In anticipation of decisions, all North Edinburgh local organisations in receipt of Fairer Scotland Fund monies have been asked to submit a questionnaire providing details of their service, how they fit the new criteria (employability, early intervention and health inequalities) etc. Interestingly, we have also been asked for postcode data of service users as well as the number of local people (i.e. those who live in the Forth Ward) employed in each project.
The postcode data I can understand: historically, North Edinburgh included Drylaw (now in Inverleith) and obviously projects will be delivering to people in Inverleith as well as in Forth so it is not unfair to ask Inverleith to continue to part fund some of those projects.
However, I can't think of any rule that dictates local employment in FSF funded projects. As it happens, in PEP we have 12 out of 15 staff members who live in the Forth Ward, but there will be many projects where this isn't the case and there isn't a law in the land which could make it otherwise. It will be interesting to know how the Panel intends to use that information.
I have been doing a bit of digging into the Edinburgh distribution arrangements for FSF.
Previously, this fund was distributed on the basis of the national index of deprivation which used 'datazones' of 800 people to identify the communities which needed most help. In Edinburgh though, it has been decided to use a new system called the Edinburgh Index which uses census data (last collected in 2001) to drill down to very much smaller groups of 50 - 60 people.
Remember, nobody knows who these 50-60 people are: they are not identifiable on an individual basis - but on the evidence of these very small numbers, all Neighbourhood Partnerships have been awarded a share of the FSF money. So the unedifying results are:
- money is redistributed away from poor areas to wealthier areas
- wealthier areas have money to help the small number of poor people living among them but have no idea of who or where they are
- identified poor people living in poor areas are seeing important community supports, that help improve their personal circumstances, eroded
- all areas, rich or poor, have to meet criteria set by those on high
- the criteria may not be relevant (take Almond, for example: it is thought their 'poor' are mostly frail elderly people - how do criteria for employability, early intervention or addressing health inequalities fit their needs?)
- the 'employability' criteria is given equal weighting (32%) with 'income' in deciding the formula for distribution of the FSF grant with education (15%) , health (15%) & crime (5%) - yet employment strategy is almost entirely (very well) funded by DWP, as is income
- The city has just won a £5 million grant from Europe to address employability issues at a strategic level and have matched funded it by top slicing £1 million from FSF - so why the insistence on employability as a key criteria at local level too?
- the 2 areas where local authorities and local projects working together could actually make a difference i.e. education & health are ranked low and community safety doesn't even get a mention
To me - this reeks of muddled thinking:
- on the one hand they want to identify individuals living in deprived circumstances and have created a distribution formula to meet that objective...
- ...but have failed come up with a formula that identifies the individuals
- they have moved resources away from large groups of identified individuals living in deprived circumstances
- and imposed a set of city wide criteria that may not be locally relevant for any area, large group or individual
- worst of all - they are in a complete guddle between 'area/geographic allocation', 'thematic allocation' and helping 'individuals who don't live in recognised areas of deprivation'
I worry when so-called 'experts' don't actually know what they are trying to achieve - looking at this debacle, you can understand why.
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