment is about people and government, working together to make life better. It involves more people being able to influence decisions about their communities and more people taking responsibility for tackling local problems, rather than expecting others to.

The idea is that government can’t solve everything itself and nor can the community, working together is more productive.

There are 3 key ingredients to community empowerment:

Active Citizens: people with motivation, skills and confidence to speak up for their communities and say what improvements are needed.

Strengthened Communities: community groups with the capability and resources to bring people together to work out shared solutions

Partnership with public bodies: public bodies willing and able to work as partners with local people”

Any clearer? Essentially, empowerment is about sharing responsibility, encouraging those at the receiving end of the services that are delivered to have a real say in the way that services are delivered and to make it count.

Front line staff now have a massive opportunity to make a difference and will be seen as an essential asset when it comes to engaging with residents and encouraging people to get involved. You have a real chance to demonstrate the added value that front line staff can contribute to empowerment. Residents who want to get involved but aren’t sure how, need to be able to approach people like you to find out what they can do. It is worth thinking now how you engage with people, whether people have been empowered as a result of your actions.

BUT why do you need to do this?

As from April 2009, all statutory agencies (local authorities and Police as examples) must be able to demonstrate how they involve, consult and inform with their service users. No doubt, they will come to you for some

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