CALL FOR CHANGE

In discussing the setting up of this community one of the issues that has arisen is what will be the “consequences” for individuals who post critical comments or call for change. This issue has arisen directly from the experience of Urbact 1, where those who were seen as “critical” found their relations with the Urbact secretariat damaged. This treatment had a “knock-on” effect on many other stakeholders in that it stifled any criticisms that they had. This was unfortunate as it meant that the programme, through the secretariat, locked out real debate. The lack of real open discussion was one of the key reasons why Urbact 1 had no impact on the local level. This was the conclusion of the evaluation report of the programme. This is a big failure, given that the whole rationale and key objectives depended on making such an impact.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this rolling blog is to ensure that there is better participation in the programme by all stakeholders. To be precise, the stakeholders are :
· cities, regions, universities etc, involved in the programme through a thematic network or working group, ·
members of the Urbact Monitoring Committee;
members of the EP Regional policy committee,
· thematic experts and other experts directly involved in the programme,
· participants in events/workshops that take place at network/working group level and the programme level ,
· and anyone else directly connected to the delivery and monitoring of the programme.

The idea is to create an ongoing dialogue of the Urbact 2 programme . In short , it is to ensure that there is a multi –level, multi –professional perspective developed which will ensure that the impact of Urbact 2 will be qualitatively improved. The aim ultimately is to break the traditional separation between “decision- makers” and “doers”. Hopefully , “decision makers” will take on board the reflections emerging from the agents executing their decisions. These are the implementation bodies and actors involved in the programme through thematic networks and /or working groups

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Programme Communication

Issue 2.1


A new website has been launched and in the process information has disappeared. There has been no consultation with stakeholders regarding the new website and it is already causing difficulties in that no-one knows what the plan is and how the site has been constructed

Issue 2.2
A three day induction programme took place in Paris at the end of April for lead partners and lead experts. However, the event, whilst being a good idea, was not effective as none of the key documentation was ready. As a result, it was an impressionistic event and not one that enabled the target group to really get to grips with the requirements of the programme in terms of administration and also content management.

Issue 2.3
Key information is emerging is a drip feed manner. For example , on the 15th of May the Secretariat wrote to lead partners informing them that they had to ensure that they had a 50-50 balance in their partnership. This means 50% of partners being from Competition areas and 50% from Convergence. In Paris at the induction event and in the technical documentation the terms used is “balance” between competition and convergence areas. Now “balance” has become literal. This is strange given the fact that 70% of ERDF funds are actually in Convergence areas. Furthermore, this instruction fails to recognise that there are certain issues that are going to be of more interest and relevance to convergence rather than competition areas.
This new interpretation also raises a question as to whether this is what was agreed by the MC or is this the Secretariat taking an “executive” role.
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