Enduring change: The experience of the Community Links Social Enterprise Zone: Lessons learnt and next steps

Description

'Regeneration', 'mainstreaming', 'community involvement', 'evidence based policy', 'public service reform'- all are terms central to the Government's policy programme for tackling social deprivation. But what do they mean in practice for people living in areas of multiple deprivation? This report describes how Community Links, a community organisation in Newham, East London, has worked over the past seven years to give these terms practical meaning through its Social Enterprise Zone project. The Social Enterprise Zone aims to involve service users and front-line workers in service reform, generate practical ideas for changing the way mainstream resources are delivered and governed, and ensure that these ideas are tested, evaluated and the lessons shared by all involved. The report revisits the original proposal for Social Enterprise Zones made in 1996 and reflects on how the idea has adapted to the policy environment under New Labour. It describes the setting up of a pilot Zone, started in 1999, and presents case studies of the ideas generated, how they have been tested and what their impact has been. Enduring change is essential reading for anyone interested in public services reform and how to achieve it including policy makers in central and local government, managers and workers in public sector agencies, regeneration workers, community activists, academics with an interest in social policy and poverty, and politicians.

Matthew Smerdon is Director of Community Work at Community Links and was Project Manager of the Social Enterprise Zone from 1999 to 2002. David Robinson founded Community Links and is now Senior Adviser.