The community sector must strike and strike fast, post-election

This Thursday’s council elections will inevitably result in changes of political administration and leadership across the country. Even where the same political party retains its majority, there will likely be significant changes in the membership of council cabinets and scrutiny committees.

The voluntary and community sector, on behalf of local communities, must be ready for such changes. Local leaders in specific localities should be preparing, now, for the sector’s response and the responses of local organisations.

Ideally, the sector and its leaders will have been in dialogue with their local political parties and key candidates and will have made their views known, and offered up policies designed to benefit local communities. They will have studied party manifestos. Where the sector is on the front foot, councillors and administration leaders elected later this week should already be in no doubt about the views and ideas coming from the local voluntary and community sector.

That, at least, is what ought to have happened.

Sadly, and unfortunately in my experience, there will have been few places where this has happened. The likelihood is that the sector will not have engaged, and even where it has attempted to do so, politicians may have spurned the opportunity for dialogue. This scenario may be common but it represents a huge missed opportunity by both the sector and politicians, and can only disadvantage local people and communities.

So, picking up the pieces, and assuming that there has been little or no meaningful pre-election dialogue, the voluntary and community sector will need to be ready to strike from early next week. In that spirit, I offer five suggestions as to what sector leaders should do in their localities to make such actions effective:

1. Undertake an analysis of the majority party’s manifesto.

2. The sector has to understand: their local council’s financial and other constraints; the wider sub-regional and national contexts; and the commitment which an incoming administration will inherit and not be able to change (at least in the short term).

‘The next few weeks are critical as cabinets and programmes are established.

My advice to the local voluntary and community sector is get “stuck in”‘

3. Ensure that through effective gathering of intelligence, they understand the motivations of individual key councillors and the local dynamics. As ever, when seeking to influence anyone, it is important to understand the personalities, their egos, and play to their objectives, aims and strengths, whilst avoiding or a least being aware of their weaknesses, previous experiences and prejudices.

4. Having undertaken this analysis and shared it with the wider local sector, the next stage is to prepare briefings for the incoming or returning leader and cabinet and, if possible, the opposition party and scrutiny committee chairs. Such briefings should focus on how the voluntary and community sectors could contribute to supporting the realisation of manifesto goals. It should also point out the risks and potential negative impact of specific policies. The sector is likely to gain greater leverage (and be listened to) if it can both demonstrate how it might be able to add value to the council and empathise with the council’s financial and other challenges.

5. The sector’s local leaders should seek to persuade council leaders and cabinet portfolio holders why regular informed dialogue between them could be mutually beneficial, and lead to better outcomes for local people and communities. The sector has to be able to describe, in easy and accessible evidence-based language, its spread and impact across the council’s localities. And let me stress – this needs to be an honest self-appraisal. Behaviours such as crying wolf or exaggerating influence are inevitably and in the long rum, hugely counter-productive.

The sector should also take the opportunity to explain the value of local infrastructure bodies and how relatively small amounts of financial and other support to such bodies can facilitate this dialogue and build sector capacity. In turn, this will enable collaborative approaches to addressing budget and policy choices and objectives, wellbeing agendas and much more.

The aim should be to build trust and mutual respect such that council leaders and the sector can work together for the benefit of the local place. The sector is a core part of civil society and should regard itself as critical to the democratic governance of place – but to do so, it has to earn a reciprocal view on these issues from elected politicians. This takes time but a start should be made next week.

Local sector leaders and individual sector organisations will also benefit from building relations with chairs of scrutiny committees and ward councillors. No ward councillor should ever be able to claim or protest ignorance of voluntary and community sector activity and contribution in their patch because the sector has failed to make contact. The sector needs councillor cheerleaders. This is a ‘must-have’ – not a ‘ well, we should try and find time.

The next few weeks will be a critical time as cabinets and administration programmes are established. My firm advice to the local voluntary and community sector is get ‘stuck in’ along the lines outlined in this article. Any delay is likely to be very costly.