MD2721 COVID-19 Community-Led Recovery Programme 2020-22

1.1 The London Recovery Board is chaired jointly by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the Chair of London Councils. The board brings together leaders from across London to oversee the long-term recovery effort from COVID-19.

1.2 On 15 September 2020, the London Recovery Board signed off the Missions-based approach to the recovery programme and committed to in-depth public and community engagement, which will offer community groups in London the opportunity to participate in decision-making and delivery of the programme.

1.3 Early interactions with communities indicate that this engagement should build trust, address inequality and encourage full participation in London’s recovery efforts. The Community-Led Recovery Programme draws on a range of engagement methodologies including participatory action research, community storytelling and qualitative research and analysis.

1.4 The Community-Led Recovery Programme is focused on ‘Collaborating and Involving London’s Diverse Communities’, one of six cross-cutting principles for the wider recovery programme. This MD outlines the first phase of this programme, which will take place from November 2020 to January 2022.

1.5 As part of the development of the missions, each policy and delivery team is required to demonstrate how their action plans address the six cross-cutting principles within the Recovery framework.

1.6 All the mission action plans will include activities focused on engagement with citizens and communities. These activities must provide meaningful opportunities for participation and involvement in the recovery process, which embrace the experiences, aspirations and ideas of Londoners.

1.7 The Community-Led Recovery Programme is designed to be matched with specific elements of the mission action plans, offering a range of approaches which are inclusive and transparent, aiming to support mission teams to develop effective solutions for the issues that matter most to London’s citizens.

1.8 Officers from the Community Engagement Team have been assigned to each mission to support them in selecting the most relevant aspects of the Community-Led Recovery Programme to their plans.

1.9 The Community Engagement Team are currently working with the lead officers for the mission areas and cross-cutting principles to support them with developing an engagement framework for their respective area of oversight. These plans will be included in the mission action plans which are being drafted and will be finalised by January 2021.

1.10 Community Engagement will be included throughout the planning, delivery and evaluation of the missions, not only in their early stages of development.

1.11 The Community-Led Recovery Programme has a particular emphasis on those who would not usually be reached through mass engagement because they face barriers such as racism, digital exclusion, language, insecure immigration status and mistrust of public institutions. It aims to gain deeper insight into the lived experiences of communities across London that are often hidden or excluded from policymaking in the capital through engagement with smaller community and faith organisations that provide a first point of contact and support for those who are facing disadvantage and discrimination. Ultimately it aims to ensure that Londoners from all backgrounds can participate in recovery efforts.

1.12 The Community-Led Recovery Programme is designed to sit alongside other elements of engagement including mass public engagement through Talk London, research led by the City Intelligence Unit and stakeholder engagement led by policy teams leading on specific missions.

1.13 The programme will focus on developing partnerships across London’s local authorities, strategic agencies, civil society, faith and community organisations to offer opportunities for communities to be involved in the work of recovery. One of the key aims of these partnerships will be to ensure that activities are complementary, avoiding duplication.

1.14 The programme will strengthen links between local community groups, local authorities and civil society infrastructure organisations so that solutions developed, and insights gathered are relevant to their context and have sustained impacts on the lives of Londoners. The aim will be to enhance and complement activity at local level.

Key outcomes

2.1 The purpose of the Community-Led Recovery Programme is to achieve three overarching outcomes:

• Valuing – London's communities feel valued; their work and personal experiences are recognised as a starting point for participation in the recovery process;

• Involving – London’s communities are central to defining, delivering and measuring the success of recovery efforts alongside community organisations, neighbourhoods, borough level networks and the GLA; and

• Decision-making – London's communities are informed and connected into the programme to influence power and decision making in relation to the recovery missions.

Programme objectives

2.2 The Community-Led Recovery Programme will ensure that communities most deeply affected by COVID-19 have an opportunity to share their lived experience with London’s decision-makers to influence the missions of the London Recovery Board and Taskforce in the following ways:

• identifying opportunities to amplify the voices of London’s ‘hidden’ communities and those with the fewest opportunities to participate because of structural exclusion (e.g. racism, digital exclusion, language, insecure immigration status and mistrust of public institutions and other forms of discrimination);

• supporting communities and grassroots organisations to participate fully in London’s recovery;

• engaging with younger and older Londoners in a way which integrates them into the wider programme of community participation to ensure an intergenerational perspective on recovery; and

• sharing community insight with London’s strategic decision-making bodies, informing their understanding of the aspirations and needs of London’s communities as the capital recovers from the pandemic.

2.3 The programme will be delivered in phases, the first of which will take place between November 2020 and January 2022. Further phases will be developed iteratively and in close collaboration with partners and communities, once the programme has been established. The subsequent phases of the programme will be put forward in future decision documents for sign off and approval.

2.4 The first phase of the programme will focus on the following elements, explained in further detail below:

Programme elements

London Community Story and Insight Hub

2.5 This element of the programme will focus on bringing together, interpreting and sharing existing engagement activities focused on experiences of COVID-19 and aspirations for recovery. These may include community-led reports, young people’s projects, cultural collections and programmes led by local boroughs, civil society, community and faith organisations. The aim will be to ‘translate’ and make accessible a wide range of actionable community insights that will inform the development and delivery of recovery missions.

2.6 £70,000 has been allocated for this element of the programme, including £60,000 for up to 20 Community Story grants and £10,000 to establish the Community Insight Hub.

2.7 Objectives:

• generate ‘translated’ community insights from COVID-19 engagement and cultural collecting projects across London to be shared with the recovery partners and strategic agencies across London; and

• develop an accessible, interactive bank of lived experiences so findings from the community-led recovery projects can be used by policy makers, recovery partners and wider audiences to inform their work, whilst also building data capacity within grantee organisations.

2.8 Deliverables:

• a research report identifying collecting projects that have taken place across London and any gaps that could be filled through further insight gathering projects as well as shared learning attendees. This will be hosted on London.gov.uk and delivered in partnership with academics, students, and community groups and will include written summaries, datasets, graphics, soundbites etc. that can be easily utilised by civil society groups, policy makers and funders to support their work;

• two dissemination and networking workshops;

• 15-20 small grants (£500-£1500) to help individuals and civil society groups translate their collections/creative outputs into data and digitise them/reformat them to be hosted online. Grants will be managed by an external grant management company; and

• a co-curated online exhibition of creative outputs detailing Londoners’ experiences of the pandemic and their hopes for recovery.

2.9 Grantees will also be supported to translate their collections/creative outputs through workshops led by a commissioned data expert. They will develop skills in creating and formatting datasets and effectively presenting evidence using data visualisation tools. All of the above elements of the programme will be competitively procured with the support of Transport for London.

Community Led Research and Learning Network

2.10 The Community Led Research Programme will enable communities most deeply affected by COVID-19 to share their lived experience with London’s decision-makers and to influence the missions of the London Recovery Board and Taskforce. It acknowledges that those who have been affected are best placed to identify challenges and potential solutions.

2.11 Community groups will be supported to facilitate their own research programme in collaboration with the GLA, using a Participatory Action Research approach. Participatory Action Research is an approach which has been used since the 1940s and involves researchers and participants working together to understand an issue, using an iterative cycle of research, action and reflection, to change it for the better.

2.12 Each research project will be linked to one or more of the recovery missions and will be led by a group that can evidence reach into a community that has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

2.13 £130,000 has been allocated to this element of the programme including £120,000 for grants of up to £9,000 to support participatory action research projects focused on the first phase of implementation of the nine recovery missions of the London Recovery programme and £10,000 to convene a learning network involving grantee organisations. The grants will be administered via an external grant management company further detail is outlined in 2.17. Detailed criteria for the grants will be outlined in a prospectus, which will be published when the grant programme is opened. Indicative criteria are outlined below:

• grants will be offered to community organisations that can demonstrate strong connections with communities or equalities groups most deeply affected by COVID (e.g. BAME, Young People, Disabled Londoners, Londoners with English as an additional language etc.);

• proposed projects must explicitly address how communities will contribute to an element of the London Recovery programme, reflecting specific objectives from the nine mission objectives;

• in particular proposed projects must demonstrate a commitment to supporting the objectives within the ‘Building Strong Communities’ mission; and

• applicants should demonstrate how their proposed projects will strengthen connections with local authorities and other local community groups.

2.14 The Community Engagement Team will work with policy teams leading the missions to identify communities that are facing barriers to involvement and will jointly commission projects.

2.15 Objectives:

• create opportunities for communities most deeply impacted by COVID-19 to develop and deliver projects (using a participatory action research methodology) that support them to respond to and recover from the pandemic in line with the first phase of implementation of the nine recovery missions;

• collect learning and insight ‘products’ from community-led action research to be shared at local and regional level and directly with the London Recovery Board and Taskforce as they lead on shaping plans for neighbourhoods and communities across London over the next 5-10 years. This may be in the form of short reports, PowerPoint slide decks, films, illustrations, presentations or other creative methods;

• identify and develop community leaders within faith and community groups and support capacity building within these groups to sustain partnerships with City Hall, London boroughs and civil society partners; and

• create a learning network including all supported projects and representatives from City Hall, London boroughs, civil society and funders to encourage sustained relationships and dissemination of insight.

2.16 Deliverables:

• this phase of the programme will fund grants of up to £9,000 to 15-20 community organisations in 2020/2021;

• participants in the programme will be provided with training in Participatory Action Research, safeguarding and will be offered trauma support; and

• the creation of a ‘facilitated’ Learning Network which will bring together programme participants and which will offer opportunities for mutual support to develop research and leadership skills.

Training and Grant Management

2.17 Grantees will be supported by an external grant management company and will be provided with information and training sessions throughout the programme. The contract for grant management will be procured through Transport for London. The management fee will be a maximum of 10% of the grant value.

2.18 There will also be events and opportunities for policy exchange bringing together community groups, civil society, policymakers and other stakeholders.

2.19 £37,000 has been allocated to this element of activity including £5,000 for information and training sessions, £30,000 for external grant management and £2,000 to cover events, briefings and policy exchanges.

Project Staffing

2.20 £63,000 will be allocated for additional project staffing.

2.21 In order to bolster the capacity of the community engagement team, two new fixed-term roles will be created to deliver the Community-Led Recovery Programme:

• Programme Manager (G10) – this role will focus on coordinating and managing programme activity, overseeing and monitoring the implementation plan and engaging with external partners to deliver programme aims. The post holder will also be responsible for developing an evaluation framework for the programme in partnership with internal and external stakeholders and participants. The cost (including on-costs) for this role for four months will be £30,000; and

• Project Officer (G6) – this role will focus on providing logistical and administrative support across the programme including setting up training, events and meetings; drafting programme specifications and reports; and supporting officers across the team to deliver projects. The cost (including on-costs) for this role for four months will be £21,000.

2.22 The creation of the above two roles is subject to a formal decision from the GLA Chief Officer.

2.23 Where capacity within the GLA team is limited, the team manager and programme manager will seek additional freelance project and/or event support. £12,000 has been allocated to cover this resource.

2.24 This MD seeks funding for project staffing for the Community Led Recovery Programme to the end of March 2021. Further funding for the continuity of these posts will be sought through the annual budget setting process for the financial year 2021/22.

3.1 Under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the GLA must have ‘due regard’ to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), that is the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation;

• advance equality of opportunity; and

• foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.

3.2 The Community-Led Recovery Programme has been designed with the aim of ensuring that communities across London who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 as a result of having protected characteristics have opportunities to participate in London’s recovery programme.

3.3 The Community Engagement Team will work closely with the GLA Equality and Fairness Team and the City Intelligence Unit, to ensure the activities agreed take account of the most up to date evidence regarding the impact of COVID-19 on equalities groups. Due consideration will be taken in relation to the portfolio of grantees and partners involved in the programme to ensure it is inclusive and also addressed intersections between characteristics where there may be adverse impacts on individuals or groups. Compliance with the PSED will be kept under review as the programme of work is developed.

Risk register

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

4.1 Work proposed within this Decision document relates to the London Recovery Board’s public commitment to involve London’s diverse communities in the capital’s recovery.

4.2 Specifically the Community-Led Recovery Programme will meet two of the Recovery Programme’s key outcomes – narrowing social inequalities and supporting communities most affected by the virus. The programme will provide meaningful opportunities for Londoners of all backgrounds to participate, be involved in and influence the recovery process. An understanding of the lived experience of communities across London that are often hidden or excluded from policy making will be embedded into the delivery of the city’s recovery programme.

4.3 Two Mayoral strategies – the Mayor’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and All of Us, his Social Integration Strategy set out the Mayor’s expectations for creating equal opportunities for Londoners to participate in shaping the future of the capital, by tackling inequalities in voice and power.

4.4 The Community-Led Recovery Programme will tackle inequalities in voice and power by reaching communities that face barriers such as racism, digital exclusion, language, insecure immigration status and mistrust of public institutions.

Consultations and impact assessments

4.5 The Community Engagement Team has led the following engagement, which has informed the design of the activity outlined in this decision:

• London Community Response Survey – 300 voluntary and community organisations providing weekly information on the impact of COVID-19 on their users; and

• community and faith sector roundtables – circa 130 organisations/faith groups.

4.6 Based on data collected by the GLA City Intelligence Unit, the Community Engagement Team convened a series of faith and community roundtables with groups most affected by the pandemic to have specific conversations about the impact of the virus on their communities and their aspirations for recovery.

4.7 These roundtables supplemented the ongoing engagement led by community engagement officers which included roundtables and regular meetings engaging faith leaders (including Black Majority Church leaders); community organisations and individual community leaders.

4.8 This proposal builds on this initial engagement and the relationships we have built to outline the resource needed to deliver the approach discussed with the Recovery Taskforce and Board in July 2020. Both the Taskforce and Board offered their support for an approach that places community participation at its heart. Community conversations on the Recovery missions

4.9 As part of the wider effort in August and early September 2020 to undertake far-reaching and inclusive engagement, the Community Engagement Team created a campaign that invited civil society partners to collaborate on London’s recovery conversation. This involved the creation of a toolkit (including template surveys, conversation guides, background information, data capture forms) that set out how to host community conversations or telephone outreach to engage their communities in recovery focussed conversations. Insight was collected from over 70 conversations across London, led by 60 frontline community organisations, covering BAME Londoners, young people, disabled-led and community groups from a broad spectrum of backgrounds.

5.1 Approval is sought for expenditure of up to £300,000 on the Community Led Recovery Engagement Programme as follows:

5.2 The expenditure will be funded from the 2020/21 ‘Recovery Fund’ established by MD2666 and allocated to the Community Engagement Team budget, within the Communities and Social Policy Unit.

5.3 Within the GLA draft budget, this programme sits within the ‘Engaging Londoners foundation’ block.

6.1 The programmes and projects it is proposed to fund further the promotion of economic development and wealth creation in Greater London, its environmental improvement and social development and so are authorised under section 30 of the Greater London Authority (GLA) Act 1999. They are also consistent with the GLA’s duties under the PSED (see section 3 above) and section 33 (Equality of opportunity) of the GLA Act. The powers in section 30 are exercisable subject to such consultation as is considered appropriate. Paragraphs 4.5 to 4.9 above set out the consultation and engagement that has taken place.

6.2 Where works, services or supplies are required to deliver the activities above they must be procured by Transport for London Procurement who will determine the detail of the procurement strategy to be adopted in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code including putting in place appropriate legal documentation before the commencement of procured services or grants are awarded.

6.3 The report indicates that fixed-term or temporary members of GLA staff may be recruited to help deliver the activities detailed above. The appointment of GLA staff mentioned above is authorised by section 67(2) of the GLA Act. Officers must ensure such recruitment is in line with GLA’s HR protocols including obtaining permission from the Head of Paid Services as appropriate, and that appropriate contracts for fixed term or temporary appointments are entered into.