Framework for developing a Local Resilience Action Plan (LRAP)

Introduction
NAVCA is helping local infrastructure organisations and support providers to be better prepared to support their local third sector to avoid the worst aspects of the economic downturn or recession. It is not possible to plan for every eventuality, but preparations can be made to deal with potential problems. The economic downturn is creating difficulties for local third sector organisations as demands for services rise whilst funding gets tighter. This Local Resilience Action Plan (LRAP) Framework has been produced by NAVCA to help you develop your own local action plan. The framework will help you to assess the impact of the recession locally and in particular how it has affected the third sector. It will also help you identify the capacity for preventative development work. Once you have developed your action plan, you will be able to use it with the Local Strategic Partnership as the basis for negotiating additional support for priority third sector organisations. Your action plan will help your local third sector representatives argue the case for support for the local third sector in order to help local people deal with the impact of the recession. Your action plan is also invaluable to NAVCA; it will inform our national voice work on the impact of the recession on the local third sector. By gathering details from the action plans that are produced, we will get accurate information about how the recession is impacting on local third sector organisations across the country and how people are responding.

March 2009

NAVCA (National Association for Voluntary and Community Action), The Tower, 2 Furnival Square, Sheffield S1 4QL Tel 0114 278 6636 Fax 0114 278 7004 Textphone 0114 278 7025 [email protected] www.navca.org.uk
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About the LRAP Framework

This framework has four parts: Part one: The LRAP template this is the proposed structure for your Local Resilience Action Plan (LRAP). It is available as a separate Word document that you can fill in and use. Part two: Assessment and analysis these are suggested activities that you need to undertake to gather or produce the information and ideas that will form the content of your plan. Part three: Writing your Local Resilience Action Plan how to turn the information from your assessment and analysis into the content of your plan. Part four: Communications and involvement strategy these are activities you should consider to get local strategic partners and the wider third sector informed and committed to the delivery of the local plan.

Preparing your response to the recession

In preparing your response to the recession we strongly recommend you look at the following documents: i) ii) 'Real Help for Communities' a report published by the Office of the Third Sector outlining government action to help the sector. Backing communities: local solutions' a report published by NCVO and the Local Government Association highlighting work that local authorities are doing with third sector partners to support local people through the recession. The effect of the current economic situation on the voluntary and community sector in Milton Keynes this is an example of how one area has analysed the effect of the recession on a local area and developed recommendations on how to tackle these issues.

iii)

These documents can be accessed via our Local Resilience Action Plan page www.navca.org.uk/lrap

Please send your completed action plan to Barney Mynott, [email protected]

Part one: The LRAP template

The proposed structure has four sections each with a number of sub-sections. The guidance starting on page four highlights activities that you can undertake to ensure that the information you present is evidence-based and reflects the everyday experiences of your local third sector and the communities they work within. You can use this template or adapt it.

Section 1: Introduction
i. Purpose of the Local Resilience Action Plan. ii. Summary of impact of the recession on your local community. iii. Summary of impact on local third sector organisations. iv. Importance of third sector role. v. Key role of strategic partners. vi. The role of consortia and local infrastructure organisations.

Section 2: The local impact of the recession

i. Methods you have used to identify the local impact. ii. Assessment of the impact on the local community and local
third sector organisations.

Section 3: Responding to the recession

i. Priorities for local action. ii. Proposals for local action.

Section 4: Putting the plan into action

i. Resources required. ii. Responsibilities for delivery. iii. Timescale and milestones. iv. Monitoring and evaluating progress.

Part two: Assessment and analysis

This part of the framework offers guidance on the process you should follow to ensure your information and ideas are grounded in evidence and the everyday experiences of your local third sector and the communities they work within.

2.1 Assessment methodology

You need to undertake assessment activities to give you the evidence needed to underpin your action plan. Some of this will be new work, some may be collating information you or others already have. You should decide which methods to apply in undertaking this work. Be realistic about what you can achieve and the time it will take to implement. Methods to use may be: Survey work: Decide whether to make a general request for information or to focus on specific areas; could be organised in service areas (please see below) or based on particular small geographical areas. Survey framework: Make sure it is easy to complete, provides the right information and is made accessible in as many ways as possible, e.g. electronically, via contact with groups, events, forums and meetings, media. Discussion groups and workshops to create future vision, set scenarios, analyse and agree options and priorities.

The approach and delivery will obviously depend on local circumstances you will have your own communication channels and possibly some existing baseline information.

2.2 Assessment focus which service areas?

This will enable you to outline which service areas are experiencing the greatest pressure in your locality and how you have involved them in developing your plan. You may want to bring together organisations facing similar issues to discuss them in greater depth and explore possible collaborative working, either in accessing support and/or ways of delivering services. This is not an exhaustive list, but the following service areas may be some of those that are experiencing the greatest pressure in your area: Childcare & family support Community centres Community transport Credit Unions Debt counselling Domestic violence Housing advice & provision Information and advice Mediation Relationship counselling Substance misuse Support for homeless people Support for refugees Welfare & benefits advice

2.3 Impact assessment lines of enquiry

In your impact assessment you are looking for an approach that gathers or produces information that identifies:

General trends and predictions about how they will go in the future. Specific issues that are being experienced by local communities and organisations. Implications for communities and organisations. What can be done to alleviate threats and issues. Where there are gaps in provision. It is suggested that there are three distinct parts to this:

a) Developing an understanding of demand on services. b) Gaining knowledge about trends of funding, income and costs. c) Identifying gaps in provision, new opportunities for growth and expansion of services. These are discussed in turn below. For each there is a set of questions for you to consider or to ask in a consultation exercise. ) Developing an understanding of demand on services Here you are seeking information that enables you to outline common and specific experiences and what threats are being faced. Key questions and information you need: Where are the real pressure points? Which areas of service provision are experiencing growing demand, e.g. are there waiting lists? What are the current levels of activity? What is the level of demand? Which groups within the community are being left vulnerable? Does this give us information about trends that are being experienced now as well as those that could be predicted? What specific issues are being experienced, e.g. in geographic locations, within particular sections of the community?

Gaining an understanding of funding, income and costs Here you are seeking information that enables you to outline the challenges that are being faced by the local third sector as income and resources decrease and costs rise.

Key questions and information you need: What are the concerns for future income levels and which areas of income appear most insecure? In which service areas are these challenges being experienced? What other resources are being affected, e.g. support in kind, numbers of volunteers, user participation? Current risk areas in relation to revenue, e.g. cash flow, realising full cost assessments. To what extent are organisations contingency planning and how are they doing it? What other resource issues are you facing, e.g. rising costs, loss of volunteers, staff, in kind use of premises etc? What, if any, efficiency measures are being put in place and what is working?

) Identifying gaps in provision, new opportunities for growth and expansion of service Find out the needs of local people and the issues facing them, how they are presented to local groups and what responses are needed. You might also think about new approaches to working and service provision that could tackle ongoing and enduring challenges that the sector has faced that are not exclusively related to the recession. For example, a decline in the use of grants by local authorities might have a bigger impact on local organisations during the recession, but this was a reality for many organisations before the recession. The sector can consider being proactive by looking at new ways of working and finding realistic efficiencies that can be made, either within individual organisations or by working with each other and with other sectors. Questions to ask or consider: What gaps are there in available services and how could they be addressed? What priority needs are there in the area and how could the sector be proactive e.g. volunteering, social enterprise, new skills, community assets? Are there opportunities to develop improved relationships for mutual support? Would collaboration with other third sector organisations and public sector providers be beneficial? Are there any income generation opportunities?

What can we do with the private sector? Are there any opportunities to develop joint initiatives e.g. social enterprise development? How could resources be used more efficiently? Is there an opportunity to make radical changes to work together? Are there any merger opportunities? Does this current situation give us an opportunity to address other challenges?

2.4 Identifying sector development needs

Here you are seeking information that helps you describe the development needs of the local third sector to be an effective partner in dealing with the recession. It should consider ways in which local infrastructure organisations can support local organisations. Key questions about the local sector needs: What areas of business and organisational development do local third sector organisations need to help them address the impact of the recession? Are there any professional development needs for members of the third sector workforce? What are the sectors support needs to develop new solutions through joint-working within the sector and with organisations from other sectors, for example: Support for improving income generation? Improved governance and risk management? Collaborative working, different ways of working? Sharing back office services, modernising structures to be more efficient and effective? Employment law information and guidance? Banking/savings advice sources?

In looking at these questions you need to consider your own capability to provide support across a number of key areas. Think about your capability for delivering the following activities: Raising awareness in the local third sector of the impact of the recession. Leading the local third sector work on new methods of income generation, improved governance and improved risk management. Leading the local sectors work on collaboration, shared back office services and modernisation of structures. Building up a permanent endowment fund so that it becomes a source of local grants in the future. Developing a practical strategy to help local organisations cope with rising demand for services. Taking the needs of the sector to the Local Strategic Partnership so that additional resources can be identified from statutory partners. Making full use of government responses to the recession especially those provided by the Office of the Third Sector and Department of Business Enterprise Regulatory Reform? Feeding local issues and data to NAVCA and other appropriate national bodies. Ensuring that local organisations have access to employment law advice, tribunal protection, e.g. Peninsula, and insurance advice, e.g. Zurich, in order to support their management of risk.

2.5 Developing your priorities

Consider the range of different needs and solutions you have identified as being important. These are your options and you need to decide which are most necessary and offer the most benefit and gain. These will become your priorities.

Key questions to ask when developing your priorities: Which actions or activities are the most feasible to do in terms of delivery arrangements and levels of funding needed? Which are most likely to achieve the most support and funding and from where? Who would be responsible for making them happen? What issues would be critical and non-negotiable? From your assessment and analysis what priorities for the local third sector and communities do you think should be presented in your plan? How do you know that these are the right priorities and is there a consensus amongst local stakeholders for this? What are the risks? Are they high or low? How can they be mitigated?

2.6 Think about how strategic partners will be engaged

The ability of the sector to be a catalyst for change and to be proactive in responding to local needs will depend on its relationship with other sectors and partnerships. This section should outline how you will use this action plan to work with your local partners. You need to ask yourself the following questions and factor your answers into your plan: What joint working arrangements across sectors would be helpful? How could strategic decision making and joint working be more beneficial to local communities? Who will back the key proposals within the action plan? What is in it for them? Who is going to provide funding or other resources? What opportunities are there to access funds available from central government? What approaches are needed with the Local Strategic Partnership and Local Area Agreement? What improvements (to reduce the impact of the recession) can the sector lead on? What is the LSP being asked to do? What are the opportunities for strategic engagement of local trusts, Community Foundations and grant makers?

Part three: Writing your Local Resilience Action Plan (LRAP)

This part contains guidance on where to present the information you have gathered or produced in the LRAP template. It details how to turn the information from your Assessment and Analysis into the content of your plan.

Section 1: Introduction
This section provides the background and context to the action plan, explains why it is needed locally and nationally and states what it will do. This is also where you should say what support you can provide as local infrastructure organisations. It will give some highlights of things that appear in greater depth later in the plan so you might want to leave the editing of this section until you have written sections two to four.

Heading in action plan i. Purpose of the Local

Resilience Action Plan (LRAP).

Activities to gather or produce information under this heading

This is a short statement of why you have produced the action plan and what it will achieve. It should highlight:

ii. Background to the recession.

The important role you are playing in providing local leadership to the sector. What the action plan will achieve. The priority actions (from section 3ii) and a rationale for their inclusion. What you want people to do with the plan.

Start with some basic demographics that illustrate the characteristics of your local area, particularly things that might be important when discussing the impact of the recession, for example, local unemployment rates or rural/urban mix. Under this heading you should provide some context to the plan by highlighting critical aspects to the recession that hook people into wanting to read your plan to the end. You could do this by: Describing the known or predicted effects of the recession locally, for example, significant job losses. Focus on people not just organisations. Present some key known facts relating to service pressures on frontline organisations, for example, increase in number of clients and complexity of cases at Citizens Advice Bureau; reduction in levels of service

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provision due to rising costs. Again, contextualise it in terms of the needs of service users rather than providers. You will have generated this information in part two of the Framework Assessment and Analysis, in particular 2.3a on page 5. iii. Summary of impact on your local community of the recession. iv. Summary of impact on local third sector organisations. v. Importance of third sector role. This should be a summary of the information you presented in section 2ii below. This should be a summary of the information you presented in section 2ii below. Explain how the local third sector can help local communities during the recession. You should identify: The core work and functions of local third sector organisations that will be of particular importance during the recession. Examples of how local third sector organisations are identifying and responding to emerging needs. How these new areas of work illustrate the sector's ability to respond and adapt to changing needs, for example increasing skills through enhanced volunteer development programmes. You will have generated this sort of information developing your local impact assessment. See section 2iii item c on page 6.

vi. Key role of strategic

partners.

Outline the priorities and support needs that will be presented to strategic partners. You need to: Make a clear statement about the sectors commitment to working with partners to support local communities during the recession. List the partners and describe how their engagement is being sought and what they are being asked to contribute. Remember later that your proposals need to be realistic and demonstrate benefit to local communities in order to gain the positive engagement of other partners.

vii. The role of consortia

This part of your plan should draw on the information from the 11

and local infrastructure organisations.

Assessment and Analysis on page 7 and 8, section 2.4 Identifying sector development needs. Outline the unique role you have in providing support and services to the local third sector so they can play a full role in helping communities deal with the recession. You should: Provide information on the role of the consortia/local infrastructure organisation (LIO). Describe your strong track record of providing representation, support and services. Draw links between your work and the national context, for example discuss how your plan will be submitted to NAVCA to contribute towards its national picture that will be presented to the Office of the Third Sector, other parts of government and the Local Government Association, with the intention that this will ultimately benefit local areas.

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Section 2: The local impact of the recession

This section gives details of the information you have gathered about current experiences, demands, challenges and opportunities. You need to include the current and emerging threats to services that the recession poses.

Heading in action plan

i. Methods you have used to identify the local impact.

Activities to gather or produce information under this heading

This is a short summary of the process you undertook for this section of the action plan. You need to briefly explain:

What the assessment covered. How it was undertaken, for example, how many organisations participated, how they were involved and over what period.

ii. Assessment of the

impact on the local community and local third sector organisations.

This section pulls together the information you have gathered and produced in two main areas:

2.2 and 2.3 of the Assessment and Analysis section of the framework on pages 4 to 7. 2.4 of the Assessment and Analysis section, entitled Identifying sector development needs on page 7.

It should also draw on your own local knowledge and experience of what is happening in the community.

Section 3: Responding to the recession

It should include opportunities that are emerging to strengthen current provision and help organisations do something new or differently. This is also where you should say what support you can provide as local infrastructure organisations.

Heading in action plan

i. Priorities for local action.

Activities to gather or produce information under this heading

This section draws on two main sources.

ii. Proposals for local action.

2.4 of the Assessment and Analysis section, entitled Identifying sector development needs on page 7. The first four questions in the section on Developing your priorities, 2.5 on page 8.

This section draws on the last three questions in the section on Developing your priorities, 2.5 on page 8.

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Section 4: Putting the plan into action

This section outlines the practical activities that must happen to turn the ideas and proposals into actions and know that they have made a difference.

Heading in action plan

i. Resources required.

Activities to gather or produce information under this heading

Identify potential resources available through central and local government. You may wish to look at 'Real Help for Communities' the report published by the Office of the Third Sector outlining government action to help the sector. There are a number of points in the Assessment and Analysis section where you will have been prompted to consider resources for funding the activities you have proposed. These are: 2.3 part b, Gaining an understanding of funding, income and costs on page 5. 2.3 part c, Identifying gaps in provision, new opportunities on page 6. 2.5 Developing your priorities on page 8. 2.6 Engaging strategic partners on page 9.

ii. Responsibilities for delivery.

You need to think about: What activities you might deliver yourself. What activities third sector organisations or public sector partners need to deliver (see 2.6, Engaging strategic partners on page 9). Some of these you might need to get them to agree to and this needs to be reflected in your timescales and milestones below.

iii. Timescale and milestones. iv. Monitoring and evaluating progress.

Agree realistic timescales and milestones for each activity identified in section 3ii Proposals for Local Action above. Establish some processes to monitor how your plan is being implemented and build in points where it can be reviewed and refreshed.

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Part four: Communications and involvement strategy

This part of the framework contains some ideas about communicating your plan to people to encourage their interest and involvement in helping your LRAP make a difference to your local communities and third sector organisations.

Getting local partners interested and involved

Develop a plan and timetable for communicating with key audiences. Think about how this will happen, where representations will be made, to whom and by whom. The sector is presenting a set of local priorities, based on their knowledge, expertise and evidence they have gathered. These need co-operation to work and in some cases to be coproduced. Be clear about the style of approach:

You are trying to build trust in your ideas and solutions. You want them to recognise the important role the third sector can play in helping communities deal with the recession but that local third sector organisations may need support and extra resources to do this effectively. You need to strike a balance between highlighting the problems and vulnerability of third sector organisations and showing that they are the best placed organisations to help deal with the recession. Get this balance wrong and youll look like youve got a long list of problems and few solutions.

Raising (and keeping) awareness of your Local Resilience Action Plan

Remember, talking about people will always be more interesting and persuasive than talking about structures and organisations. You may wish to add sketches of case studies that make the plan real and relevant. Consider how you will communicate with the sector and strategic partners. Be committed to delivering ongoing communications to make sure that information is available to all concerned throughout and that feedback and engagement of frontline organisations continues. Plan for regular progress reports so that priority actions are seen to be delivering and new ones can be discussed should they emerge. Build on the relationships with the local community, local councillors, Members of Parliament, local media outlets. Good news stories are a must. Be part of something bigger send your plan and related news and information to NAVCA. Also ask NAVCA for the ready, responding, resilient logo so that your plan is seen as part of the national picture of how local third sector organisations are responding to the recession.

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