What's it all about?

The Scottish Government is committed to people in Scotland having a greater say in how services that affect their lives are planned and delivered.

Community Voices Network is a new network, funded by Communities Scotland, which aims to help people from the most disadvantaged communities in Scotland to "get their voices heard" and play a bigger role in the decisions which will affect the regeneration of their communities.

The network helps communities to learn from each other about different approaches to community regeneration and give them the opportunity to influence national and local policy by providing a collective "voice" for community concerns and issues.

Some of the issues tackled by the network so far...

Meet the member

Photo of Ian Fryer, memeber of Aberdeen Tenant Services Review Group

Ian Fryer is a member of a recently established organisation called Aberdeen Tenant Services Review Group. The organisation was set up to enable tenants to get involved in reviewing services which are delivered by Aberdeen City Council’s housing service. The project started in 2005 when a group of tenant volunteers carried out some pilot reviews of Housing services. Backed by both Aberdeen City Council and the Tenant Participatory Advisory Services, the Aberdeen Tenant Service Review Group has now been established and has enabled more tenants to get involved in carrying out reviews. The group uses techniques such as ’Mystery Shopping’ to assess the Council’s approach to customer service. Mystery Shopping is a technique where the researcher poses as a member of the public, then reports back on the service which they received. The Mystery Shopping highlighted both good and bad examples of customer service, but one of the key successes of the project has been that the Council has taken on board the results of the first reviews and have already made some changes to their customer service. Ian said

“We are not trying to catch the Council out, but we are trying to find out how services to tenants could be improved”.

Community Empowerment

Members of the Network had an opportunity to influence the Scottish Governments proposals for ‘Making community empowerment a reality’ at an event in Dundee in November 2007.

Members exchanged views about ‘What makes community empowerment work?’ from their own experience. Members’ comments on the Government’s proposals were compiled into a response which was sent to Communities Scotland.

Community Planning

Photograph of the results of a planning session using post-it's

The Community Voices Network organised an event which looked at Getting Better Community Involvement in Community Planning. Participants at the event had the opportunity to find out about direct experience of community involvement and have their say in workshops.

“I got a lot of information from people today, everybody’s different and everybody’s got a different version of things. We only came here to see what it was all about, and it’s turned out to be really useful.”

Community Facilities

Photograph of the Bambury Centre in the East End of Glasgow

Community Voice members visited a community regeneration centre managed by the community in the East End of Glasgow

“There is a sense of community here just the same as there is in Castlemilk, its wonderful and the staff have been great, the girls are wonderful, very very good, its very well run as well. We want to go forward because we’re all going to have to self fund and that it is the way forward. Instead of a community centre – a resource centre - a one-stop shop, that’s what we’re all aiming for really to benefit the local community who are doing all the work for nothing”

For find out more about the visit read the February 2006 Community Voices newsletter.

Digital Inclusion

Photograph of computers

Community Voices members got involved in developing a response to the Scottish Executive’s Digital Inclusion consultation and said

“It’s not computers that are important, it’s the information on them – people need free access to information”

To find out more about the response read the February 2006 Community Voices newsletter

Regeneration Initiatives

Photograph of Community Voices Network members visiting the Good Morning project in North Glasgow

Community Voices members got the chance to visit the Good morning project in North Glasgow which had recent received an award from the Scottish Urban Regeneration Forum for working with people. Community Voices Network member Maureen West, who is Chair of a Glasgow Safety Forum was impressed by the simplicity of the project.

“It’s a simple idea which works effectively and benefits the most vulnerable people in the community.”

To find out more about the project and the award read the December 2005 Community Voices newsletter