ANNEX 1 - DETAILED CASE STUDY

Alternative approaches to capacity

building – practices in public and
private sectors

MAY 15 2009

Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research

Middlesex University Business School
The Burroughs
London NW4 4BT
www.mdx.ac.uk/ceedr or www.mdx.ac.uk/socialenterprise

and

Third Sector Research Centre

University of Birmingham

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CONTENT

CASE STUDY 1 DEPARTMENT OF WORK AND PENSIONS CITY STRATEGY

PATHFINDER SOUTH YORKSHIRE EMPLOYMENT CONSORTIUM.............................3
CASE STUDY 2 BRENT IN 2 WORK....................................................................................8
CASE STUDY 3 AIM HIGH ROUTEBACK EASINGTON COUNTY DURHAM............14
CASE STUDY 4 EAST MIDLANDS IMPROVEMENT AND EFFICIENCY
PARTNERSHIP.......................................................................................................................20
CASE STUDY 7 REFLEX COMMUNITY BASED BUSINESS ADVISORS...................38
CASE STUDY 8 SOUTH EAST BUSINESS LINK ENTERPRISE GATEWAY SERVICE–
BUILDING BUSINESS CONFIDENCE................................................................................45

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CASE STUDY 1 .........DEPARTMENT OF WORK AND
PENSIONS CITY STRATEGY PATHFINDER
SOUTH YORKSHIRE EMPLOYMENT
CONSORTIUM
INTRODUCTION

In the Government’s Welfare Reform New Deal for Welfare: Empowering people to work, the
Government set about formulating and delivering a strategy aimed at increasing employment
rates in the most deprived areas up to the national average of 80%. The City Strategy
Pathfinder (CSP) pilot, run by the Department of Work and Pension (DWP) was established
in 2006 with the primary aims to tackle worklessness in the most disadvantaged areas and
raise employment rates for the most disadvantaged groups. Relevant partners such as local
authorities, private sector, voluntary and community sector etc are invited to form Consortia
as the lead partnership for tackling employment issues for disadvantaged people.

With the emphasis upon aligning existing interventions the CSP aims to build on existing
efforts and “focus it more tightly on delivery of better outcomes” and do this in an innovative
way. The CSP Pathfinders are not a source of new money except there is a ‘seed corn’
budget allocated to help build capacity, bring partners together, and produce a delivery plan.
The focus of the CSP is therefore to find innovative ways of using exiting resources as the
CSP were not being established with substantial new resources. The partners would be
‘motivated’ through the rewards as a result of achieved outcomes against stated targets.

South Yorkshire Consortium is selected as a case study due to the fact that it has involved
“radical changes to the commissioning, planning and provision of services.”

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

In accordance with the process for obtaining Pathfinder Status the local authorities in South
Yorkshire (Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham) supported by the South Yorkshire
Partnership – a cross local authority sub regional partnership – combined to submit an
‘expression of interest’ (EOI) in 2006 which set down a vision for tackling employment and
skills within the area. The EOI was in effect a draft strategy which set down the issues
relating to the labour market and the governance arrangements that would be required in
order to align funding and policy intervention with a key element of this being the
establishment of Local Work and Skills Board. On approval of the EOI the Consortium
produced a more detailed Business Plan which was approved in 2007.

Funding and staffing

The Government (DWP) allocates two funding streams – ‘seed corn’ funding to cover
organisation and administrative costs (£133,000) shared between the four local authorities.
There is also a larger Deprived Area Fund (which is now the Working Neighbourhood Fund)
allocated for specific projects. Each area has a small team of dedicated staff funded by the
WNF and seed corn funds. Sheffield Pathfinder coordinates the South Yorkshire Consortium
with a Project Director and three staff. The other districts are serviced by a Pathfinder
Manager who is seconded from Job Centre Plus. However the partners will contribute staff
time as appropriate for development work.

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Objectives

The overarching objectives of the Pathfinder are:

• To test how best to combine the work of government agencies, local government and
the private and voluntary sectors in a concerted local partnership (consortium) – to
provide support to jobless people;
• To consider whether local stakeholders can deliver more by combining and aligning
their efforts behind shared priorities, alongside more freedom to innovate, and tailor
services to local needs.

Key objectives of the SYEC are:

1. Address economic Inactivity

2. Create employer-led provision

3. Improve the sub regional skill base

4. Improve service delivery

GOVERNANCE, PARTNERSHIP WORKING AND THE SYEC

Setting up Work and Skills Boards

These are being established in each LSP area with employer involvement drawn from those
sectors with most employment potential and those who will encounter skills problems. The
Board will act as key vehicles for employer engagement and “participation in the new
consortium brings with it the responsibility to move to a new level of partnership working and
a commitment to joint planning, maximum flexibility in support of agreed targets.” The
Boards will provide a forum where collectively employers can hold public agencies to
account for the part they play in meeting labour market needs. The key functions of the
Boards will be:

• providing local leadership, vision and direction in tackling worklessness, poverty and
the skills deficit

• representing the employer voice, focusing on growth sectors

• developing a strong understanding of the quality, range, and effectiveness of local

provision

• securing partnership working and community engagement in the shaping of provision

and reduction of barriers to access and progression

Creating Multi-Agency Implementation Groups

Each Board is supported by a Multi-Agency Implementation Group which comprises
representation from the local authority, the local Learning and Skills Council team, Job
Centre Plus, the health sector and the VCF sector partners. These arrangements are
designed to ensure that there is sufficient capacity available from the contributing partners.
The key activities of the group are:

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 • working with employers to articulate skills needs

• negotiating sector specific skills and employability pathways

• assisting the target groups in navigating pathways to employment and skills

• ensuring that provision that is commissioned is locally designed with the active
participation of employers, creates employment pathways for those furthest from the
labour market

Networking and Exchanging ‘Good Practice’

The consortium is developing a fully fledged marketing and communications strategy that will
build upon good practice and existing channels and networks in the four LSP areas. The
Consortium Officer Group monitors and evaluates work undertaken and organises an annual
sub regional conference allowing stakeholders to meet, “celebrate success and share best
practice.”

The Consortium has established good working relationships with other Pathfinders and
attempting to learn from successes elsewhere. A meeting has been held with its equivalent
in Nottingham, West Midlands and West London. In addition attempts are being made to
look beyond the Pathfinder and assess good practice in relation to other employment
regeneration initiatives. An example of this is the Fair Cities experience of employer led
boards.

EVALUATION, REFLECTIONS AND OVERALL ASSESSMENT

The Pathfinder is currently subject to an independent evaluation by Warwick University and

also Sheffield Hallam provides some internal monitoring for the Sheffield Pathfinder. It needs
to be stressed that the Consortium is ‘work in progress’ although stakeholders do point to
progress has been made towards achieving the following:

• A better understanding of new ways of working with economically inactive people.

.The Consortium has established a community based key worker who has
responsibility for adopting a ‘whole person’ approach to the needs of individuals and
who support each individual through necessary stages into employment.

• Stronger collaboration in the sharing of labour market information, best practice and
a vision of how services for those who are worklessness and low skilled will be
developed. Jobcentre Plus is sharing its customer information with other local
partners and the aim is to eventually create a multi agency data sharing team.

• Joint working between community regeneration agencies and statutory partners in

the outreach and marketing needed to engage the economically inactive. Jobnets
have been set up, run by the TS functioning as outreach centres which act as ‘one
stop’ shops for employment and skills programmes.

• Enhanced connectivity between partners to ensure that the services offered to

individuals and personalised, seamless, effective and efficient

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 • A better supply side responsiveness to employers’ recruitment and skills needs with
an enhanced jobs brokerage service and bespoke training programmes

• This is provided by JOBMatch which assists in brokering services for employers in

relation to meeting labour and skills needs.
• A new approach to commissioning that improves supply side responsiveness to
individual and the employer.

In many respects the key value added aspect is “that it is the first time all the partners have
got together and sat down and listened to employers about what they require” (Pathfinder
Manager). The engagement of employers with the development of local policy is perhaps the
key added value from the process. In Sheffield, for example the Work and Skills Board has
representatives from John Lewis, NHS, Sheffield Care Trust, Regional Developmant Agency
and Meadowhall Centre, a major regional shopping centre. In addition the funding made
available has enabled the establishment of a network of key workers involved with workless
people to learn from each other. The other key impact is “on the Third Sector (TS) who have
become more engaged with the employment agenda on a more equal footing than before”
(Pathfinder Manager).

One of the key challenges of the Pathfinder is the complexity involved in the way monies are
devolved and the Commissioning arrangements for contracts. The DWP plans to manage
the ‘market’ of providers of employability services with a certain degree of local discretion
with the Pathfinder organisations themselves being able to set up their own contracts but in
the main the delivery of welfare to work programmes are on the basis of the DWP ‘Black
Box’ performance related model where funding is based on results. The implications of this
and the overall direction of Commissioning is that economies of scale are paramount and
that larger based organisations will be in a better position to tender for employment service
contracts. This represents a clear shift of business to larger for profit organisations away
from more locally based not for profit organisations such as the TS (see below).

APPLICATION TO THE THIRD SECTOR (TS)

Lessons for the TS from the City Strategy Pathfinder model need to be assessed in light of
the complexity, pace and regularity of governance/institutional changes that are being
directed by the Government.

An Intermediate Labour Market Programme has been developed by a TS Consortium co-

ordinated by a TS organisation based in Sheffield specialising in delivering labour market
programmes. The need for the TS to organise in this way is becoming more of an imperative
in relation to delivering labour market programmes because of the Commissioning Strategy
adopted by the DWP according to the SYEC Director. The strategy is about building a
competitive market for contracts and as payments will tend to be against sustained
employment outcomes rather than the provision of places, these will be made
retrospectively.

Organisations that tender will need to have substantial resources and at least a track record
in order to win a contract. Interviewees tended to agree that the CSP model is a “wake up
call” for the TS and they need to become more “business conscious.” An added comment is
that “It is not enough to criticise the mainstream (i.e. the public sector) but they must start to
think on a larger scale.” There is a view that the impact of the Commissioning model needs
to be assessed in relation to the way the TS is being organised within Sheffield. The

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relatively recently elected Liberal Democratic administration is planning and promoting
community engagement on an area basis through Community Assembly’s throughout the
city.

There is however little support for TS organisations who can operate on a Sheffield wide
basis. Furthermore “those TS organisations with a track record in delivering large scale multi
million pound contracts are now not seen as priority main contractors and will have to
compete for sub contracts. This will mean scaling back operations, but the main thing that
those organisations which have built up expertise and a track record – that experience could
be lost to the city” (TS Representative on Work and Skills Board).

Furthermore, not all organisations winning contracts will be equipped to sub contract or even
engage with TS led Consortia. This may result in the new arrangements destabilising the TS
involvement with local employment partnerships which means that the Pathfinders can de-
empower some smaller organisations at the same as build capacity for others.

Whilst economies of scale are important and it seem to be what the Government is obviously
promoting within the TS, small scale organisations also have a role to play. The most
disturbing finding from this appraisal is that those organisations who have become large and
experienced and successfully innovated and built the necessary capacity to engage with a
contract culture are being sidelined within the new Commissioning arrangements.

CONCLUSION

The City Strategy Pathfinder is an example of CB as a vehicle to promote innovation,

efficiency and new modes of engagement for a variety of agencies and institutions including
the TS. Consortium building can promote collaboration between TS organisations as well as
with other partners. The Pathfinder model is built around some resource element whereby
there is funding to provide incentives on the basis of performance.

This may be a useful way forward, although given the enormity and complexity of changes
around contracting it is likely that ‘up front’ resources need to be put in place to facilitate
consortium or coalition formation between TS organisations. These resources will be
required to build the skills and competences and leadership capacities in TS organisations in
order to both compete (in relation to contracts) and collaborate (in relation to Consortium
building). It is also important to note that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has
established a Welfare to Work Third Sector Task Force in June 2008 in collaboration with
the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (AVECO) which has
identified that TSO’s in the new public service delivery environment will need more
sophisticated and thoughtful funding. CB models along the lines of the Pathfinder could
contribute towards this.

Key informant interviewees

Eve Wait Director of Employment Programmes Sheffield South Yorkshire Pathfinder
Doug Low Director Sheffield Centre for Full Employment

References
South Yorkshire Consortium (2006) DWP City Strategy Pathfinder A new approach for
supporting economically inactive individuals into employment, SY Consortium Business
Plan, Sheffield: Sheffield City Council.

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CASE STUDY 2 BRENT IN 2 WORK

INTRODUCTION

Reasons for setting up Brent in 2 Work

Brent in 2 Work was set up by Brent Council in 2002 with the aims of reducing levels of
unemployment and deprivation within Brent and to take a strategic overview of employment
needs within the area. It is a partnership-based approach that seeks to encourage strategic
co-ordination across a wide range of employment and training organisations and providers
that seek to help residents make the transition from welfare to work. The central tenet that
informs the work of Bi2W is the view that getting people into work, and once in a job to help
them progress, is the best means of taking people out of poverty and revitalising the
Borough’s poorest neighbourhoods. It aims to be a client driven service, responding to the
needs of unemployed individuals and the needs of employers.

The socio-economic context

The London Borough of Brent has suffered from long term problems of social deprivation
and disadvantage particularly focused in five wards: Carlton (South Kilburn), Harlesden,
Roundwood, Stonebridge and St Raphael’s. The population of Brent (268,000) is highly
diverse, with 55% Black, Asian or other minority ethnic (BAME), and with increasing diversity
apparent in the number of different BAME groups present in the Borough.

Although Brent’s deprived wards demonstrate some important differences, they share a
number of characteristics:

• High unemployment
• Low employment rates
• Low economic activity rates
• Highly diverse population, although the composition of BAME groups varies
significantly between areas. English is a second or additional language for the
majority of school pupils
• High percentage of household with one or more dependent children and above
average proportions of single parent households
• Highly mobile population, with population inflows and outflows reaching 10% in some
wards (against a London wide average of 3%) as officially measured in the 2001
Census
• Low levels of qualification, with an above average number of people with only level 1
skills, and a significant number of residents, particularly older people, lacking any
qualifications

In deprived areas these characteristics translate into a number of important labour market
issues, related to the low level of skills and qualifications of residents, limited English
language skills, and a lack of work experience. There are particular needs related to basic
skills education, English language teaching (ESOL) and the need for childcare, as well as
the need to track individuals into employment given the highly mobile nature of the
population.

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CB Element of Brent in 2 Work

The Bi2W programme has attempted to provide a strong centre for the development of local
strategy by drawing together disparate funding streams to become the central repository for
public funding related to non-mandatory employment provision. It has built upon a number of
existing activities including the Brent Local Labour Agency, created in 2000 and funded
under a 6 year SRB programme, as well as other partnerships initiatives such as the
Building One Stop Shop (BOSS), the development of which had required the LBB, JCP and
the CNWL to formally work together. Underwritten by a clear political mandate, from the
outset it built upon close working relationship with key strategic partners, to develop a
strategy that sought to identify the needs of employers, job-seeking residents and gaps in
existing provision.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF BRENT IN 2 WORK

The setting up of Bi2W

By identifying the various stages involved in getting people into sustained employment and
comparing this with existing provision, a number of issues became apparent. First, that much
existing activity was focused in a very narrow part of this process (i.e. identifying and
overcoming barriers and finding a job), but very little on initial outreach and engagement at
the start, or on in the latter stages of getting, keeping and progressing people within a job.
Second, that much existing provision was not sufficiently targeted upon getting people into
employment, an issue that was particularly apparent with regard to much of the training
provision). Third, that across the huge number of existing providers, there was a large
variety in their effectiveness.

As a partnership driven organisation Bi2W has sought to bring together the expertise and
resources of the full range of employment organisations operating within Brent to help local
job seekers and local businesses. However being developed out of a wide range of pre-
existing projects has meant that creating a clear sense of purpose and rationalising provision
has been a long-term process. Development of Bi2W has also been strongly influenced by
ongoing changes in funding arrangements. For example when the DWP ended funding to
Action Teams and shifted resources to the series of New Deal programmes, this left certain
gaps in provision which Bi2W has subsequently tied to fill.

Bi2W seeks to achieve its objectives through a number of related activities:

• Maintenance of a strategic overview for residents and employers through working

closely with major employment organisations via monitoring, evaluation and promoting
best practice and responding to gaps in provision
• Promotion of strong partnership and collaboration between local providers to ensure
good referral routes for jobseekers and a flow of candidates matched to employers
needs. Currently there are over 40 such providers, representing a mix of private, public
and public-private organisations.
• Maximisation of local jobs for local people
• Promotion of workforce development through helping residents improve skill levels and
employers by reducing skill shortages and employee turnover.
• Obtaining sustainable funding from a range of sources to deliver quality employment
initiatives and refocusing ineffective spending

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The programme's clear focus is upon ‘hard to reach’ groups and ‘hard to fill jobs. Central to
its approach is a belief that: “all the so-called socially excluded have names’. Through a
focus on the unemployed as individuals, the key criteria are whether a person is (a) eligible
to work; (b) wants to work; and then to provide discretionary, voluntary projects to help this
to happen.

GOVERNANCE AND PARTNERSHIP STRUCTURES

Bi2W seeks to allocate provision on the basis of utilising the most effective provider
regardless of their sector (private, public, VCS). Central to the Bi2W ethos is that the
projects listed above, as well as employment and training initiatives of other providers,
should refer clients on to appropriate provision and provide a ‘seamless’ service, avoiding
the barriers that can exist between different initiatives. In order to achieve this Bi2W runs a
quarterly ‘Provider Forum’ which brings together the different community, voluntary, public
and private organisation providers to update partners on new developments and
opportunities, to stimulate networking, and share knowledge of what other providers are
doing, in order to avoid duplication and improve co-ordination and the transfer of best
practice.

The various projects of Bi2W comprise:

Household into Employment (HEI)

An employment focused project that supports unemployed residents in the most deprived
estates to find work. Through an outreach employment service, the project recruits clients,
identifies the barriers they face, refers them to other services, and improves their basic skills
in order to attain sustainable employment.

Refugees into Jobs

This project targets unemployed refugees and asylum seekers and seeks to find
employment equivalent to their skills levels. Established in 1997, the project initially targeted
professionals, such as doctors, teachers and engineers, but has since broadened its focus
to include all refugees and asylum seekers regardless of their skills levels. The programme
provides information, advice and guidance, the development of training action plans, and
support with job search and applications.

Building One Stop Shop (BOSS)

Developed in 1999 BOSS provides training and brokerage in the construction industries for
West London residents, particularly those hardest to reach. Located in the College of North
West London (CNWL) as part of Construction Centre of Vocational excellence (CoVE),
BOSS is a partnership between the College, LSC, LBB, JCP and local Housing
Associations. It runs a variety of projects including CSCS health and safety qualifications,
funding for training courses to develop skills linked to needs/shortages, and workplace skill
training. The project has outreach workers based in Fortunegate and Hillside and one based
on the WNS site.

Recruitment and Training Service

Specialises in retail, leisure and hospitality sectors to deliver training to job seekers
customised to employers needs. Pre-employment courses are designed in conjunction with

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specific employers, with clients guaranteed an interview on course completion. This service
has worked with a variety of employers including Wembley Plaza, Tesco, BAA retail, Park
Royal Partnership and the Fire Brigade. It has worked with contractors for WNS to prepare
staff for catering, security and cleaning employment.

Language 2 Work

An Innovative approach to ESOL training that integrates students of different ages and
backgrounds to learn together intensively in employment focused training. The project
focuses upon the skills needed for searching, obtaining and keeping employment

Employment Outcomes Project

Funds local delivery organisation to provide support and training to assist unemployed Brent
residents into employment with focus on the long term unemployed (12 months+), as well as
short term unemployed at risk of becoming long term unemployed. This project commissions
local training providers (such as New Challenge, Work Direction) who have good employer
engagement and experience of supporting unemployed jobseekers into employment, with
the objective of avoiding duplication of provision and linking up with other services (e.g. HEI)

Local projects
These are a number of small-scale projects within Brent which target specific hard to reach
groups with specialised support, training and rehabilitation to help them become active in the
labour market. Each project has been developed in response to an identified local need and
have run only since 2005. These projects comprise an Ex-offenders project, a
Homelessness Project, and an Incapacity Benefit Project.

EVALUATION REFLECTIONS AND OVERALL ASSESSMENT

Programme Performance

Bi2W has managed to rationalise and strategise provision and has successfully engaged
key strategic partners and a host of delivery organisations in an ongoing process. Around
85% of those who have been found employment are from BME groups. Such results
demonstrate the critical mass that Bi2W has achieved as well as its track record for delivery,
which has made it attractive to funders. Although the average cost per employment outcome
is significantly higher than mainstream programmes, given that the Bi2W programme
focuses upon hard to reach groups this represents good value for money.

A key reason for the success of Brenti2Work is its outreach strategy. The ‘hardest to reach’
unemployed groups resident within Brent’s deprived areas in Brent were not being engaged
by existing employment services and were not receiving the necessary advice and support
needed to get them into employment. Mainstream support from JCP lacked the resources
and flexibility to address this problem. Recent changes in JCP funding appear to have
further reduced their discretionary capacity to develop localised interventions (e.g., the
demise of Action Teams and funding for ethnic minority groups).

Clients were recruited principally by outreach activities (door-knocking, presence of advisers

at community events and on local estates, visits to local schools, Surestart centres leaflet
drops etc) with referrals from other agencies and from family and friends also important. The
initial emphasis upon outreach by ‘door knocking’ was part of the innovative approach of the
programme. There was some initial suspicion from residents to this approach, but it proved

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effective in raising awareness, although had more a limited impact in terms of generating
engagement.

The outreach strategy was developed to include the running of employment days and
workshops as well as ‘street work’ (going to places where people congregate and talking to
them there). As the initiative has become better established the need for certain types of
outreach activity (i.e. door knocking) has reduced, as clients increasingly come forward on
the basis of recommendation and word of mouth. Over time the project teams have become
more embedded within local community and tenants associations (e.g. with the Fortunegate
Housing Association in their housing redevelopment) and advisors have become
increasingly well known locally. This outreach approach has been severely curtailed due to
the reduction in Neighbourhood Renewal Funding “and the initiative has had to rely
increasingly upon the existing TS infrastructure to deliver services” according to project
managers.

Beacon Council

The innovative nature of Bi2W has earned itself the Improvement and Development Agency
(IDeA) ‘Beacon Council’ status (in 2003). Its work amongst refugees has led to Bi2W being
recognised as a model of ‘good practice’ and the council has advised the London Borough of
Camden Scrutiny Panel which conducted feasibility study into its own work with refugees.
Project Managers stated that Beacon status has ‘kicked started’ links between Bi2W and
similar projects throughout the UK and this form of exchange has been invaluable for
transferring knowledge and for the project to learn from the experiences from others. An
integral part of the work is to host visits, attend conferences and arrange Open Days.

APPLICATION TO THE THIRD SECTOR

There are a number of ways in which the Brenti2Work model can be applied to the TS.

• Beacon Council status as a scheme can facilitate the exchange of good practice. The
creation and encouragement of networking is an important element of capacity
building and can lead to the adoption of ideas from other similar projects. Such a
scheme can easily be transferred to TS organisations and perhaps run by Capacity
Builders or a prominent national TS Agency.

• TS organisations whilst traditionally are closer to disadvantaged and harder to reach

groups and communities, can learn from the way the project developed its outreach
work. In some cases the only way to contact the more disengaged groups such as
refugees and BME populations is to ‘knock on doors’ although recognising this form
of activity is resource intensive.

• Staff require a variety of skills including employment preparation and search skills, an
ability to relate to a highly variable population on a one to one basis and believe in
the ability of their clients to find employment, as well as an extensive knowledge of
local provision with an array of local contacts.

• Staff diversity in terms of ethnic backgrounds in keeping with their client population
can enable genuine understanding of the particular issues faced by clients and
commitment to their work. Many staff (in Brent) have worked for a variety of providers
and hence have varied experience.

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 • Building from existing infrastructure and past experiences and knowledge is also
important. That a number of projects have been operating in the area over a number
of years has permitted the development of local staff. There are a number of
particular individuals who have played a key role in driving forward the development
of Brenti2W.

CONCLUSIONS

The success of Brenti2Work is being challenged by a number of factors which need to be

taken account of:

• Uncertainty over funding and changes in funding regimes has already had various
negative impacts upon the development of Brenti2W. The project is dependent upon
funds from the London Development Agency but its funding base is currently (2009)
under review.
• Its Neighbourhood Renewal Fund base is being significantly reduced on the basis of
increase in employment rates and reduction in unemployment. However, these
performance measures mask the large numbers of groups who are not on the
unemployment register but who need intensive services to help them access the
labour market.
• Stability of funding is important to retaining the staff base and ensuring continuity of
relationships between clients and providers.
• Loss or change of funding creates pressures to providers to modify their programmes
in order to conform to new funding requirements (which may lead to a loss of focus),
or to develop their services elsewhere, with the consequent loss of local knowledge
and contacts with clients, employers and other providers.
• The prospects of providers acquiring funding from mainstream organisations appears
limited at the current time. Job Centre Plus has been reducing contracts and
discretionary funding and is presently in a phase or reorganisation, and there appear
similarly limited funding opportunities from the Learning and Skills Council.

In conclusion, lessons from Brenti2Work is that capacity building models require, in some
cases significant ‘start up’ or ‘setting up’ resources and sustainability in funding even though
in the longer term the running of an extremely effective service can be cost effective.

Key informant interviewees

Joanne Francis Head of Regeneration London Borough of Brent

Illa Pattni Head of Brent into Work London Borough of Brent

References

http://www.brentin2work.co.uk

North, D., Syrett, S. and Etherington, D. (2007) Interventions to tackle the Economic Needs
of Deprived Areas: Analysis of Six Policy Case Studies, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York

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CASE STUDY 3 AIM HIGH ROUTEBACK
EASINGTON COUNTY DURHAM

INTRODUCTION

Developing pro-active health interventions in the labour

market

Aim High Routeback (AHRB) is one of six pilots in the Northern region set up as a result of a
strategy developed by the Northern Way Moving Forward: The Northern Way, 2004 which
would create a partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions. This is a Pilot or
‘demonstration project’ run by Durham Primary Care Trust which aims to test whether it is
possible to encourage Incapacity Benefit claimants to seek and enter work using an
enhanced ‘Pathways to Work’ model. Whilst complementing the roll-out of the ‘Pathways to
Work’ programme in the District of Easington, it strived to provide evidence to inform future
policy-making decisions and hopefully warrant its own mainstream funding in the future. The
project started in November 2006 and finished at the end of March 2008. Aim High
Routeback received £1.6 million and employed 11 staff including a Project Manager, 3
Health Case Workers, 3 Employment Advisors, 3 Engagement Staff and one Administrator.
Although the Pilot has come to an end there are plans by Easington PCT to put out to tender
a programme on a similar lines to the AHRB.

CB elements to AHRB

One of the core elements and guiding principals to the project is that health service
professionals are the first point of contact for people with long term health conditions as
opposed to employment advisors. Following the AHRB, the PCT developed competences
which were normally the domain of Jobcentre Plus by being the first point of contact for
people on Incapacity Benefit. The pilot entailed a cultural as well as organisational shift
within the Easington PCT in relation to its engagement with outreach and community
services and GP practices as well as other partners in terms of employment and health
issues.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF AIM HIGH ROUTEBACK

The idea of developing a coordinated approach to addressing barriers to work came from
the Treasury which approached Public Health North East with some funds to promote
interventions in Easington. This was prior to and in advance of the Pathways to Work
programme and reflected the urgency in terms of tackling with one of the most deprived
areas of England with significant proportions of economically inactive population in receipt of
sickness benefits. A partnership was formed with funds allocated to appoint a co-ordinator.
The partnership comprised Primary Care Trust (PCT), Government Office of the North East,
Job Centre Plus, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Acumen Development Trust –
a social enterprise which runs various programmes relating to training and other forms of
support relating the employability.

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This partnership was just established when the Northern Way Moving Forward pilot was
announced. AHRB applied and was successful in obtaining funds under the programme
(administered by One North East – the Regional Development Agency for the North East of
England). The Northern Way is an organisation established by the Government comprising a
group of Regional Development Agencies in the North of England (including One North East
which covers the North East of England) which has the remit to promote economic
regeneration and reduce regional inequality

Objectives and Rationale

The key objectives and rationale of AHRB were;

(a) that people will come forward for help if a voluntary, confidential health-based service
is provided in the heart of their communities.
(b) that health professionals will engage fully with a health based assessment model and
will have the confidence to refer their patients/clients to the project. Referrals to the
project primarily comes from health professionals, including GPs, making it
substantially different from any other IB pilot in the country.
(c) that the community/voluntary sector will embrace the engagement model and readily
refer their clients to the project. As part of the Aim High network of organisations
within the District, the PCT has been encouraged by the interest shown locally by this
sector and their endorsement of the project. This network is likely to be the ‘Gateway’
for many clients and the Project Manager has been invited to become part of the Aim
High Steering Group. In return, the ‘Chairperson’ of Aim High is part of the Project’s
Executive Group.
(d) that this kind of service could interface well with mainstream programmes and
provide added value. Together with the Jobcentre Pathways Programme, it will
ensure that everyone in Easington is informed of the opportunities available to them.
(e) that long-term Incapacity Benefit claimants can return to the labour market. Unlike
‘Pathways to Work’ currently, the project is open to everyone on Incapacity Benefit,
regardless of the length of time they have been on the benefit. If people are
progressed through before the ‘Pathways to Work’ pilot is ready to engage them,
Routeback may be able to inform future JobCentre Plus policy.

GOVERNANCE AND PARTNERSHIPS OF AHRB

The AHRB Delivery Team and Funding

Referrals to the project primarily came from health professionals including GPs. This made
it substantially different from any other IB pilot in the country. The PCT linked into all its
internal networks to publicise the project and capitalises on the ‘Aim High’ network.
Jobcentre Plus IB pilots were recruited to their condition management programme via
mandatory interviews, self-referral and referral from community advisers but numbers from
the last two groups were low. This will be the first project to utilise the influence of the PCT,
its staff and its contractors (GPs) and community and voluntary groups within the Aim High
network to recruit potential IB clients who wish to return to the labour market. Research
shows that this client group trust health professionals, the voluntary sector and a community
network such as ‘Aim High’ more than the Government and its agencies and, as such, may
be more receptive to the programme on offer.

15
The project was delivered by Easington PCT, and led by the Director of Public Health. A
Project Manager was appointed to progress the bidding application and be responsible for
the day-to-day activities of the team once in place. The Project Manager was on
secondment from Jobcentre Plus for the duration of the project. She has experience of
contract managing New Deal Programmes within Jobcentre Plus and also set up and ran the
Action Team for Jobs initiative in Wansbeck (nearby former mining community). In order to
ensure all the key players in Easington were supportive of the project, the PCT worked with
an Executive Group and a Steering Group.

The main source of funding came from Single Programme funds from One North East
combined with PCT and Neighbourhood Renewal funding support.

Working with other partners

Job Centre Plus

To minimise the risk of duplication, the project has invited the Job Centre Plus District
Manager onto the Executive Group and the Deputy District Manager onto the Steering
Group to advise of possible overlaps

Community engagement

The Aim High Network is run by Acumen Trust an umbrella organisation for community
groups in East Durham and operates as a social enterprise. Main role is to promote
employment, training and enterprise for long term unemployed and economically inactive.
The Acumen Trust was seen as an important partner because the organisation:

• Has strong connection with key economic partnerships within NE Region including
Durham Economic partnership and East Durham LSP

• Has developed a national and regional profile and Chief Exec appointed to board of
One North East as VCS representative

• As a VCS organisation dependent on winning contracts for delivery of government

programmes particularly from Jobcentre Plus

The AHRB project was awarded a £10,000 research grant by Groundwork Trust to
determine what help clients on Incapacity Benefit is require to enable them to re-enter the
labour market. Focus groups were held to collect views from a total of fifty people claiming
IB. In addition, a study was being carried out by Tracey Sharp, Head of Public Health
Projects at the Department of Health. She interviewed in depth 13 people claiming
Incapacity Benefit in Easington District to determine the barriers they face and the services
they feel would help them to enter the labour market.

The project was based in premises in Easington Colliery. The premises opened to the public
from 9.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday. All clients had an initial assessment at the base
office and transport arrangements were made for them to attend the premises from all areas
of the District. After the first appointment, they were then able to choose a venue for future
appointments. A selection of approximately 20 locations will be available (community
venues and GP surgeries) throughout the District.

16
Health Care Professionals

Referrals project came primarily from health professionals including GPs which made
substantially different from any other IB pilot in the country. The PCT linked into all its
internal networks to publicise the project. This was the first project to utilise the influence of
the PCT, its staff and its contractors (GPs) and community and voluntary groups within the
Aim High network to recruit potential IB clients who wish to return to the labour market.
Research shows that this client group trust health professionals, the voluntary sector and a
community network such as ‘Aim High’ more than the Government and its agencies and, as
such, may be more receptive to the programme on offer.

General Practitioners

The project appointed a GP champion to the Executive Group to influence colleagues and
‘champion’ the project. The PCT also used its full influence to ensure all GPs had
presentations and accept a referral pad into the surgeries. The Project Information Officer
will also be ‘offered’ to the surgeries to run ‘drop-in sessions’ for patients. The GPs will
receive a letter each time a patient is accepted onto the project and the caseworkers will
seek to develop a good working relationship with them. The PCT was confident that, by
taking these measures, the risk of non-referral will be minimised.

Engaging with clients/beneficiaries

Clients undertook the following pathways to achieve a successful outcome:

(a) The client contacted within 1 day of the project receiving referral details and an
assessment date booked within 3 days. The client will be transported to the base office
for assessment (including risk assessment).
(b) Assessment was undertaken by the Health Caseworker to determine medical
history/medication/ongoing treatment/future treatment/social and economic factors/work
experience/aims and aspirations.
(c) Barriers identified and an action plan constructed and signed by client and caseworker
to agree the way forward. A £500 fund is released to the caseworker to help the client
overcome barriers.
(d) Letter sent to GP advising of patient’s participation on the project.
(e) Client case-managed by the original assessor but referred to other caseworkers to
progress action plan.
(f) Clients referred to the Condition Management Programme will access one or more of
the following modules – Living with Fatigue/Living with Pain/Learning to be
Assertive/Overcoming Stress/Promoting Wellbeing and Making Sense of Your
Condition. Complementary therapy sessions and money management sessions were
available to run alongside these modules.
(g) Health Caseworkers refered clients to the Employment Caseworker once they are ready
to start considering work/training options. The Employment Caseworker worked with
other agencies to source suitable opportunities for clients. (See Appendix 9 for details of
some of the initiatives the project will link into in the District.)
(h) There were opportunities for those who have been away from the labour market for a
long time to access ILM placements with employers. (A model is currently being
developed with Groundwork Trust.)
(i) The Health/Employment Caseworkers worked with employer/employee for six months
post-appointment to overcome difficulties.

17
Referrals were also accepted from participants themselves and a leafleting campaign
commenced as soon as the service was put in place.

EVALUATIONS REFLECTIONS AND OVERALL ASSESSMENT

Overall the Pilot succeeded in creating something ‘value added’ to the general Pathways to
Work model which was rolled out in the area at the same time as the Pilot was established.
The added benefits can be summarised as follows:

• Anyone on IB can access the project at any time

• Voluntary – people can exit at any time
• Access to PCT systems, meetings and delivery mechanisms
• Assessment is by Health Caseworker
• Health Caseworker is the case manager from Day 1 to six months back at
work
• Money management post within the team
• Complementary therapy used to raise esteem
• Occupational health advice to both employer / employee for six months
after client starts work

By building in these key differences, the project has minimised the risk of doing exactly the
same as a mainstream programme. Its key success lies with the fact that the PCT
innovated and undertook organisational and cultural changes in order to take the lead on
an employment project which is normally led by Jobcentre Plus. An evaluation study
underlined the advantages by stating that “the voluntary nature and PCT branding seemed
to have helped engagement with those unlikely to engage with mainstream employment
support.”

The former project manager stated that “the evidence of its success lies with the fact that a
number of people within the PCT worked well together including the project team members
and different partners, and were committed to the project. Personalities and commitment
were important factors in the success. Furthermore the Durham PCT is just about to
establish a similar service (April 2009) suggests that AHRB may be the start of similar
initiatives in areas of high numbers of worklessness.”

APPLICATION TO THE THIRD SECTOR AND CONCLUSIONS

The current recession will force TS organisations to develop in similar ways as the Easington
PCT did when it established AHRB by taking a lead in new areas of activities. The key
lessons of AHRB are that to do so may require substantial pump priming resources. Acumen
Trust and the way it has changed and adapted to the changing economic environment is an
example of developing innovative approaches to its core work in employment and skills and
supporting disadvantaged communities.

The AHRB has been closely linked to the Aim High Community Network promoted and
supported by Acumen Trust a major social enterprise operating in Easington. Acumen Trust
also seconded workers into the AHRB. Aim High brings together the existing outreach
services in Easington District which has formed an integral part of the AHRB. There is a

18
Project Steering Group first established in 2002 and Chaired by Acumen Trust. When the
project was set up all the Centres were contacted and an assessment of how relevant
agencies could fill gaps in service provision was undertaken. A Development Co-ordinator
was appointed to run the project.

Similar to AHRB the Acumen Trust has attempted to develop new areas work but which are
closely related to the core competences of promoting and supporting out reach services. For
example taking a more active partnership role in local economic regeneration and attempting
to influence agendas is one example. In this respect the Trust has been represented on a
number of bodies in the North East Region;

• Strong connection with key economic partnerships within NE Region including

Durham Economic partnership and East Durham LSP

• Has developed a national and regional profile and Chief Exec appointed to board of
One North East as VCS representative

• As a VCS organisation dependent on winning contracts for delivery of government

programmes particularly from Jobcentre Plus.

Doing something different requires cultural shifts within the organisation and in the case of
AHRB some GPs and health professionals were slow to engage with the new service. Also
an important lesson learnt is that such an approach requires learning from good practice
elsewhere – making the connections with similar initiatives is important.

CONCLUSIONS

The AHRB model of doing something different in terms of taking a lead role in a service
which is normally the domain of Jobcentre Plus requires breaking down traditional
professional barriers and a cultural change within the management and leadership of the
organisation. However this was achieved through the required resources to establish the
pilot but resources combined with a dedicated and committed Team of partners. This
element of ‘commitment to the cause’ cannot be underestimated that this needs to be
backed up with the commensurate resources.

Key Informant Interview

Cynthia Bartley Project Manager Government of the Region Department of Health

References

Frontline (2008) Evaluation of Aim High Routeback Report For One North East, Newcastle
One North East
North, D., Syrett, S. and Etherington, D. (2007) Interventions to tackle the Economic Needs
of Deprived Areas: Analysis of Six Policy Case Studies, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York

19
CASE STUDY 4 EAST MIDLANDS IMPROVEMENT
AND EFFICIENCY PARTNERSHIP

INTRODUCTION

Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs) were set up in 2008, following
the publication of the National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy by the Department for
Communities and Local Government (CLG). EM IEP has a budget of £20 million over the
next three years (2008/11) to help bring about service improvements and efficiency gains
through closer relationships between East Midland authorities.

While a freestanding body, EM IEP has close working links with other local government
‘umbrella organisations’ — such as the Improvement and Development Agency, which in
turn is linked to the Local Government Association (LGA) and to governmental bodies such
as Government Office East Midlands (GO EM) and the Audit Commission.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF EM IEP

EM IEP has published a three-year Regional Improvement and Efficiency Strategy, based
on consultation with elected members and officers from all its constituent local authorities
and Fire and Rescue Authorities, together with their partner agencies. The RIES sets out the
improvement and efficiency objectives of local authorities in the region and focuses on
shaping improvements and efficiencies concerning priority outcomes and the wider
transformation agenda.

In particular, it focuses upon achieving better outcomes for people and places,
by which it means:

• Engaged, included, empowered and cohesive communities

• Renewed neighbourhoods and sustainable economic growth achieved by
influential local leadership
• Safe fulfilling lives for young people
• Healthy and supported lives for older people
• High quality, local, liveable environments

Given its brief and mission, almost everything which EM IEP does can be construed as
‘capacity building’. However, one of the four strategic objectives in the RIES is specifically
“Building capacity through enhancing leadership skills and sharing knowledge and
expertise”.

In order to progress towards this strategic objective, the RIES states that EM IEP will help to
build the capacity and performance of authorities and partnerships by focusing on the
following areas:

• Leadership
• Member development
• Workforce development
• Performance management

20
 • Programme and project management

The targets for the capacity building stream of the work of EM IEP were therefore agreed as:

• All authorities at Equalities Standard Level Three or better by 2010/11.

• All authorities to have achieved full authority IiP status, and retained it, by 2010/11.
• 60% of councils will have achieved the member development charter by 2010/11.
• The average number of days lost through sickness will be best quartile

The main capacity building programmes which we will focus on in this case study are related
to procurement in two of the work programmes.

The East Midlands Law Share was created by 18 local authorities from throughout the East
Midlands, which have combined to create the UK's largest ever public/private sector legal
partnership which is designed to deliver cost savings in excess of £2.5 million over the next
four years for the councils concerned. The tender process attracted 97 expressions of
interest from law firms throughout the UK, after which four firms were appointed for an initial
three year contract to work in partnership on the outsourced legal work from these councils.
The set up costs, including project management, partnership agreements and the
development of a new web site for sharing information between authorities, were part funded
by a grant from East Midlands Centre of Excellence. The financial benefits are expected to
include reduced hourly rates, training opportunities, and access to research facilities. The
service delivery of the 18 local authorities is also expected to be improved, as EM Law
Share will facilitate increased productivity through reduced duplication (For more details, see
http://www.bolsover.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=8155).

In the procurement programme, EM IEP has been able to get all the local authorities across
the region, but especially in each county area, to work more closely together to achieve
significant efficiency savings and quality improvements in their procurement programmes.

A particularly interesting initiative under this programme has been the establishment of
Procurement Lincolnshire, involving the county council and the 7 district councils in
Lincolnshire. Whereas the county council had already a significant procurement function,
some of the districts had only a very limited function, with few if any full-time procurement
staff (not surprising, given that their overall budgets in some cases were only in the range of
£20m - £30m). The move to take action on this was initiated by the leaders and chief
executives of all the councils involved, as part of the Lincolnshire Shared Services
partnership, which originally received £400,000 from the EMCE to enable the partnership to
establish shared service work-streams, one of which became procurement.

EM IEP helped the councils involved to understand the value of procurement and the
potential savings to be made. It brought the various stakeholders together to show them
different models of procurement and worked through how these models might work in
Lincolnshire. At the top level, this involved consolidating the outline commitment to cross-
authority working which leaders and chief executives had already expressed (although often
without a full picture of the implications). On the ground, it meant working with procurement
and finance officers in the constituent authorities to design a model which would fit and be
acceptable to all stakeholders in the Lincolnshire context, and to identify the right level of
resources in a business case which would show how the resources invested would bring
savings which would be valuable to each of the authorities involved. This involvement by EM
IEP therefore started out as encouragement and promotion of the underlying idea, modified
into providing a rigorous challenge to the emerging proposals, and then was able to be
lessened, as the initiative became more fully ‘owned’ by all the constituent authorities.

21
Lincolnshire CC is now the host authority for Procurement Lincolnshire, which now has 21
members of staff, allowing for a degree of expertise and specialisation which no one of the
constituent authorities could ever have afforded (and arranging for the development of staff
through training and qualifications to a degree not previously possible in any of the councils).
Procurement Lincolnshire belongs equally to all the 8 councils (‘one authority, one vote’),
which fund it in proportion to the benefits which they are expected to achieve from it – and
this equal ownership is believed to have a played a big part in reducing the potential
suspicion towards the initiative on behalf of elected members in the districts.

Some of the key achievements so far of Procurement Lincolnshire include:

• Developed and implemented a single Sustainable Procurement Strategy and Three

Year Action Plan – now in place in all eight authorities

• Managed the delivery of 45 tenders and projects

• Delivered first year cash savings of £1,036m (against a target of £494k) and process
savings of £459k. Year 2 cash savings are expected to be about £2.5m, against an
annual budget of about £1.05m.

• Developed a Procurement Toolkit for Equality and Diversity

• Run or supported 13 workshops with local suppliers

• Developed an on-line procurement toolkit

• Implemented e-procurement across the partnership – e-tendering and p-cards and

sourced a e-marketplace (to be implemented on a phased basis in 09/10)

• Raised the profile of Procurement Lincolnshire, e.g. through membership of the

National Task Group for Sustainable Procurement and the joint OGC/Local
Government Professional Services Steering Group

These achievements were only possible because the initiative was able to overcome the
inevitable barriers which arose during its development. While there were ICT problems and
some other issues relating to legal status, etc., most of these barriers were about managing
the reactions of people. One set of issues related to staff anxiety about the possibility of
being transferred under TUPE (and two staff were eventually transferred in this way, both of
whom were given the opportunity to negotiate helpful changes in their work practices in
order to accommodate the changed location and conditions of their work). At another level,
many service managers in the 8 authorities were reluctant to lose control of the procurement
function (where, traditionally, there had been little central involvement of a procurement
function in the decisions made at service level). Given that the active cooperation of service
managers is vital to an effective procurement function, it was essential that the initial
suspicion and resistance of some managers was overcome – this was partly done through
involving them in the networks designing the new approach, partly through talking to them
directly about why the new approach was necessary, and partly by demonstrating ‘quick
wins’ in terms of potential savings in their service which they could only achieve by coming
on board.

22
GOVERNANCE AND PARTNERSHIPS OF EM IEP

The EM IEP Partners include all local authorities in the East Midlands, its Fire
and Rescue authorities and the governmental and other regional improvement
and support agencies (LGEM, IDeA, GOEM and the Audit Commission).

Governance arrangements in EM IEP include:

• Elected Members Board, where policy and investment decisions are taken
• Chief Executives Steering Group, where operational and programme management,
performance management and scrutiny occurs across the whole EMCE/EMIP
programmes
• A Programme Management regime consistent with the national protocols developed
via the CLG/RCE arrangements after 2004

EM IEP Staffing and Funding

The EMRIEP has its own dedicated support team and aims to work collaboratively with all
partners and change agents. In a lean set-up, there are only six employees in this core
team, plus three programme managers (who are funded out of the programmes concerned).

The delivery of the work programmes consists of a process based on:

• An EMRIEP core capacity - lead individual or small team to act as focal point for
activity. The need will vary from stream to stream, but without capacity, experience
tells us that achievement will be limited.
• A standard core ‘offer’ in each work stream based around:
- Core information
- Sharing of best practice
- Support for networking
- Benchmarking support.
• In addition – each work stream will identify:
- Specific outcomes it considers need to be achieved
- Specific initiatives to deliver these
- Specific funding requirements
- Sustainability implications.

There is a strong emphasis on commissioning projects and initiatives. For projects

commissioned by EM IEP, the following project management principles are applied:

a) All projects must be sponsored by a Local Authority and follow project

management principles
b) Projects for single authorities will not be supported, only projects involving partners.
d) All projects must have a supporting business plan (to a standard template) and
indicate the return on investment, utilizing the CLG “mietool” model
e) All projects must identify what the appropriate improvements and efficiencies are and
what success looks like
f) The project must be structured in such a way where practical, that it is
possible for other authorities in the region to use the project outcomes and share in
the resulting benefits
g) Where appropriate projects will be subjected to a Gateway review
which will be conducted by the 4ps.

23
 h) All project boards will include a representative from EM IEP
i) Funding for projects will be granted on the basis that the outputs in the business case
are implemented. If the outputs are not enacted then any grant funding will be
required to be repaid in full to EMRIEP
j) Payments of grant funding are drawn down against delivery of agreed project
delivery milestones
k) A case study is required upon completion of the final milestone.

Working with other partners

As local authorities and fire and rescue services actually ‘own’ EM IEP, the main partners
with whom EM IEP has to forge external relationships are local service providers, such as
health and police organisations and with national bodies, such as the Audit Commission and
the Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government (IDeA).

Both the Audit Commission and IDeA (and the Employers Organisation) were formal
partners in the preceding Improvement Partnership. While this is no longer the case in EM
IEP, there is still very close liaison with both of these bodies in the new set up, with
exchange of information and of expertise. In particular, these bodies have the chance to
influence EM IEP’s strategic decisions through inputs to the strategy making process.

There are a variety of networking relationships with police authorities and with health
agencies in the region, but so far most of the actual capacity building work has been specific
to local authorities. This is beginning to change on the procurement front, as negotiations
are developing on how each sector can make use of call-off provisions from contracts which
have been negotiated on favourable terms by organisations in the other sectors – however,
this is still in the development stage.

EVALUATIONS, REFLECTIONS AND OVERALL ASSESSMENT

The EM IEP capacity building approaches highlighted here demonstrate approaches to

helping organisations to enhance their capabilities and deliver better quality and better value
for money.

The Procurement Lincolnshire approach does, at first sight, rely on a much more top-down
model, where the Leaders and Chief Executives of all the local authorities concerned in the
county have agreed in advance that a common procurement function would be established.
This has meant that the initial steps in founding, funding and staffing Procurement
Lincolnshire could be taken more quickly.

However, the very fact that the initiative was viewed by some of those involved, particularly
service managers, as ‘imposed’ created a potential obstacle to real joint working – and this
had to be deliberately overcome by specific approaches which encouraged the right feel of
‘ownership’ in the managers (and sometimes elected members) involved, without hiding the
fact that there was a high level commitment that the initiative would go ahead.

APPLICATION TO THE THIRD SECTOR AND CONCLUSIONS

There are some specific lessons from the EM IEP experience which may have particular
relevance to the third sector.

24
First, the role of EM IEP in local government in its region has some parallels to the roles
which ChangeUP consortia play. However, the set-up is rather less complicated in the local
government case (although in this sector, too, there are other ways in which capacity
building is encouraged, included the separate roles played in each region and each local
authority by the Improvement and Development Organisation, the regional Employers
Organisation, and the Audit Commission).

Second, the specific case study of EM Law Share shows how some critically important (but
‘non-core’ services) can be jointly contracted for by a group of similar organisations in a way
which brings much greater flexibility, better quality service and substantial staff savings. The
resistance to doing this may well be much greater in the third sector but it should not be
underestimated in the local government context – yet it was overcome and has paid major
dividends. Critical to the success of this approach was that it was voluntary – but clearly
offering major benefits. This may be an approach which ChangeUp or the BIG Lottery might
like to support through funding of developmental projects.

Third, the case study of Procurement Lincolnshire demonstrates that public sector is now
getting its act together in making the most of its spending power in getting better deals for
both commodities and for services which are being commissioned. This offers two potential
avenues for the third sector to explore: first, the possibility of sharing in some of the
advantageous contracts which are being negotiated by such procurement partnership at
local and regional levels (and Procurement Lincolnshire has expressed itself ready to open
some of its contracts to third sector organisations, where appropriate) and, secondly, the
possibility of having local or regional procurement partnerships for the third sector (which
might, for example, be coordinated through the local ChangeUp consortia).

Key Informant Interviews

Chris Allison , Director, East Midlands IEP
Andrew Foster, Asst Director, EM IEP
Sharon Cuff, Head, Procurement Lincolnshire

References

Audit Commission (2008), Back to front: Efficiency of back office functions in local
government. Case study 9: Lincolnshire County Council is developing shared back office
functions with its neighbouring councils to create back office efficiencies in CSR07. London.

EM IEP (2008), IMPROVEMENT THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS: An Integrated Improvement

and Efficiency Strategy for Local Government in the East Midlands, 2008/11. A Framework
for Sector Led Improvement.

Shared Services Lincolnshire (2007), Lincolnshire Shared Services Partnership

Procurement Shared Service: Detailed Business Case. Lincoln.

25
CASE STUDY 5 WOMEN INTO THE NETWORK
(WIN) – BANKER TRAINING

INTRODUCTION

Women Into the Network (WIN) is a well established, market leader in offering capacity
building support services to women’s enterprises in the North East Region. As well as being
a very successful women’s networking membership organisation, WIN has successfully
developed and delivered capacity building training programmes which have uniquely
assisted large corporate business service providers and women entrepreneurs. This case
study focuses on the relationship banking training programme “Developing Effective Working
Relationships with The Small Business Customer”. This specifically addresses the women’s
enterprise market segment and involves practical casework for bankers working directly with
women entrepreneurs. Additionally, WIN runs training courses for women entrepreneurs in
how to better manage their bank managers. Taking the training model as a whole, it appears
that WIN is creating a win-win scenario of capacity building for the business service provider
and the women’s enterprise clients which could be adaptable to a Third Sector (TS) context.

Profile of Surveyed Organisation and Respondents

Dinah Bennett is Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Durham University and
founding Director of Women into the Network (WIN).

WIN was founded as a not for profit venture in 1999 in the North East of England by Durham
University. This followed research which indicated that women owned businesses are under-
represented in terms of their use of mainstream business support services (one in five
businesses in the region were run by women, but only one in ten businesses receiving
mainstream business support were women owned). Initially, WIN was funded by the EU
European Regional Development Fund (1999-2001). A second tranche of funding, secured
through the European Social Fund’s EQUAL programme, assisted with the national and
international development of WIN. Since 2004 funding has come from ONE (the North East
Regional Development Agency), Business Link (BL) and continuing private sector
sponsorship of awards events organised by WIN (e.g. North East Woman Entrepreneur of
the Year Awards). In 2009 WIN became WIN Ltd, owned and managed by women
entrepreneurs in the region, and will continue to work collaboratively with support
organisations and in particular BL, to ensure that appropriate business support can be
accessed by women across the North East. During the last decade, WIN has helped make
the North East region a leading area for women’s start-ups (Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor, 2004), with the North East having the best female to male ratio of start-ups in the
UK; 61% compared to the UK average of 47%.

WIN was established as a networking and signposting initiative, using networking to break
down barriers to women entrepreneurs, raising confidence, increasing opportunities,
providing advice and support and offering wide ranging services (e.g. arranging events,
advice, training and on-line services). WIN is membership driven. It works in partnership to
actively educate and inform the mainstream business support sector on how to develop
more effective relationships with enterprising women. WIN is working to expand its activities
across the UK and has established operations in Cambridgeshire, Cumbria, Yorkshire and
Lancashire and also Ireland.

26
Origin of CB Project

During the last decade WIN has run a number of capacity building courses designed to
overcome the barriers that women entrepreneurs face. A particularly successful series of
courses have been run with major banks, with the aim of providing greater insight into
women’s enterprise to key bank staff, such as business relationship managers. The idea
was formulated from academic research undertaken during the late 1990s which highlighted
barriers facing women entrepreneurs. Further studies and papers by Bennett et al. (2003,
2004 and 2008) present findings in terms of what constitutes a good relationship; what are
the barriers to this and highlights specific gender issues that arose from interviews with male
and female owner managers and bankers.

“The factors that constitute a good relationship between bankers and owner managers are
very similar apart from; women having to deal with the attitudes of some 'traditional' bankers
still holding specific views as to women's roles in society; not taking women seriously (home
workers and craft-based businesses classed as ‘hobbyists’; women feeling unable to
participate in hospitality and networking events because they don't find them appropriate to
their needs; women perceiving bankers roles to include that of proactively helping them to
network in order to make contacts and develop their businesses.”

These studies also found mixed perceptions and expectations:

• Women wanted banks to be more proactive and interested in their business – to be

an important stakeholder.
• Men merely saw the bank as a service provider.
• Bankers wanted access to women’s business networks, but it was found that
mechanisms and venues used by banks are often not appropriate for women.

The assumptions being made had resulted in areas of support being closed off and it was
found that specific training for women to better manage their bank managers and vice versa
was needed.

As a result of this work and earlier research undertaken, Relationship Management

Programmes have been designed and are now disseminated to bankers and those in the
professional sector on a regional, national and international scale. A workshop entitled,
‘Managing your Bank Manager to Manage You More Effectively’ has also been designed for
female (and male) business owners.

Aims and Objectives

WIN has a vision to create a “…professional and open network where women can learn how
to get ahead and pursue their ambitions in an open and supportive environment” (WIN
website). WIN’s key stated aims are:

• To integrate women entrepreneurs – aspiring or existing – into new and existing

networks, to overcome barriers to starting and growing business.
• To lobby on behalf of women and raise their profile within the business world.

27
Partnership Working

Establishing and developing partnerships is an essential part of WIN’s work. Within the North
East region, WIN has established close working partnerships with a range of local
organisations providing business assistance, including: mainstream organisations such as
Business Link, North East Chamber of Commerce; and more specialist providers such as
North Northumberland Women’s Network, The Bridge Club early stage business networking
organisation, Service Network (providing service sector business support), People Into
Enterprise (bespoke enterprise training) and The Entrepreneurs Forum (web-based business
forum).

Expanding WIN’s activities beyond the North East region has been achieved by working
closely with the Rural Women’s Network. Membership of the EU ESF EQUAL programme’s
Accelerated Women’s Enterprise (AWE) brought together a number of leading women’s
support agencies across the English regions. This led to joint working to develop training
and support activities, including training, access to finance, pre/post start-up business
support, networking; mentoring and award schemes. There was also a particular focus on
disadvantaged groups such as BAME, lone parents, disabled, rural and urban deprived
areas. Another spin-off through EQUAL has been membership of the Women Entrepreneurs
Europe partnership which has led to sharing of experiences and good practice working with
parallel organisations in Croatia, Slovenia and Turkey.

Delivery of WIN’S Bankers Training Programme

Dinah Bennett notes that WIN’s bankers training programme has been running and evolving
for a decade. The focus has typically been to work with business relationship managers who
are managing typical small and medium sized business client portfolios. This training work
“…lost its way during a period in the middle of the decade when banks became more
interested in bankers focusing on selling products, rather than managing client
relationships…” However, it has recently been re-awakened with a rise in interest in market
segmentation, with a particular focus on women entrepreneurs. WIN’s development of the
banker training programme also builds on experiences of developing similar programmes for
local agencies to operate in Australia, Botswana and Ghana. An account of a recent
intensive five-day course with a bank entitled “Developing Effective Working Relationships
with The Small Business Customer” indicates how the approach has been refined over many
years practical experience. This has improved capacity building of both the bank’s client
facing staff and assisted women entrepreneurs. Dinah explains the process as follows:

(i) Initial consultation with the bank client, to ascertain what their requirements and
expectations are for the training course.
(ii) Undertake pre-training course health checks to assess the bank’s work practices
and codes of conduct and to assess the individual client facing bank staff profiles.
Individual assessments include psychometric profiling techniques for personality
traits and social attitudes (e.g. Myers-Briggs).
(iii) Training courses are usually undertaken as residential courses over several
days, based at Durham University, in order to get the bank staff away from their
working environment. The course can be shortened, in order to operate as an
‘away day’ type event.
(iv) Courses aim to develop bankers’ knowledge of the client market, based on WIN’s
practical assistance and research knowledge of women entrepreneurs. Bankers
are informed about good practice client relationship building, in terms of the

28
 working environment, language, gestures and approaches required for women
clients. It is important that core client relationship competencies are developed.
(v) Research has shown that clients expect their bankers to have: understanding of
the pressures faced by the customer; continuity of relationships; access to the
banks’ networks; clear terms and conditions, with no unpleasant surprises; quick
responses to enquiries in jargon-free language; thorough knowledge of local
business networks.
(vi) Dinah insists that “…a key is to get around the corporate view that small
businesses are little big businesses and to enable the bank staff to gain an
insight into what running and working in a small business is really like. It is
important that different market segments are understood and that the bankers
can empathise with their clients.
(vii) It is important that bankers have an understanding of small business growth and
development trajectories, which are not linear, but more typically lumpy and
dependant upon crucial growth points or catalysts.
(viii) The course involves training and role playing work. Bankers are provided with
case studies and they are asked to assess the companies’ potential and draw up
plans of action for the next 12 months.
(ix) An important element involves the bankers meeting with women entrepreneurs
(volunteer members of WIN) and developing their new relational skills on real life
case examples.
(x) The programme also provides opportunities for bankers to conduct follow-up site
visits with women entrepreneurs.

Residential training courses for banks are charged at £6,000 per day, covering training and
accommodation costs at Durham University for a standard course. WIN requires a core team
of two staff to deliver the training programme. Additionally, a private consultant undertakes
the capacity building work with women owner-managers and co-ordinates the women
entrepreneurs follow-up fieldwork for bankers.

WIN also offers training seminars for women entrepreneurs on how to better manage their
bank managers. This has a potentially important capacity building impact on women
entrepreneur participants. It helps them to overcome their preconceptions of bankers as
difficult to communicate with and lacking understanding of their circumstances. It also allows
them to see their bankers as helpful to developing their business contacts, as well as
providing effective financial support. In short, women entrepreneurs want a bank manager
who is flexible, who can act as a sounding board and honest broker, and who can provide
support in both good times and bad. All of this is possible, if the women entrepreneurs are
equipped with the confidence and ability to communicate their requirements.

WIN has found that there are five main reasons why small businesses decide to switch
banks. These are: poor service, or lack of service due to not understanding clients needs (49
per cent); better offerings from competitor institutions (30 per cent); unfriendly attitude (16
per cent); charges (12 per cent); inflexible attitude (11 per cent). These findings underline
the importance for bank managers to develop empathy with their small business customers,
particularly understanding the needs of women business owners. Relationship banking is not
simply judging the health of a business by its financial statements, or the occasional face-to-
face meeting. Relationship banking requires constantly renewing contact with the business
customer, either through regular telephone calls or through personal visits to the business.
In this way, the manager will gain a fuller understanding of the progress or otherwise of the
business, and be better able to gauge its future financial needs.

Bennett emphasises that “…the relationship between the business owner and the bank
manager should be based on trust, continuity, regular contact, a common language and

29
shared objectives. It is essentially a synergistic relationship, since both parties stand to gain
when the relationship succeeds.”

WIN’s programme aims to give bank managers some idea of what it is like to sit on the other
side of their desk. It has been designed to help managers understand the process of growth
in small businesses, to appreciate the pressures faced by business owners, and to help
them work more effectively with their customers. The programme is unusual because of its
external perspective, with tutors and experts in their field, being drawn from outside the
banking community. Overall, the programme provides a learning experience that is
educational rather than a mere training exercise, with the aim of broadening the managers’
horizons and helping them see things from the perspective of their business customers.

EVALUATION

Bankers training work has been internally assessed by both WIN and the bank clients. WIN
undertake standard course training assessments via client feedback sheets, which helps to
further refine courses and to highlight what works well and what needs improvement. Bank
clients also undertake follow-up in-house survey work after 6-12 months, to see what impact
the training has made. WIN supply some standard questions for the bank’s internal survey
work. In practice, the banks have typically not been able to maintain a positive emphasis
towards target market segments, such as women entrepreneurs, over time. Perhaps, this is
because they have been too target driven to focus on relationship aspects. This might also
suggest that the bank staff would benefit from regular refresher courses.

The benefits to women entrepreneurs who have gone through this type of training are likely
to be longer lasting, since it is getting over the initial barrier of business bankers as unhelpful
and unapproachable that is most important.The following are some of the unsolicited
comments from business owners following a visit by a group of managers as part of the
programme:

“I found the ability to get unbiased advice most useful and it makes a change to meet such
interesting bank managers. I trust your course continues to go from strength to strength.
Pity our bank is not so enlightened.”

“I thought I was just being helpful and doing my bit in assisting trainees when I rather
reluctantly agreed to the visit, but at the end of the day I’m sure I gained as much, if not
more, from the experience as they did”.

“Obviously balance sheets and profit and loss accounts are supposed to tell you the
standing of a business, but I was quite taken aback at just how much information they
extracted from the facts and figures available. It was most impressive and very informative.”

Dinah Bennett comments that “…this is encouraging as banks and small businesses are
important stakeholders in each other and they must develop a mutually beneficial
relationship.”

CONCLUSIONS AND POTENTIAL FOR APPLICATION TO

THIRD SECTOR

WIN’s relationship banker training offers capacity building to banks and their client women
entrepreneurs in a win-win scenario. This approach has already been adapted to other
professional private sector business service groups, such as accountants and lawyers.

30
There is an overall perception that it could be applied to the Third Sector, with a focus on
how professional business support organisations, such as banks and accountants, perceive
and conduct their business relations with Third Sector enterprises. There is also
considerable scope for adapting the complete model, including case work with TS
organisations and direct training support to TS organisations, with a view to how they
approach and work with their banks, accountants etc. WIN and Durham University have
expressed an interest in developing their work for the TS and already have well established
contacts with key regional organisations such as the North East Social Enterprise Coalition,
with whom they have undertaken research and guidance work to establish ways of finding
and targeting hard to reach groups. This collaboration may provide suitable opportunities for
pilot TS research work in this region.

Key Informant Interview

Dinah Bennett, Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Durham University and
Director of Women into the Network (WIN).

References:

www.womenintothenetwork.co.uk WIN Website

www.bridgeclubnorth.com The Bridge Club

www.entrepreneursforum.net/home The Entrepreneurs Forum

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2004)

Bennett D (2003) Accelerating Women’s Enterprise, Paper at Making Entrepreneurship More

Accessible to Women Seminar, London 05/06

Bennett D and Richardson P (2004) Building Relationships and Social Capital for Women’s
Enterprise Development, Paper to Prowess Conference 9-11/11

Bennett D and Janjua S (2008) Women and Access to Finance, Paper to World
Entrepreneurship Summit, London QEII Conference Centre, 10/01

31
CASE STUDY 6 ROCKSTAR GROUP

INTRODUCTION

Rockstar Group has been selected as a case study example of innovative, high quality, good
practice, capacity building work by a private sector organisation for the private sector.
Rockstar Group is entirely self-funded, generating their entire income from a growing
membership client base. Two key elements of CB work focused on in this case study are
business mentoring and equity investment support for businesses. It is believed that both of
these elements could be developed in order to assist Third Sector enterprise start-up and
development. Jonathan Pfahl, the MD of Rockstar Group has expressed an interest in
adapting their model for Third Sector CB work and would be interested in undertaking
piloting work with the Third Sector (TS).

Profile of Rockstar Group and Surveyed Respondents

Jonathan Pfahl is the founder, owner and Managing Director of Rockstar Group. Australian
born, with an economics degree from Sydney University, Pfahl worked for four years as an
investment advisor for Goldman Sachs, before moving to London in January 2005 to set up
‘Rockstar’. Jonathan drew on his experiences in investment trading to set up his own
business. As he increased his business interests, he always used expert mentor advice,
such as when he developed the property arm of his business.

Rockstar was originally set up in January 2005 as an investment advice service, which
broadened into property investment services. Later, the business diversified, by providing an
on-line business start-up and development site, which began in 2007. This diversification
was influenced by Jonathan Pfahl’s positive experiences in using mentoring assistance to
develop his own business skills. The mentoring business also evolved out of working with
the UK government’s Make Your Mark campaign to involve private sector in promotional
work to generate more entrepreneurial activity in the UK.

Today, Rockstar Group has 29 business mentors, covering a wide range of specialisms,
backed by a small customer support team. Rockstar is also an international organisation,
networking with leading international entrepreneurial development organisation such as XL
Results Foundation and having recently opened an office in India.

Whilst there are no specific aims to assist Third Sector businesses, Jonathan is aware that
his vision is for entrepreneurship mentoring to be available for all people, including social
entrepreneurs. He also indicated that there are current members of their mentor list who are
involved in charitable and community business ventures. There is considerable scope to
broaden the model to include this type of assistance, specifically with regard to community
enterprise mentoring and ethical investor support.

Origin of CB Project

It was noted that there are relatively few business mentoring organisations in existence in
the UK. Jonathan recognised that, whilst business mentoring support activities existed, they
were often narrowly applied, available only to specific sectors and market segments. He
perceived a need for a more widely available, broader based mentoring service.

32
The Rockstar Group offers affordable mentoring for entrepreneurs looking to start or grow
their business. Through a combination of one to one mentoring, promotion of products and
services to key customers and access to private funding, the team at Rockstar are dedicated
to seeing that their members’ businesses succeed.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Pfahl states “My aim is to show anyone with a business idea, or with a small business which
they are looking to grow that it is possible! You just need the right support to make it
happen."

Key elements of Rockstar’s on-line business start-up and business development support
services are:

• Affordable membership based service

• Provision of one to one mentoring from successful business mentors with appropriate
skills background
• Assistance with business marketing
• Access to potential private sector equity investor finance.

Partnership Working

Rockstar is built upon the founder Jonathan Pfahl’s networking connections, which extend
across the UK and globally. Initially, Jonathan worked with the UK government’s Make Your
Mark initiative, sponsored through BERR. This encourages private sector organisations such
as the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), Confederation of British Industry (CBI),
Federation of Small Business (FSB), Institute of Directors (IoD) to help develop UK
entrepreneurship activity and to “…make business ideas happen…” Make Your Mark
helped to lay the foundations of the service, by helping to find experienced private sector
business mentors and potential entrepreneurs. This led to further connections with UK
government and with Business Link – Rockstar is a recommended service provider through
BL London.

Jonathan’s network is considerable and he also references connections with: XL Results

Foundation, a global magazine and media events/publication network which is seen as a
leading light in entrepreneurial and social enterprise development; Startups.co.uk, a web
based business start-up resource site which includes case studies, web forums and
information about business mentoring services such as ‘e-mentor’; Strategiccoach.com, a
long established US business mentoring service; and Better Stronger Faster Group (BSFG)
which provide business management and business finance training, including for accessing
private equity finance.

Delivery of Rockstar Services

The essential element of the Rockstar service is the provision of a personal business
mentor. Rockstar Group currently has circa 29 mentors (the number is growing), all
successful within their specialist areas, covering a wide range of sectors and localities
throughout the UK (including Wales, Scotland and all English regions, except the North
East).

Mentor sector specialisms include health, creative industries, new technologies, clean
technologies, on-line business, property, sports and leisure, retail, recycling and business

33
services. Specialist expertise covers a wide range of business support requirements, from
start-up and new business assistance to business development and strategic assistance.

Key specialisms include sales and marketing, public relations, communications and
networking, IT, business planning, accounting and tax, investment, international sales,
raising finance, business processes and succession and business exit strategies.

Mentors are drawn from diverse backgrounds and are able to focus on specific market
segments such as student, women and ethnic minority clients.

Jonathan says: "To me, mentoring just makes so much sense. Why go into something new
with no experience, like a new business venture, with such a small chance of success, when
you can have someone hold your hand through the process and show you how to do so
successfully. I have had a mentor in every new venture I ever got involved in, it worked for
me, so I then wanted to put something together that would allow others to do the same."

Mentors are hand picked by Jonathan and were originally found through the UK
government/private sector sponsored Make Your Mark programme for developing
entrepreneurship in the UK and Jonathan’s wider networking activities. Now that Rockstar’s
mentoring service is established, potential mentors come to him via recommendations and
enquiries. Key selection criteria for mentors are:

• Successful business people in their own field of work with a proven track record
• Mentors must have experience of owning and running their own business, which
must have a record of growth and profitability for at least three years
• Previous experience of mentoring, with ability to demonstrate successful mentoring
outcomes
• All mentors are interviewed, preferably face-to-face, by Jonathan and have to
demonstrate that they have the drive and enthusiasm required

Jonathan admits that there is no set measure or accreditation requirement for Rockstar’s
mentors, except for their own proven track record of practical experience and their ability to
demonstrate that they have the personality and drive that he is seeking. Mentors are not
evaluated in any specific way, although their performance and activities are internally
tracked and discussed at regular mentoring meetings. Ultimately, Jonathan states that their
success or failure will be judged by the sustainability of their personal service offering (i.e.
whether they attract and retain clients). This is an important point, since Rockstar is a paid
membership subscription service. The service works on the principle that no one is
excluded, with the majority of the currently nearly 300 members being pre-start or early
stage businesses.

Services and Income Stream

Rockstar Group is privately funded through membership fees and payments for services
provided. Monthly membership costs £24.95, with an annual subscription of £249.95.
Membership includes access to an appropriate mentor of the member’s choice, allowing for
30 minutes telephone mentoring per month and unlimited email access. Students receive a
discount rate of £14.95 per month. Additionally, membership provides access to website
resources such as advertising and marketing via an entrepreneur directory and on-line
forums. There is also the novel additional feature of a Facebook membership forum. For an
additional £300, members can purchase a three hour face-to-face mentor session, once per
month (or £780 for 3 three hour sessions spread over three months). Jonathan notes that,
although mentors are paid for their services, the levels of remuneration are not high. It

34
appears that many of the mentors are offering their services for philanthropic reasons,
perhaps because they feel that they have something to give back to society. However,
mentors may also be attracted by the potential opportunities for equity investment into higher
growth businesses. ‘Business Angel’ style equity investment has developed into one of
Rockstar’s key services.

Rockstar Group also offers a range of other independently paid client services, including
property and investment management services, which provide a considerable income
stream. A key area of Rockstar’s work is business angel equity investment, from which there
is considerable potential to gain financial return in the medium to longer term.

Mentoring Services

Mentors are hand selected by Jonathan Pfahl and are successful, high-flyers with specific
sectoral, business skills and market segment specialisms. Clients select their mentors,
based on web profile information and an initial telephone conversation. There is also
guidance and advice from a customer service support team.

Once the selection of a mentor is established, the mentor provides a clear focus for the
business, keeping it on track, providing a trusted sounding board and guiding business
development, e.g. for start-up, or for growth. A key task for mentors is to establish or
develop a business plan which provides a framework for business development. Sue
Stockdale, a mentor who specialises in women’s entrepreneurship support, notes that it is
often a problem that “…clients think small and do not believe in themselves and their ideas
and that this is a huge bar to potential successs…” which mentors can help to overcome in
order to realise the full potential of the business.

Around 70% of clients are start-ups and typically these are people with 2-5 years of work
experience. Mentors add a huge amount of practical business know-how to this type of client
base and are able to pool their knowledge when particular specialist areas of knowledge
such as legal, tax and accountancy requirements are required.

Mentor assistance is tracked, particularly in terms of client feedback and bottom-line

business performance. There is a mentors meeting every two months at which mentoring
issues are discussed, including aspects of good practice and also problem matters and how
they might be dealt with.

Access to Finance

Rockstar are working with the Better Stronger Faster Group (BSFG), an organisation which
specialises in training and support for businesses in all aspects of finance and financial
management. BSFG have experienced trainers who can help entrepreneurs to calculate the
funds that they require to start and grow businesses and where to use them to best effect.
An important aspect of this process, highlighted by Pfahl, is “…understanding the intimate
motivations and concerns of potential business funders.” The training provided by BFSG
takes the entrepreneur through the whole process, from developing the business plan,
through to the presentation pitch, using their knowledge to craft a proposal and develop the
tools to get the funds for the entrepreneur on the best possible terms, including help with
structuring deals. BSFG and Rockstar have a panel of business angel funders who are
willing to invest anything from £20,000 to £1 million. The typical equity funding levels have
been in the £60,000 to £150,000 range and there have thus far been seven companies that
have successfully acquired equity funding. Successful companies have included several on-

35
line businesses, as this is a model that requires relatively little start-up capital, but has
considerable potential for growth.

The process by which entrepreneurs seeking equity finance are assisted by Rockstar is as
follows:

(i) All clients must be members of the Rockstar Group

(ii) At least two Rockstar mentors will consider the business proposal to see if there
is reasonable potential for obtaining equity finance.
(iii) Rockstar have a checklist of criteria which proposals have to meet in order to
ensure that the business is at investor stage
(iv) If the proposal and business looks suitable for equity finance, one mentor will be
assigned the task of developing the business plan proposal to the stage where it
is absolutely watertight
(v) BSFG then provide intensive training with the entrepreneur in order to ensure that
they are confident and fluent in their presentation pitch. Training involves role
play coaching, which is filmed, in order to ensure that the entrepreneur is able to
make all the right points most effectively. Care is also taken to ensure that the
entrepreneur understands what the equity investor is looking for and what types
of financing structures and arrangements might be put in place.

Both Jonathan and BSFG stress that the vast majority of people pitching for private equity
investment fail. Typically the reason is that they lack confidence and the ability to convey
their message. With their training and mentoring support and knowledge, assisted business
are far more likely to be successful.

EVALUATION

Rockstar is a purely private venture and has not received any independent evaluation. It is
now in its third year of operation and has grown in size and scope, indicating that there is a
demand for its services. To some extent the success of the business model suggests that it
is surviving the tough scrutiny of the free market. However, Pfahl has also put into place
important safeguards in order to provide and maintain a high quality service. These
safeguards include personal selection of mentors and partner organisations that are of a
high – industry leader - standard, mentor monitoring and tracking procedures and client
feedback. Rockstar are able to draw on a number of client testimonials (e.g. Continuink,
2007) that support their methods and approach.

CONCLUSIONS AND POTENTIAL FOR THIRD SECTOR

APPLICATION

Rockstar provides a broad and evolving, successful, private sector model for enterprise
support, based on modest membership fees and selective paid for client services that are of
a high standard. At the core of the model is a business mentoring service, of an
exceptionally high standard, that is effectively subsidised by either the philanthropic nature
of the mentor experts, or their desire to find exciting new enterprises that they can invest in.
Business mentoring is a compelling proposition, given the high rates of business failure in
the UK (perhaps as high as 75% ceasing trading within the first five years). Whilst Rockstar
does not currently have any specialist Third Sector mentors, it has a number of current
mentors with Third Sector experience and a desire, according to Jonathan Pfahl, to address
the needs of the TS. Certainly, Rockstar’s mentoring service appears to be capable of being

36
tailored to the specific needs of TS managers and enterprises. Furthermore, Rockstar’s
model approach to sourcing equity finance could be adapted to the sourcing of ethical
finance. Finally, Rockstar is prepared to engage with CapacityBuilders with a view to cross
sector working and potential pilot initiatives.

Key Informant Interview

Jonathan Pfahl, Managing Director, Rockstar Group

References

www.rockstargroup.co.uk Rockstar Group website

www.startups.co.uk Startups.co website

www.strategiccoach.com Strategic Coach website

www.ukprwire.com/Detailed/Business/Rockstar_Group_in_search_for_the_next_Entreprene
ur_Superstar__11288.shtml UK PR Wire 26/10/2007

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12290325586&ref=mf Rockstar Group Facebook site

www.articleclick.com/Article/The-Rockstar-Group-helps-Continuink-into-the-green-
market/959808 ‘Continuink’ Article Click Web Testimonial 12/12/2007

www.betterstrongerfastergroup.com/people.html Better Stronger Faster Group (BSFG)

website

37
CASE STUDY 7 REFLEX COMMUNITY BASED
BUSINESS ADVISORS

INTRODUCTION

In 2001 the London Borough Council of Islington’s ‘Reflex’ project formed a broad local
partnership of public, private and third sector organisations, to pilot and establish community
based business advisors, using European Union (EU) Equal programme funding. The
project was innovative, seeking to capacity build local community organisations by equipping
them with their own business advisors, who could effectively conduct outreach business
support work with hard to reach, disadvantaged ethnic minority, faith and lone parent groups
– overcoming their under-representation within mainstream business support, for example
through Business Link. Success from the initial pilot work led to a second tranche of EU
funding in 2004, allowing the model to be rolled out to the neighbouring boroughs of
Lewisham and Camden and the establishment of the Association of Community Based
Business Advisors (ACBBA) as an umbrella body to oversee the strategic development and
sustainability of the project. Since 2007, with the conclusion of EU funding, ACBBA has
assumed control of advisor training and has successfully established Community Based
Business Advisors (CBBAs) within 15 local organisations.

The focus in this case study is on the role of the Community Based Business Advisor and
the capacity building impacts of this upon both the community organisations and advisor
staff involved and also upon their disadvantaged target markets through establishing and
developing local enterprise activity. Whilst the focus of enterprise support has been to assist
private sector activity, this approach is equally appropriate for assisting local community
enterprise and has many potential spin-off benefits for the Third Sector (TS) – not least
because the community organisations that are assisted are TS.

Profile of Key Respondent and ACBBA

Armando Pardo is Director of the Association of Community Based Business Advisors

(ACBBA) and founder member of the Community Based Business Advisor (CBBA) model
approach presented in this case study.

The creation of the Association of Community Based Business Advice, ACBBA, constituted
a landmark in the implementation of Reflex; it provided both the focus and momentum
necessary to give the project a sense of continuity and longer term prospects. The
organisation acts as the umbrella strategic vehicle, forging partnerships, providing
leadership on policy development, access to funding and managing the overall process.
ACBBA also runs a professional development programme for business advisors and works
with member organisations to assist in the selection and management of their business
advisors, developing monitoring systems to track progress. ACBBA operates on modest
resources, with three permanent staff, operating out of one office.

Origin of Reflex Project

The Reflex project was a highly innovative initiative designed to create a new business
support infrastructure at community level through the direct involvement of grass root
community based organisations serving a diverse range of disadvantaged groups. Reflex

38
introduced and successfully tested the concept of Community Based Business Advisors and
provided a model for making business support accessible to ethnic minority and other
disadvantaged communities. The project was originally funded by the European Union’s
Equal programme under Theme C ‘Opening up the Business Creation Process to All’.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF REFLEX AND ACBBA

Key aims:

• To increase the capacity of community organisations to promote and support

enterprise, with a focus on Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups and other
disadvantaged groups (e.g. women, disabled) commonly excluded in the labour
market.
• To develop business networks and implement good practice in the provision of
enterprise support, working with business support agencies to promote enterprise
development in local communities.

Key objectives:

• To address the social and mainstream business support factors inhibiting effective
start-up and enterprise growth for target groups.
• To map out the local agencies and community organisations’ expertise to meet gaps
in provision and to implement a programme of capacity building in order to build new
business support networks.
• To design and test new support networks and approaches through an extensive local
pilot mentoring and training initiative in collaboration with the local business
community.
• To evaluate and disseminate key findings of project work in all its main areas of work
with an emphasis upon transferable outcomes.

Partnership Working

Reflex involved a wide partnership of public, voluntary, academic and private sector
partners, led by the London Borough of Islington. From its inception, the partnership adopted
a fully inclusive approach, including a mix of mainstream and community organisations
participating on equal terms within its steering group. Partner organisations fell into four
main categories, according to the role they played in the project, as follows:

1. Community organisations benefiting from the capacity building and Business

Advisors Development programmes available through Reflex.

2. Core partners assuming the responsibility for leading one of the work packages
giving shape to the project’s programme.

3. Organisations helping to establish links with mainstream bodies and other EU Equal
programmes.

4. European partners involved in the exchange of experiences on different themes

related to employment, self-employment and small business development.

Islington Training Network (ITN) and Islington Enterprise Agency (IEA) delivered most of the
development programmes for business advisors and community organisations as part of an

39
integrated support package. This helped develop a strong relationship between these two
local support organisations and facilitated effective time-tabling and promotion of a clearer
offer to the participating community groups.

The ITN and IEA experience is only an illustration of the type of partnerships that flourished
within Reflex among community groups and between community groups and support
organisations. There have been many spin-off benefits from partnership working, particularly
in relationship to the ability to bridge the gap to mainstream support and to develop
integration between community and mainstream business support activities. Furthermore,
Pardo highlights that “…bringing together the business advisors from the different
community groups to share their experiences, lessons learned and successful practice has
made a significant capacity building impact.” Community groups with common interests, for
example three separate London Bangladeshi organisations, have been brought together,
creating synergies that would otherwise not have happened. Overall, the various community
groups are collectively much stronger in terms of their ability to obtain stakeholder buy-in
and to access funding via the ACBBA umbrella.

Delivery of the Community Based Business Advisor

Project

Reflex’s starting point was to find and work with existing community organisations with a
proven track record and existing networks in order to increase their capacity. This approach
was essential to gain the trust of community groups and foster a spirit of equality within a
partnership that involved both beneficiaries and providers. Whilst there was ample evidence
of the effectiveness of community groups in areas such as welfare advice and advocacy,
knowledge of their business support work was patchy. However, several community groups
had access to a relatively large business constituency and were also actively engaged in
some form of business development activity, including mapping exercises and provision of
business related information. This early finding helped validate the notion of building on
existing capacity even in the case of business support, which had been assumed to be much
less developed than was the case.

Pardo notes that “…Interestingly, when one of the work areas of Reflex appeared to be
attempting the creation of new business structures super imposed on existing networks, thus
running contrary to one of the project’s main principles, it failed to make progress, serving to
reinforce the notion of building on existing capacity.”

“…The development as business advisors of a group of employees working in grass root

organisations was the fundamental objective of Reflex. In this context, the success of the
model was dependent both on the programme of support developed by Reflex and the
qualities of the people ‘recruited’ as trainee business advisors.”

The Community Based Business Advisor Role

Essentially the Community Based Business Advisor (CBBA) has to be able to engage with
the target market, have wide ranging enterprise and client handling skills and provide
appropriate and effective diagnosis and advice. To achieve this, they receive:
• Induction training – now delivered by ACBBA via seven sessions with their
experienced CBBAs and trainers
• Mentor support from a CBBA, with whom they can initially work with and discuss
cases on an ongoing basis

40
 • Partake in ACCBA’s monthly CBBA meetings, providing networking, peer support,
sharing of good practice, lessons learned and workshop training
• Register for Small Firms Enterprise Initiative (SFEDI) accreditation training.

Pardo described CBBA development: “It is a practical learning by doing process. From the
outset they are sent out to work in their communities, initially with mentor supervision and
their progress is carefully nurtured and monitored.”

Initially the IEA was responsible for Community Based Business Advisor CB work. It
designed a comprehensive development programme involving training, mentoring,
accreditation, development of business related materials and assistance to some of the
clients of community based business advisors. One member each from ten community
groups participated in the programme.

Training included workshops on Understanding the Business Advisory Process; Ways of

Supporting the Client; Emerging Issues in Business Counselling; Supporting the Business
Advisor; Understanding the Elements of a Business Plan and Financial Management.
Private sector professionals contributed to the programme of workshops including an
accountant, a bank manager and a solicitor.

The Business Mentoring programme involved individual coaching, provision of supervised

business counselling opportunities and advice on professional development by experienced
business advisers.

The accreditation programme involved self-assessment, observed counselling sessions and

participation in the training programme outlined above in order to demonstrate the
competencies required for SFEDI accreditation. The IEA also negotiated group membership
of the Institute of Business Advisors to enable trainee business advisers to access
continuing professional development opportunities. SFEDI accreditation provided formal
recognition to the new type of business support professional developed under Reflex
A number of business related materials and tools were progressively introduced giving rise
to a Small Business Resource Pack including:

• Briefings on popular topics such as Legal Structures; Registering a Company; VAT;

Tenancy Agreements; Premises; Raising Finance; Using the Internet and Food
Hygiene for catering businesses
• Translations of briefings into Bengali, Somali, Arabic, Greek and Spanish
• List of business related resources in the area such as business support organisations
• List of resources for small businesses on the web
• Computer based financial forecasting model to prepare cashflow forecasts, profit
forecasts and projected balance sheets
• Business plan templates
• Glossary of finance terms
• Guidelines for Business Counselling

In addition to the support package provided to the trainee business advisors, the IEA also
assisted some of their clients with information gathering, advice and business planning.

Funding Costs

It is difficult to be precise about the funding requirements for developing CBBAs, given the
varying nature of their individual experiences and the extent of buy-in and support from

41
stakeholder organizations. Most CBBAs work part-time and have other community based
roles and their income is provided through the attainment of target driven enterprise support
contracts, typically provided through local authorities and BL. It is currently estimated that for
every CBBA around £16,000 annually is required to fund them and their training directly –
training and accreditation amounts to around £5,000 - and that additionally there is around
£5,000 in administrative costs incurred by ACBBA.

EVALUATION AND LESSONS LEARNT

The Reflex model was cited as a model of good practice for regeneration (see ECOTEC,
2004). Blackburn et al (2004) found a diversity of skills development and knowledge among
the business advisers, with the most common areas of knowledge enhancement and skills
development including business planning and regulatory environment. There was variation
in the phase of the development of the business support function between organisations,
due to staff turnover and degree of training received, but with most organisations involved in
Reflex believing that they needed a full-time business adviser.

To some extent findings were due to the variety of roles that the business advisers were
having to balance within their own organisation. All business advisers had received training
and via Reflex, are members of the Institute of Business Advisers (IBA). All were
encouraged to undertake a formal programme of business advice, accredited by the IBA.
This had some take-up, but because of the diversity of ambition of the business advisers
and the ability of the host community organisation to provide the necessary support this
received a cautious take-up. Two business advisers had achieved the SFEDI accredited
standard for business advice through observed practice. One of the challenges here has
been finding business advice sessions being conducted in English (as opposed to the ethnic
minority host language).

Pardo (2005) reported the lessons learnt from the Reflex project, with particular attention to
the CBBA role. This role required high-calibre, multi-skilled individuals that combined interest
in business development with commitment to their communities. Their effectiveness as
business advisers was influenced by their level of participation in other social and cultural
activities, as well as their technical skills. As members of the community, they gained trust
and once trust was established, clients were more willing to provide the type of information
needed for a meaningful discussion on business needs.

CBBAs must have motivation, a track record of work in service provision and a reasonable
level of education. The role also calls for a level of seniority or influence within the
community organisation to ensure the business advice function attracts organisational
support and is not marginalised.

The programme of support for community based business advisors must seek to develop a
set of skills that are both generic and business specific. Generic skills include team working,
communication and general management skills. Business specific skills include business
counselling, business planning, marketing, financial and IT for business skills.

Being an entirely new branch in the business advisory profession, it would perhaps be
presumptuous to advance a more comprehensive ‘job description’ for community based
business advisors. ACBBA are continually examining how this can be developed.

More importantly, the creation of a new position within the community sector poses the
question of what career structure can be proposed to ensure that individual business
advisors can develop and progress professionally within the sector. Failure to create career

42
opportunities within the community sector will force more experienced community based
business advisors to pursue opportunities elsewhere. There is a 30% fall out of advisors,
due in part to career development moves, but also through lack of sustainability of funding
for some roles within organizations with limited funds.

The success of the sustainability strategy for the new business support infrastructure
initiated by Reflex will depend on the adoption of the same principles that give rise to a
model of intervention:

• Consensus of ideas, principles and objectives

• Establishment of a partnership providing strong leadership
• Implementation based on concrete activity and visible outputs
• Widening the approach to include different forms of enterprise assistance (e.g. for
Third Sector, existing enterprise development and more broadly local skills
development).

Pardo concludes that CBBAs have been successful, but that this is an embedded approach
which can take up to two years to fully establish. There have also been some difficulties in
accounting for success, partly because this is far broader than the capture of quantitative
target-driven measurement and also because of the rules for such measures which do not
easily capture the impacts of multi agency support (e.g. where CBBA assistance is
‘mainstreamed’, with some support also coming from BL, and which therefore cannot be
counted because of ‘double counting’ issues).

CONCLUSIONS AND APPLICATION TO THE THIRD SECTOR

ACBBA’s work continues in the search for a sustainable approach to community based
enterprise support. The ACBBA model appears capable of flexible adjustment to address the
enterprise and skills development requirements of specific market segments and localities,
with a particular emphasis for assisting deprived and difficult to reach groups. Recent work
with Southend Council in Essex is leading to tailored community based enterprise assistance
within the Council’s three most deprived wards, whilst discussions are underway with
Dunmow Council in Essex to explore the ways in which ACBBA can assist fledgling TS
organisations. There is a growing awareness that in the current economic climate, TS
community and voluntary sector organisations can benefit from a more ‘entrepreneurial’
approach to finding and generating revenue streams.

Key Informant Interview

Armando Pardo, Director, Association of Community Based Business Advisors

References

ACBBA (2008) Creating Prosperous Communities inn Islington and Consolidating its
community Based Business Approach, ACBBA Discussion Paper, August

Blackburn, R and Odamtten, T (2003) Research on the Development Needs of Community

Organisations for Enterprise Support, ESF Community Initiative (EQUAL 2001) Action 2,
Regenerating Enterprise through Facilitating Local Economic Exchange, Research Report,
Kingston University and Prevista. http://www.reflex.me.uk

43
Blackburn, R and Odamtten, T (2004) Empowering Community Organisations to Support
BME businesses: Case Studies from North London ESF Community Initiative (EQUAL 2001)
Action 2, Regenerating Enterprise through Facilitating Local Economic Exchange, Research
Report, Kingston University and Prevista. http://www.reflex.me.uk

ECOTEC (2004) ‘Identification and Documentation of Good Practice Regeneration Projects

Addressing Multiple Objectives, A Final Report to Regeneration East Midlands’, ECOTEC
Research and Consultancy, Birmingham.

Armando Pardo (2005) REFLEX – Lessons Learnt: A Model for Supporting BME Businesses

44
CASE STUDY 8 SOUTH EAST BUSINESS LINK
ENTERPRISE GATEWAY SERVICE– BUILDING
BUSINESS CONFIDENCE

INTRODUCTION

The South East England Development Agency funded Business Link Enterprise Gateway
Service has an important role in stimulating enterprise in disadvantaged communities and
supporting individuals who require more intensive assistance to overcome barriers to
enterprise. This service is described as Transformational Business Support (TBS) reflecting
the belief that through appropriate interventions it is possible to create a step change in the
economic circumstances of individuals and areas. As such it is important to view this service
alongside the many other interventions aimed at transforming declining local economies and
tackling entrenched deprivation. The Enterprise Gateway service therefore should be viewed
as an ‘organising framework’ for specific additional activities aimed at raising enterprise
awareness and providing pre-start support to potential entrepreneurs.

Capacity building elements

a) Mentoring and coaching – via 1 to 1 meetings, emails, telephone and written

enquiries. Mentoring is the only EG service that will no longer be available to an
individual upon ‘graduating’.

b) Peer Networks – to help provide pre-pre-starts, pre-starts and new businesses with
the support of their peers to facilitate learning and the development of new contacts.
Such networks are seen as being at the heart of the EG service.

c) Skills Development Activities - given that individuals from disadvantaged

communities require more personal development and that the use of a variety of
methods (reflecting varying learning styles) can increase the numbers accessing
skills development opportunities. Methods include:
• Skills workshops
• Literature libraries
• Training videos/DVDs – for individual use
• Video/film Shows – for groups to view and discuss
• Active participation in test marketing/showcasing opportunities

These methods will also provide personal development focused on the needs of the
clientsand soft skills training:
• Confidence Building Personal Image Training
• Presentation & Communication Skills
• Goal Setting
• Time Management & Productivity
• Creative Thinking and Innovation
• Networking Skills
• Ebay for You
• Website Essentials
• Winning Attitudes

45
 d) Signposting – the aim is that from the start of the customer journey users of the EG
service can take up support from a variety of partner organisations who work closely
with, and offer additional services to the EG service via direct referrals, website
promotion of local events, networking meetings, and news updates.

Stimulating an Enterprise Culture – the EG service will have a critical role in encouraging a
culture of entrepreneurship and economic activity within the target communities in the 10
Zones. This will involve consultation and working with local partners and community groups
and also ‘seeding’ activity, namely organising/facilitating events that raise awareness of the
opportunities and benefits of self-employment and enterprise and becoming recognised as
an access point for individuals wishing to further explore the possibilities. The intention is to
develop a toolkit of standard events, although it is recognised that innovative activities will
also be undertaken and tested in specific communities across the region.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the Service are to:

• Stimulate a culture of enterprise so that more individuals in disadvantaged

communities believe enterprise is a realistic option for them
• Achieve an improvement in business start up rates in the targeted disadvantaged
communities
• Promote and increase the take up of mainstream business support services, thereby
improving the survival rates of new businesses
• Establish a self-sustaining community network for enterprise that progressively links
into Business Link.

To achieve these objectives the service has focused on identification of disadvantaged

groups in deprived neighbourhoods (e.g. BAME, women returners, disabled in areas with
low levels of employment, people with criminal records); outreach working with local
communities and gateway organizations such as churches and religious organizations,
ethnic minority organizations and community groups; specifically tailored support including
cultural and linguistic work; awareness raising activities through road shows and events; the
value of face-to-face, intensive – often one-to-one support. The service works with both
conventional for profit enterprises and social enterprise start ups.

The service takes a holistic view to the barriers related to enterprise. It recognises the need
to address issues to do with empowerment and confidence required for starting a new
organisation or growing existing ones. In this way many beneficiaries of the service use their
skill and experience gained through the support to go into other forms of employment rather
than self employment. The outcome of the service measures are not focused entirely on the
number of enterprises started up, allowing advisers to use the service provision to have wide
social benefits such as raising confidence and skills. There are 9 performance measures,
two of which are drawn from the tasking framework of SEEDA and relate to helping the
economically inactive to find work and the development of skills.

GOVERNANCE AND PARTNERSHIP

Sussex Enterprise Services Ltd (SESL) is responsible for the management, marketing and
monitoring of the Business Link Enterprise Gateway (EG) Service. This operates virtually

46
within 10 geographical zones within the South East region and works with the existing
community infrastructure, networks of outreach workers and local partners. The service was
first implemented in 2003 as a joint initiative developed by the South East England
Development agency (SEEDA) and the South East Business Links.

The main organisations previously worked with are shown below. It is particularly notable
that a great number of local and community organisations are being drawn on by EG
Directors, including local schools, community centres and so on.

Table 3.4: Organisations working with the service (2003-

2008)

National organisations Regional organisations Local organisations

Age Concern Business Link Local Enterprise Agencies

Association of Disabled Enterprise Agencies Chambers of Commerce
Professionals Shaw Trust Local Authorities (usually Economic
Connexions Local Authorities Development Departments)
Development Trusts Capitalise Finance Support Local Economic Partnerships
Association Fredericks Foundation Local Bank branches
Jobcentre Plus SEEDA Local Council Community Workers
Princes Trust Enham (Business Ability Community Centre managers
Shaw trust project) Primary Care Trusts
Social Enterprise Prime Local community social enterprises
Coalition Local Job centres
NHS Mental Health Colleges and Universities
Enham Schools
Leonard Cheshire Council for Voluntary Services
Prowess Community Trusts
Prime Sure Start
Mother & Toddler Groups,
Neighbourhood Renewal Groups
Faith groups
Village Halls
Parish Councils
Local third sector organisations

Source (CEEDR, 2008)

EVALUATIONS, REFLECTIONS AND OVERALL

ASSESSMENTS

47
The Enterprise Gateway demonstrates a novel approach to business support for people
from more disadvantaged groups and how to overcome the challenges of reaching particular
groups. A key focus is on targeting support and they have carried out detailed studies of the
demography across the region to inform their delivery and built up knowledge through
working closely with a range of stakeholders.

A particular challenge is identifying those with both the greatest social need combined with
the potential to start a business. The service has found that those from more disadvantaged
groups are less likely to have enterprise orientation due to a lack of confidence, experience
and role models. The service works with these groups while recognising that building
confidence is resource intensive.

Having identified where they want to offer support, the service has had to develop
approaches to outreach working with their range of stakeholder partners in different
community groups. Care has been given to understanding how this wide range of
stakeholders perceive the service, and publicity for the service in the media is used to
demonstrate the benefits to these groups. However working with smaller groups is often
more difficult:

“I would say the smaller communities are tougher to reach as they are ‘under the radar.’ By
this I mean information as to their numbers, communities and support networks is not
available. ….. This highlights the importance of outreach work and tapping into existing
outreach networks.”

The actual service provided ranges from provision of information, training programmes to
more intensive advice and coaching on a one to one basis. For some the use of group
learning in a classroom context is a barrier, and the service makes sure that the support
‘journey helps people into collective learning’. The client is therefore helped through a range
of challenges with coaching offering the support that is required, complemented by referrals
to other stakeholders. The coaches recognise the importance of building capability to access
other services, either formal business support services such as Business Link, or through
building networks in the community.

“When starting they need to build a team around themselves such as their family and
friends… they can even use a friendly accountant or a retired bank manager who might not
charge until they are making a profit- I see my role as helping them make trusting relations
with movers and shakers in the community.”

The training and advice given is centred on key information required for running a business,
but with care taken to use language that does not put people off. Advisers also noted that at
times there is a need to help those thinking of starting a business assess the risks involved.
There are cases where particular enterprises would be unlikely to succeed, despite the
enthusiasm of the individual. Through accepting that moving a person into other forms of
employment is a successful outcome, this service has been able to provide more holistic
support than other forms of enterprise support. There is a risk that enterprise support
programmes that are more focused on the outcomes of starting a business may put
vulnerable people at even greater risk.

The coaching may start off with a more intensive session exploring barriers and issues
related to confidence and then the adviser is able to continue to offer support on the phone
or text messages, pointing them in the direction of other advice on-line. This coaching
approach is vital for helping individuals build confidence and self esteem. As one Gateway
director stated: “one half of the equation is having confidence, then they can see the
opportunity”. The service has therefore invested in a training programme on coaching for all

48
the Gateway directors, which was reported to have transformed the way they have delivered
services.

The service also aims to change the culture of enterprise in these communities through
raising awareness and using events or the media of different kinds to publicise successes.
The lack of an enterprise culture is associated with:

• low aspirations connected to an entrenched ‘can’t do’ attitude and ‘reliance’ culture
(i.e. reliance on benefits and expectations of job creation);

• isolation and lack of peer group/family support;

• lack of role models;

• the constraining influence of religious and gender norms for women in certain
communities.

With regard to stimulating an enterprise culture within targeted groups/communities,

the key points made were:

• the need for meaningful approaches for garnering interest;

• the need to build relationships and to establish a grass roots community presence
(including through identifying ‘community champions’ and enterprise advocates);

• the need for continuity and commitment;

• the need for adequate resources and facilities to support interventions;

• the danger of raising expectations in targeted communities and these then being
dashed if support interventions are not sufficiently resources (some Director’s
mentioned the scepticism of people in some deprived areas towards the high number
of support initiatives that come and go, leading to confusion and ‘support fatigue’).

The partnership approach adopted in this service shows the importance of understanding
what other support is available and the risk of having duplications of services in an area.
While there were other similar programmes running at the same time in the area, they were
not considered a concern for the clients, although there was evidence of some confusion
amongst community groups and other stakeholders. Within business support there is
currently much attention given to reducing the confusion. The Business Support
Simplification Programme has reduced the number of Business links programmes across the
country to a core set of initiatives. The extent to which this simplification will benefit
disadvantaged groups is not known.

CONCLUSIONS AND APPLICATIONS TO THE THIRD

SECTOR

This case study identifies a range of ways of working with disadvantaged groups for
encouraging enterprise. In many ways it draws on approaches that are well developed in the
third sector, while using them in a novel way, such as for starting an organisation. There is
potential for third sector support to build on these approaches for encouraging organisations
to start up where they are not already operating. In this case, as in others, partnership
working is central and the ability to ‘piggy back’ on other organisations is vital.

49
The case also demonstrates the importance of coaching systems for building confidence
and would there be necessary in increasing social entrepreneurship in communities where it
may be lacking. There is also a need to demonstrate successful role models and use a wide
range of media and events to show others what can be done. This has the added benefit of
rewarding those starting organisations and further raising their confidence.

Finally, support of this kind needs to recognise the risks for starting an enterprise. While in a
private enterprise, those involved may put at risk their own money, within the third sector,
there is also a need to recognise that people are putting at risk their time, reputation and
often their relationships with others, particular where those are drawn on for starting an
organisation. Capacity building may often be about dissuading people to start a new
organisation if it may have negative consequences for the individuals involved and the
community in the long run.

Key Informant Interview

Jane North
Simon Paine

References

CEEDR (2008) Transformational Business Support. Report to South of England

Development Agency

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