Identifying Cohesion Issues in your Area
This section describes our approach to identifying areas with cohesion issues. We used an evidence based approach so that we could explain why some areas were chosen over others.
This section includes:-
- A checklist of questions you may find useful
- Suggestions of data sources
- Suggestions of stakeholders who may be able to assist
- Lessons we learned
Suggested checklist
We would suggest that these questions may help you think about cohesion issues within areas and/or new build developments.
1. Turnover and popularity
- Is the area popular?
- Is the turnover low?
- What is the tenure mix?
- Is this the right mix?
- Is there a mix of people (ie ethnic group, age, religion etc)?
2. Neighbourhood well being
- What is the incidence of Anti Social Behaviour?
- What is the incidence of hate crime?
- Are the any other neighbourhood issues which affect residents’ quality of life?
- Are there conflicts between residents in this area and residents in a neighbouring area?
3. Shared open space and community groups
- Is there any shared open space?
- Were local people involved in the design of the open space?
- Is the space making a positive contribution to the residents’ quality of life?
- Is there a tenants and residents’ association or any other sign of people working together for the good of the area?
4. Consultation (if new build)
- Did you consult neighbouring residents on the plans to build this housing?
- Did you respond to local views and amend plans?
- Did you use any innovative methods to consult? (E.g. Philosophy For Communities, Planning For Real)
- Do you ask residents how they feel about living in the area?
- Have you done anything in response to feedback about living in the area?
5. Mixing of neighbours
- Have you done anything to help people get to know their neighbours? (e.g. welcome event, community induction programme)
- Have you put in any resources to support community cohesion? (E.g. community events, tenant participation officer, community house, budget to support Tenants And Residents Associations)
- Do you have any policies which support getting and maintaining a mix of residents living in an area?
6. Perceptions data
- Do you have any existing surveys so that you can understand resident perceptions?
- Are there any research or consultation findings which will inform your view of the area?
- Do you need to carry out any research or consultation with local residents?
Sources of information
In this section you will find ideas of the places you can look to find useful information about your area.
Census data
Although the census is nearly ten years old it is still the best way of profiling your local community. It is possible to find out the ethnicity, age, household type make up of the people living in the area.
The UK National Statistics website holds this data at ward level and above.
Use of survey data
We were able to use existing survey data. Both our boroughs carry out household surveys, You and Your Community Oldham and Rochdale Citizen’s Survey. We were able to look at the analysis of the cohesion questions to see which areas were showing the strongest evidence of tensions between groups.
Your local area may also carry out surveys which can be analysed for a small geographic area.
Place surveys
All local authorities now carry out a Place Survey every two years which asks a number of questions designed to measure perceptions of cohesion. The questions are all part of the National Indicator set used to assess local authority performance. The Place Survey cannot be drilled down to neighbourhoods but it can give you a sense of the cohesion issues in your local authority area.
The Place Survey questions we found most useful were:
- To what extent do you agree or disagree that your local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together?
- Overall, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your local area as a place to live?
- How strongly do you feel you belong to your immediate neighbourhood?
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Local governance structures
Your local authority will be divided into smaller areas with a governance structure. The people working within these structures will have a good picture of issues and if you are not already linked in, they could be a useful source of information.
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Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and Hot Spot Analysis
Your local authority’s crime and disorder reduction partnership will collect data on hate crime and racist incidents which they will be able to share with you.
Local stakeholders
Our survey analysis was indicating issues in an unexpected area. We spoke to :-
- The Youth Service
- Groundwork
- People working at community centres, including residents
- Local social landlords
- Police
These discussions confirmed that the identified area did have cohesion issues.
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Community development staff
We have included this group separately because we realised how important they were as a source of information about issues and also how to deliver projects and engage residents. This subject will be discussed in more depth in the section on engagement. The success of most projects relied on the local knowledge of people who worked in the communities, including housing officers.
Deciding what to do and commissioning projects
Whilst you may have procedures for commissioning work in your organisation, the following sections contain some considerations that you may find helpful when commissioning community cohesion work:
Identifying work
Brief writing
Outputs and outcomes
Risk assessment
Value for money
Identifying and selecting providers
What next?
Example brief & interview assessment
Identifying work
We knew what budget we had for project work and evaluation so we needed to ensure we made the best use of the available resources.
To do this, we identified specific areas of work to focus on – cohesion in new-build developments, relationships between new residents and existing communities and in existing communities where there were tensions or concerns about relationships within them.
In order to do this in a systematic fashion, we identified a number of sources of information that would give us objective data. This was then supplemented with more subjective views from people who were directly involved in the communities that had been highlighted. (link to identifying issues) This enabled us to identify what type of interventions would be required and gave us a focus for drawing up the subsequent briefs.
This was a very interesting process and highlighted for us that a snap judgement about what the “issues” are in a community can lead into allocating resources inappropriately and finding that you haven’t made any significant difference at the end of the project.
The benefit of using the objective data of crime statistics, indices of deprivation and census information as supporting evidence means not only can you feel confident that you have chosen appropriately but you can also give a reasoned response to other communities about why they have not received the same attention.
We identified four key things:
- Areas of intervention – geographic.
- Areas of concern – perceptions of the neighbourhood, eg. where people felt the least positive about their neighbourhood.
- Some techniques that we wanted to test – P4C, Conflict resolution.
- Different ways of bringing people together to take part in activities such as dance, drama, sport, crafts.
We also commissioned research because we realised that more information would be needed about how things have worked. We would argue that reflecting on what worked well and what needed to be improved is something that should be built into all cohesion projects. This is why there is such a strong focus on evaluation throughout this website.
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Brief writing
We suggest that a brief is written even if you know who you want to run your project. A brief enables you to be very clear about the objectives, which might differ from projects the deliverer normally runs.
You should aim to help potential project deliverers understand the context of the pieces of work through your brief. It will need to give all the relevant information in as concise a format as possible.
You must be clear about what changes you want to see at the end of the piece of work and what you want to achieve during the project or work.
The clearer you can be about your expectations, the easier it will be to assess whether or not the tenders have addressed your expectations. Comparisons between different approaches can be made very difficult if your brief is not focused and clear.
You may want to seek an evaluation of your own brief writing from deliverers who have been asked or have responded, to establish how useful they found the brief you sent. (Take a look at our sample brief)
Some of the things that you might want to consider specifically for cohesion project commissioning:-
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Outputs and outcomes
Think about monitoring and evaluation before you commission. It is a crucial part of the project so you will need to be clear about your outcomes so that you can both demonstrate what you have achieved and identify learning.
Main outputs and outcomes are easy to identify, but spending time thinking through what else the project will give you will be time well spent.
For example, if you are commissioning an evaluation project you would expect a report at the end but what else could be delivered? Would you want to train community members to undertake evaluation/research projects? Would you want the project to link with a local school so that students get involved in building up a picture of the community in which they are based?
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We have considered the ‘success’ of the projects from a number of perspectives. As by its very nature, this work requires commitment from participants for it to have any real effect. We have recognised the importance of including commitment in the outputs – how many people who started saw it through – as well as recording the overall numbers of participants.
In your brief it is good practice to tell the deliverers what you would like them to collect throughout the project for the purposes of evaluation.
The main areas we focused on for the monitoring and evaluation of the projects were:
- Attendance – how many?
- Commitment – how often?
- Skills - what have people learnt?
- Capacity – what are people able to do because of the project?
- Impact – what has changed? – behaviour/attitude
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Risk assessment
Whilst you may be very clear about what you want to achieve and you are happy that you have shaped the work using all the information available, any work with the community can be affected by circumstances unforeseen and beyond your control.
One of the projects commissioned was set up to explore tensions between two community groups. Due to personal circumstances, the Chair of one organisation had to stand down and the other Chair took over her responsibilities which removed, however temporarily, the tensions that had defined the design of the project.
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Value for money
With limited budgets and demand outstripping supply, the Value for Money question is one that organisations are facing in every area of their operations.
Whilst you will have your own requirements to think about this, this is a question that you could equally include in your brief. This will encourage providers to think about what else they can offer together with how well they are utilising the resources you have made available.
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Identifying and selecting providers
You can construct a list of providers in a number of different ways.
a) Advertise the brief as an open commission and anyone can respond.
b) As above but also alert particular organisations – possibly those with whom you have worked before, ones which other stakeholders recommend or ones that the community recommend.
c) Have a closed commission where you only offer the opportunity to a selected list of providers. You may do this if you want to attract only local service providers.
Generally, it is best to use b) unless local capacity building is the most important outcome for you when c) would be better. a) tends to be a bit hit and miss and may result in a more limited range of useful providers than you need.
To help you select the best project you will need to set up a clear scoring mechanism before you interview, weighting the elements according to their importance to you.
Download an example consultancy brief with scoring mechanism.
You will need to construct some interview questions and make sure they are linked to your scoring mechanism.
Download an example consultancy brief with scoring mechanism.
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What next?
One-off projects in communities tend to have a limited impact and can soon be forgotten. You need to build on the success of the interventions commissioned and ensure that you have a clear plan of what will happen or change as a result.
Ultimately, we would like to see community cohesion delivered through mainstream services rather than through short-term projects. Part of the evaluation mechanism needs to take account of the “so what?” and the “what next?” questions. Whilst we are more attuned to tracking the journey that participants experience through community cohesion projects, there is an equally important and interesting journey for the organisation commissioning the projects.
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Scoring mechanism
Download an example consultancy brief with scoring mechanism.
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Engaging Residents and Stakeholders
We commissioned a wide range of projects in various communitieand engaged key stakeholders to ensure their support, which was especially important as some of the participants were hard to enage.
Engaging stakeholders
Engaging Residents
Consultation Events
Engaging Stakeholders
Before we commissioned any of the projects we spoke to all key stakeholders and agencies active in the selected areas – ALMOs & RSLs, Youth Services and Police. We explained what our aims were, what type of activities could be considered for funding and asked them what they thought was needed to improve cohesion in the area.
We also found out what other activities were already taking place. We attended key meetings where cohesion issues were being discussed, introduced ourselves and the project, canvassed opinion and gathered ideas. Without exception we found everyone to be really supportive, plus we received a lot of valuable advice, information and expertise. We also set up steering groups for each activity which included key stakeholders.
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Engaging Residents
The method used to engage residents varied depending on the nature of the project. We had to bear in mind that many of the residents in the communities where work was planned had been consulted on many issues in recent years, and asked to attend a range of events in order to find out what development plans were for their area.
For some of the projects, targeted engagement of particular people was extremely important, in order to achieve the intended outcome. We tried to select activities for cohesion projects that people would attend because they wanted to, for enjoyment, rather than for a specific purpose. The use of incentives such as lunch or small amounts of money was also effective.
Each of the projects we commissioend used different methods of engaging with residents. Click each project name, below, to skip to a summary of the engagement method used by that project:
Bringing communities together through creative arts
Engagement through sports and dance
Breaking down barriers by philosophical discussion
Conflict awareness training in communities
Cohesion in new build
Consultation around new build
Bringing communities together through creative arts
We distributed flyers through doors, put up posters, had doorstep conversations, worked with community groups, schools and nurseries to bring families along.
The most effective were the Priority Area Workers from the local ALMO (Rochdale Boroughwide Housing), who knew residents personally and knocked on doors to get them to sessions. Despite all this it was still difficult to keep attendance consistent and with good numbers.
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Engagement through sports and dance
Methods used to find young people to engage in the sports projects were flyers, local press articles, posters, liaison with local groups and walking the streets. Numbers attending fluctuated and overall were lower than was hoped. The project had some success in engaging adults as volunteers to support the sport, craft and dance sessions.
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Breaking down barriers by philosophical discussion
Participants were recruited directly via the area officers and also by a facilitator from Contour Housing who had a stall at an open day at Alt, presented at an over 50s luncheon in Kirkholt and visited a youth club on Kirkholt. Participants of all ages were paid £5 each to attend. This worked well, and encouragingly at the end of the session residents opted to attend an additional session without pay. Certainly paying small sums for attendance for short term projects which are known to work is worth considering.
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Conflict awareness training in communities
This project worked with specifically identified community organisations, and engagement was via a series of meetings and focus groups with targeted individuals. Despite this, attendance at the first Skills Training session was poor, although subsequent rearranged sessions were better attended. A great deal of work was required on this project in an attempt to bring about measured change among key individuals.
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Cohesion in New Build
The Arc 4 projects targeted specific groups who were contacted in a number of different ways including knocking on doors, leaflets, focus groups and an internet based survey.
In order to engage the residents of a newly let town centre apartment block, (the Astoria) a number of social events were planned. These included an event on the roof top terrace, an accompanied trip to the local theatre with back stage pass and tour plus a social event in a local coffee shop/bar. In addition, a range of incentives were offered to new residents which included a free one week gym membership, a prize draw for white goods for their new home, prize draws for cash for residents maintaining the terms for their tenancy agreement and a prize draw for one tenant to receive a rent free period for 6 months. A face book site has been set up for residents to chat on line.
In order to engage the residents of a development of private housing (Brooklands) on the edge of a large RSL owned estate (Langley) an internet based questionnaire was used followed by hand delivered flyers to invite them to the following events:
- An induction day and tour of a nearby Sports Centre. Membership offers were available as well as a free welcome pack.
- To join a ‘Walking Group’ encouraging residents to be more aware of the public spaces and facilities available and to give them the opportunity to meet their neighbours.
- An invitation for residents to get involved with the local primary school in a voluntary capacity e.g. reading with young people.
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Consultation around new build
The SHUSU report looked at different methods used to engage residents in consultation about new build development planned for their neighbourhood including, the use of shared space and the effect on community cohesion.
Seven separate schemes were selected by Oldham and Rochdale Partners in Action for the research. A number of techniques were employed in order to consult with a total of eighty-one people living within or around these schemes.
These methods included:
- Semi-structured interviews with targeted individuals.
- Focus groups: a total of ten people were involved across three focus groups.
- Photo-surveys: residents were provided with disposable cameras in order to take pictures of what they thought as positive and negative features of their environment. Once developed, a researcher discussed these photos with the person who had taken them. A total of seven photo-surveys were carried out.
- ‘Walkabouts’: where people accompanied a researcher on a tour around the scheme and neighbouring area in order to get a clearer idea of how residents used their local area and identify aspects of their home environment that were positive or negative in some way. A total of three walkabouts were carried out.
- For a proposed Home Zone, the consultation process involved bringing residents together to discuss their concerns and to work on producing designs for the Home Zones. This took place through a series of open meetings, visits to other Home Zones, and questionnaires and design workshops. This was supported by a group visit to the Northmoor Home Zone in South Manchester.
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Measuring Cohesion and the Impact of Intervention
A focus for Cohesion Counts was to measure how effective different community cohesion initiatives were at impacting on cohesion. This knowledge allows us to pass on that learning, with hints and tips about what types of projects may work well for particular problems and issues within neighbourhoods and communities.
Why evaluation is so important
Link your evaluation to your aims
Evaluation methodologies
Monitoring
Why evaluation is so important
Evaluating your projects is important because it:
- Gives you the opportunity to look at whether the work you are doing with the community can be described as good value for money.
- Provides you with understanding about how the project has changed behaviours and perceptions of the participants and possibly others.
- Identifies further issues within the community, which you may want to address.
- Provides you with learning to take on board in future projects.
We commissioned a consultancy to carry out the evaluation of the Cohesion Counts individual projects. The consultancy was brought on board before the projects started to make sure we were able to properly measure impact, through pre-project and post-project evaluation. Carrying out evaluation before, during and after the project allows you to measure ‘distance travelled’ by the project's beneficiaries.
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Link your evaluation to your aims
Your project must have clear and concise aims and objectives, which identify what you hope to achieve, in terms of impacts for participants/beneficiaries and the wider community. Your evaluation should use the project’s aims and objectives to form the evaluation aims and objectives and subsequently the evaluation questions. For example:
Project Aim
To improve negative perceptions of an area.
Evaluation Aim
To assess the level to which residents satisfaction levels with their neighbourhood have changed as a result of the project.
Evaluation Question (asked before and after the project)
‘How satisfied do you feel with your neighbourhood as a place to live?’: very satisfied, quite satisfied, neither satisfied or dissatisfied, quite dissatisfied, very dissatisfied.
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Evaluation methodologies
The methodologies you decide to use will depend on the activities taking place within the projects and the project and evaluation aims and objectives you have set. Most of the Cohesion Counts projects were evaluated using a pre and post questionnaire to track changes in an anonymous way and also used qualitative evaluation techniques such as focus groups, interviews, blogs, observation and role-play. The Spiral Dance project required participants to express their thoughts and opinions through expressive arts and so evaluation naturally took place as part of the project. All the Cohesion Counts project evaluations incorporated feedback from project leads and stakeholders to give it a rounded view
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Monitoring
Monitoring is different to evaluation. Monitoring is a way of counting thing such as attendance levels, ages, ethnic backgrounds, religion, area of residence. You may or may not want to monitor who is attending the projects. For Cohesion Counts we decided to keep the monitoring separate to the evaluation. This was to encourage participants to be honest in their responses, safe in the knowledge that their questionnaire could not be linked back to them. Project leads carried out monitoring using a separate system.
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