Understanding Area-based Regeneration: The New Deal for Communities Programme in England

Lawless, Paul; Foden, Michael; Wilson, Ian; Beatty, Christina

doi:10.1177/0042098009348324

Cited by 65 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…70 The most noticeable improvements in overall outcomes were also found in the less deprived NDC areas as well as in those areas with the largest number of previous or concurrent area-based interventions. 71 Areas characterised as predominantly 'white peripheral housing estates' in non-core cities were also more likely to have improved over time. 72 Significant variations between NDC areas were also found in our evaluation of the early impact of the NDC in 2002/4.…”

Section: Previous Research On the Impact Of The New Deal For Communitmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact on health inequalities of approaches to community engagement in the New Deal for Communities regeneration initiative: a mixed-methods evaluation

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundThis study was set in 39 neighbourhoods involved in a government-funded regeneration programme called New Deal for Communities (NDC) that began in 1998. We tested whether or not different approaches to engage residents in decision-making in these areas had different social and health impacts.MethodsFirst, NDC approaches to community engagement (CE) were grouped into four types. We then assessed the impact of these types and whether or not their cost-effectiveness could be calculated. We used existing data from surveys and from NHS and government sources. New data were collected from interviews with residents of NDC areas and former staff. We have also made these data publicly available so that other researchers can assess impacts over a longer time period.ResultsThe four CE types included an empowering resident-led approach (type A), in which residents had a lot of control over decisions, and an instrumental professional-led approach (type D), in which CE was more often used to promote the priorities of public sector organisations. Type B was initially empowering but over time became instrumental and type C balanced empowerment and instrumental approaches from the beginning. There were few statistically significant differences in health and social impacts by CE type. However, when there were statistically significant differences, the results suggest that type A, and to a lesser extent, types B and C approaches may have had better outcomes than the type D approach in relation to levels of participation and trust between residents, control or influence over decisions, social cohesion and mental health. NDC areas with a type D approach were the only ones where residents’ ‘sense of control’ deteriorated over time. Residents of these areas were less likely to feel that the NDC had improved their area and to experience improvements in mental health. However, some aspects of cohesion and trust improved in type D areas. The findings of our economic analyses are mixed. It was difficult to cost engagement activities, measures of effectiveness were not robust and relating costs that could be calculated to specific measures of effectiveness was difficult. There were almost as many negative as positive scores, making the calculation of cost-effectiveness an arbitrary exercise.ConclusionsOur results are consistent with a theory that the greater the levels of control that residents have over decisions affecting their lives the more likely there are to be positive impacts. It is plausible that an empowerment approach to CE would help build trust and community cohesion, and that having a greater influence over NDC decisions could lead to more people feeling that the NDC initiative had improved an area. Conversely, our results are also consistent with a theoretical position which suggests that instrumental approaches, which try to engage residents in agendas that are not theirs, will have relatively little positive impact and that community cohesion and well-being may be undermined. The study has not produced firm evidence on the effectiveness of different approaches to CE. However, the findings do suggest that programmes involving CE will be more likely to have positive impacts if the approaches to CE are experienced as more empowering and less instrumental (i.e. less focused on the agendas of external agencies). Future methodological research is needed to develop better measures of empowerment at the collective level and more robust approaches to empowerment on health and well-being at the population level.FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme.

show abstract

Section: Previous Research On the Impact Of The New Deal For Communitmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact on health inequalities of approaches to community engagement in the New Deal for Communities regeneration initiative: a mixed-methods evaluation

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Rare exceptions to this rule include 456 the UKÕs 5 year Single Regeneration Budget and 10-year New Deal for Communities programmes, 457 providing initial public funds to create third sector organisations that might be involved in place-keeping 458 over a longer period of time to become self-funding (Lawless et al, 2010). 459…”

Section: Policy: Contextual Framework 435mentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining place-keeping: The long-term management of public spaces

Dempsey

Burton

2012

Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

118

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Such initiatives have been promoted for decades (in the UK at least) as a means of ameliorating deprivation and thereby reducing social and health inequalities (Lawless, Foden, Wilson, & Beatty, 2010;Thomson, 2008). They are a type of policy initiative tackling multiple determinants of health through combined actions on social, economic and environmental conditions and are typically rolled out into a large number of disadvantaged geographical localities that are often socially diverse (Thomson, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting context centre stage: evidence from a systems evaluation of an area based empowerment initiative in England

Orton

Halliday

Collins

et al. 2016

Critical Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. ABSTRACTIt is now widely accepted that context matters in evaluations of the health inequalities impact of community-based social initiatives. Systems thinking offers a lens for uncovering the dynamic relationship between such initiatives and their social contexts. However, there are very few examples that show how a systems approach can be applied in practice and what kinds of evidence are produced when this happens. In this paper, we use data from ethnographic fieldwork embedded within a multi-site mixed method evaluation to demonstrate how a systems approach can be applied in practice to evaluate the early stages of an area-based empowerment initiative -Big Local (funded by the Big Lottery Fund and delivered by Local Trust). Taking place in 150 different local areas in England and underpinned by an ethos of resident-led collective action, Big Local offers an illustration of the applicability of a systems approach to better understand the change processes that emerge as social initiatives embed and co-evolve within a series of local contexts. Findings reveal which parts of the social system are likely to be changed, by what mechanisms, and with what implications. They also raise some salient considerations for knowledge generation and methods development in public health evaluation, particularly for the evaluation of social initiatives where change does not necessarily happen in linear or predictable ways. We suggest future evaluations of such initiatives require the use of more flexible designs, encompassing qualitative approaches capable of capturing the complexity of relational systems processes, alongside more traditional quantitative methods.

show abstract

Understanding Area-based Regeneration: The New Deal for Communities Programme in England

Cited by 65 publications

References 22 publications

The impact on health inequalities of approaches to community engagement in the New Deal for Communities regeneration initiative: a mixed-methods evaluation

The impact on health inequalities of approaches to community engagement in the New Deal for Communities regeneration initiative: a mixed-methods evaluation

Defining place-keeping: The long-term management of public spaces

Putting context centre stage: evidence from a systems evaluation of an area based empowerment initiative in England

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About