Capacity Building
Capacity building, and support to community groups
One of the great paradoxes of community development is that there is more chance of developing a community or voluntary sector group in well off areas where there are plenty of people to be members of committees whereas such developments are more difficult is poorer areas where there is greater need.
The Charity tries to address this imbalance in different ways. Over the years the Charity has expended considerable resources in assisting the community in its vicinity to organise for itself and stand on its own two feet. It does this by letting its hall at heavily subsidised rates to local groups or it can assist or run all the legal and financial mechanisms a group needs so that it can focus on the real issues it is trying to grapple with in the community free of bureaucracy. This sort of assistance can take several forms and each instance of support is different.
People’s Empowerment alliance for Custom House
In 2012 Lottery money became available via Big Local for Custom House ward to run a £1,000,000 ten year scheme along community priorities. The Charity participated in the inaugural meetings and supported the initial development of “community organising” and community initiatives.
The People’s Empowerment Alliance of Custom House (PEACH) was formed and from September 2013 the CH&CTCRP became the “Local Trusted Organisation” (LTO) responsible for the initiative’s finances (held as a restricted fund) and the employment of its staff. PEACH developed an impressive community run participation and development project focused on the housing issues in Custom House. In February 2017 PEACH again chose the CH&CTCRP as its LTO for a further three years to 31/12/19.
However, PEACH having no more status than an unincorporated community group had its problems. The CH&CTCRP grew to understand that its role, particularly as the PEACH employer (2/3 of CH&CTCRP staff), was contradictory with the Charity having all the legal responsibilities yet little authority to enforce them. The issues of staff (contracts, supervision, discipline) and finance remained long term time consuming headaches for the CH&CTCRP. This problem is a fundamental flaw in the structure of the Big Local initiative that was never addressed.
Consequently the Charity gave notice that it could not continue as the LTO so PEACH set out to and become an incorporated self-controlling body as of 30/06/20. The CH&CTCRP did all it could to provide PEACH with as sound a corporate, financial and policy structure as was possible before it went its own way. Furthermore over the years the CH&CTCRP expended resources far in excess of the 4% of turnover fee it earned and so can claim a good result for its long term capacity building efforts.
Have a look at https://peach-e16.org.uk/ to see what PEACH is up to now days.