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Alex Klaushofer reports on a local strategic partnership with a winning formula

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Hereford Partnership, as one of the more mature local strategic partnerships in the country, has a track record in winning lottery funding. In its four years, the partnership has supported 34 successful applications to lottery distributors, bringing more than £2m into the county.

The LSP began as a ‘pathfinder area’ under the Local Government Association’s New Commitment to Regeneration initiative in 1998. This early example of a single regeneration body – made up of public service organi-sations, community groups and private sector, coordinating policy and resources for the area – became the inspiration for the LSPs at the heart of Government’s Neighbourhood Renewal strategy.

Herefordshire is not one of the 88 most deprived areas in England, so does not qualify for a share of the £900m Neighbourhood Renewal Fund or the £36m Community Empowerment Fund. It nevertheless has its share of problems. As a sparsely populated rural area suffering from changes in agriculture, it has a low-wage economy and poor transport links. The particular demands of its tourism industry, badly hit by the foot and mouth crisis, means that money must be spent on maintaining the countryside. Clare Wichbold, the partnership’s Regeneration Officer, says: ‘If it wasn’t for the footpaths and walking, people would not generally come to the county.’ Affluence and poverty exist cheek by jowl, making it difficult to use traditional approaches to working in areas of deprivation, according to Alison McLean, the partnership’s Policy and Commissioning Manager. ‘In delivering services we have to have a different approach; the indices based on concentrations don’t pick up on rural poverty,’ she says.

One key plank of the partnership’s approach is pooled resources. Recently, for example, when statutory fire safety checks were conducted on elderly peoples’ homes, residents’ health and social service needs were also identified. The partnership is negotiating a public-private investment deal for affordable broadband, to facilitate coordinated access to internet services.

McLean believes that the partnership’s unusual structure helps make this possible. It has a board with a coordinating role, but the real decision-making is done lower down, by 10 groups, each representing a different policy area such as health and social care, or social inclusion. Their brief is to build up local networks in their policy areas and to do cross-cutting work with the other groups. Meetings, with 12-15 members, are small. ‘The advantage is that you can actually start to build a real partnership. The difficulty with big boards is that everyone comes from organisations with their own agendas,’ she says. Clare Wichbold, who deals with applications for lottery funding, says that the

networking support can be vital in helping community and voluntary groups. ‘People can find it quite hard to demonstrate a need for their project. They know they want something, but they can’t say why. It might be something which would improve service or access to transport, so it’s getting people to think about that and put something concrete down.’ The level of support provided by the partnership varies enormously. ‘It can be anything from looking over a draft to working seriously with them to build up their application,’ says Wichbold, who is able to draw on her experience as a former grants officer at the Community Fund’s West Midlands office. A recent application to the Community Fund for a £190,000 capital grant for a new village hall in Moccas was helped on its way by a £500 grant from the partnership for a feasibility study. During the application process, Wichbold went to the village hall committee meetings, and briefed them in preparation for their assessment by the Community Fund.

Although some of the grants are modest, applicants agree that a small grant can make a significant difference to rural communities. Escleyside & District Bowls Club, a community resource for predominantly elderly people in the remote village of Craswall, won a grant of £2,876 for new bowling equipment from Awards for All in October. John Coleman, the Community Coordinator for South Herefordshire Voluntary Action, worked with Hereford Partnership in supporting the club’s application. The funding ‘made a heck of a difference,’ he confirms.

At the other end of the scale, an application supported by the partnership recently won more than half a million pounds from the HLF for a new museum store. Hereford Council will use the £545,000 awarded in June to convert a former BT building into an environmentally controlled store for 750,000 items from the county’s museums’ collections which risked falling into decay.

As the bridge between grant applicants and funders, Wichbold has to deal closeup with the seemingly endemic problems of the lottery boards. ‘I’ve found it difficult dealing with the changing personnel. That sort of thing makes it quite hard from the outside – as an applicant and supporting applicants, it’s an issue.’ While the partnership makes good use of community workers on the ground to build local knowledge and contacts, Coleman also finds that the strategic overview provided by the partnership complements his work. He phones Wichbold several times a month to get the low-down on the funding possibilities for the area. ‘Because the partnership is cen-tralised, they’ve got resources, whereas as a ground-worker, I’m quite isolated. So the information exchange I can gain from the partnership has been sound,’ he says.

For further information contact: hfdpart-nership@herefordshire.gov.uk