Neighbourhoods should have co-ordinated programmes of activity, organised around the needs and wishes of the users rather than providers. Centre-based providers, in particular, can get used to just working with their current users and run projects and services in isolation from what others are doing. Whilst co-operation clearly can occur, it can be offset by competition for funding. Funders and commissioners can work to counteract this, by require partnership-working and collaboration amongst providers bidding for funding.
In EC1 NDC there was a good deal of youth provision, from traditional youth clubs and outreach services to more specialist centres, such as music studios. The NDC created a Youth Providers Network to help co-ordinate this activity and funded a summer activity programme involving everyone in a co-ordinated way. The projects were successful in their own right but it also helped engender a sense of partnership working. The partnership remained as a voluntary association but a number of proposals for a more formal and sustainable entity were discussed and trialled.
To be successful and sustainable, such cross-area groups have to be able to take on some of the self-governing roles of all membership-based structures – collating monitoring reports, self-evaluation, raising membership fees and other funding, and reconciling individual and group interests. These all require strong leadership and accountability to users, and need reinforcement from the funding and commissioning framework. There is an increasing emphasis on more enterprising and innovative partnership-based projects now, for example through the Transforming Local Infrastructure programme
