Strategy building with people at the heart
What is “co-design”, really? A quick Google throws up lots of definitions, most of them based around the concepts of “designing together”. Descriptions range from the simple and effective “designing with, not for”(KA McKercher) to those with more explicitly radical structural requirements “decision making is shared equally throughout the process - everyone taking part has an equal level of power”(Mind).
In our current project with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, we’ve been brought in to develop a new Community Resource Strategy. The strategy focuses specifically on the assets (libraries, community centres, parks, leisure centres) that often form the heart of a community, exploring how they are used, and how they support the vibrant voluntary and community sector (VCS) in Greenwich.
From the outset, this scope made it clear to us that bringing people (residents, VCS orgs, and other stakeholders) into the process from the beginning was vital. We proposed three key elements for our approach:
A co-design led approach wherein all of the relevant people are engaged from early in the process to inform the needs analysis and shape the Strategy.
An equity-based and intersectional approach, in order to acknowledge the different levels of racial, socioeconomic, gender and other inequalities faced by communities in accessing assets and resources.
An asset-based lens for the needs analysis in particular, to reflect not only the needs of the community, but also the rich assets and strengths that already exist.
As we hit the halfway point of our project, here are some reflections on what we’ve learnt trying to implement this approach.
“Co-design” is quite hard remotely
Since May, we’ve interviewed more than 30 VCS organizations and more than 100 residents across 8+ wards. We have spoken with 15 Council staff across different departments, and carried out a workshop with 8 Labour Cabinet members for the Royal Borough of Greenwich. And we’ve got more planned, including:
Another roundtable channelling Telescope’s core mission: bridging the gap between policy and the frontline. In this case, we’ve invited VCS organisations and the Council.
A shared Google doc open to everyone we have interviewed so far, to drop in reflections on the key challenges we’ve identified in our Needs Analysis.
More resident engagement in more wards across Greenwich.
Strategy sharing sessions in the next phase, via Community Champion networks.
Most of this work to date has been virtual. The combination of remote working habits, the size of the borough, tube and train strikes, and our own limited time and resources means that we’re more likely to get more people involved if we stay virtual. We’ve had some great workshops online using tools like Miro and making the most of breakout rooms for building that meaningful connection. But we’re well aware that we’re also excluding a portion of the population simply by sharing those Zoom links. It has been energising and eye-opening to visit areas of Greenwich and engage with local residents, especially those who don't typically engage with Council assets in a digital world. We’re so aware of the value of this in-person work and we want to do better on this as we move towards building a strategy out of our insights.
Be intentional about inclusion at the start
We heard from the outset that smaller organisations, often led by non-white members of the community, were disproportionately underrepresented in funding. Not only that, they often weren’t even part of the conversations or consultation opportunities with the Council.
The Council are hyper aware of this - multiple staff told us not to ask them for recommendations of who to speak to, because “we only know who we know”. For this reason, before we began our needs analysis, our project partner Voices of Colour brought to bear their experience working with marginalised communities and less-heard voices. The team undertook a careful analysis of different measures of marginalisation. They looked at measures of deprivation in the borough, type of VCS organisation, size / level of formalisation of VCS organisation, and geographical factors. This gave us the chance to ensure we spoke to a wide range of organisations, including the most marginalised by our measures:
Cultural/faith groups that have been historically excluded from consultation process or have not been engaged with as part of strategy regarding their lived experiences
Non-constituted groups/grassroots initiatives that are traditionally not consulted on their experiences within the borough, and whose needs are not captured within current council data
Disability exclusion - groups whose accessibility needs are not prioritised and reflected in how buildings are designed / adjusted for them to use
Communities based in an area in the borough that has not received much funding towards community assets and overall development in the ward (leading to disused spaces etc)
Communities with increasing deprivation levels that are impacting the quality of and access to Council-owned community assets (including unemployment rates, income, housing and mobility).
Most importantly, we asked every VCS organisation to recommend someone else that we might not know - tapping into those local networks that, as outsiders, we might not even see.
We know this is important to the Council - we’ve been asked by almost everyone how we approached this process. It’s not perfect, but it’s hugely improved our breadth of insights, and we hope that it will also improve equity and inclusion in the co-design process.
If you look for them, assets are everywhere
We know that in community resourcing work, there’s a place for both tangible and intangible assets. The physically measurable and visible work is supported and developed by a broader set of assets within the community - people, knowledge, skills, relationships. But the fact is that many of these can’t operate without the physical ones.
The scope of our work is the physical assets, and how those dovetail with service provision. But we’re trying to think creatively about measures of social value, outcomes-based funding, and other ways of framing intangible assets that allows them to become part of the service provision conversation.
Bringing people into design processes can be done in all sorts of ways. For us, taking an assets-based approach is an important element of this engagement because it allows people to engage in the co-design process from a variety of perspectives, mobilising residents and organisations to come together and realise their strengths. We’ll continue to seek input from all our stakeholders in this way as we go into the next phase of the project, looking at innovative ways to build on the assets that exist and properly recognise their value.
In Phase 3 we’ll be synthesising all our insights and drawing out themes and key trends. We’ll then be building a strategy with clear recommendations, both practical changes the Council can make, as well as suggestions for how they can continue different methods of co-design as they implement their work going forwards - a vital part of the feedback mechanisms that will continue to build trust between residents and the Council in future.
