As workers try to come to terms with the targeted world of commissioning and tendering they need be imbued with critical caution. Why? The two following case studies produced by Bernard Davies for the National Coalition of Independent Action provide painstaking evidence of the contradictions faced by community projects and workers in the present climate.

Short-term funding to meet external targets: one youth work project’s experience

Summary

This case study sets out a youth work project’s experience of accepting funding to work with young people in ‘hotspots’ for crime and anti-social behaviour. The project team resisted the focus on negative behaviour associated with the funding and set out their positive view of young people in their funding bid. They believed they could negotiate realistic targets with the youth service and give feedback to help the youth service see what worked and what didn’t. Their bid was successful and they decided to accept the contract as the money would help fund work that they were already doing using their local knowledge and experienced staff. They provided initial monitoring information that included quantitative information and case studies with contextualised accounts of the challenges faced by young people.
However when the contract was extended by six months, the youth service tried to impose more stringent monitoring arrangements. The project leader was told that she had to evaluate their work in a way that she believed didn‟t value the actual work with young people. She was able to do some negotiation such as continuing to complete monitoring returns in arrears in order to capture the project‟s responsiveness to young people‟s ideas. The project met its targets but the project leader and youth workers felt that they had ended up ticking boxes for the youth service rather than working together to enable young people to set goals, build self confidence and change the community‟s perception. Lessons included the value of submitting a bid on your own terms, the need to look carefully at what is negotiable and who you are negotiating with, and the need to consult young people about where and when they want to work with youth workers.

FULL REPORT HERE

Localism in action? A case study of a small community project’s experience of a local authority’s tendering process

Summary
This case study sets out how bidding for a contract to run a local estate’s youth provision put an unnecessary strain on a small community organisation and contributed to delaying the project by 12 months. The case study is a detailed example of how the organisations that make localism a practical reality – small community projects – are made vulnerable by tendering.
The case study highlights four pitfalls of the tendering process, which have important lessons for both local authorities and organisations bidding for contracts:
1. The tender documents and in particular the contract were too complex and were inappropriate for a small community organisation.
2. The tendering process was long, complex, unpredictable and inconsistent.
3. The local authority commissioners assumed that they already knew what was needed and expected the community organisation to adopt local authority policies, priorities and approaches. The tender brief did not take any account of the organisation’s local knowledge and independence.
4. The tendering process stretched the staff capacity of the community organisation.

FULL REPORT HERE

Youth Work check list pinched from youth work online