CEOs’ report 2017
Before we start we want to pay tribute to the communities in North Kensington and our colleagues who have been phenomenal over the last 6 months. The work and commitment of everyone involved is deeply moving. The Grenfell Tower tragedy has shocked and shaken us all. It is something that we are all still grappling and coming to terms with. We lost people we worked with and children on our learning programmes. Friends we work with have been traumatised and displaced. We cannot take away the pain and suffering, but we can do what we can to support survivors and those affected to rebuild their lives.
In this report, we are not going to regurgitate the annual report and highlight what has been achieved over the last year, we want to use this opportunity to talk about what is coming up next year and how we want to lead the organisation in the future.
Leading the organisation
We are only two and a half months into the role, but we would like to signal what we have learned, what we think needs to change and how we will work in the future.
- The organisation needs to be with, of and for the community. This means more local people involved in decision-making at all levels and governance
- More money and space needs to be made available for local people. This means getting more unused spaces into use, providing more opportunities for local people to access the spaces and increasing the amount of money for grants, subsidies and social purpose programmes and services
- Local people need the organisation more than ever. Our delivery and focus needs to hone in on North Kensington
Instinctively the three points above feel right, but we want to test the theory and take this opportunity to review our purpose, strategy, culture and behaviours and how we take forward major projects. Since taking on the role of interim Joint Chief Executives we have started a process of:
1. reviewing our purpose and strategy - why are we here and how best to achieve that purpose
2. reflecting on our role - how we manage and develop the land, use the funding we generate and our position to help change societal challenges impacting lives locally
3. changing organisational behaviours and culture
4. continuing to deliver on major projects
1. Reviewing purpose and strategy
We are using insight from the last 18 months of engagement with you and the wider communities, workshops with colleagues, assessments of the impact of current programmes and evidence of social challenges / opportunities unmet locally to start the process of reviewing and renewing our purpose and strategy. What we focus on, where we put resource, geographically who we focus on (the people of North Kensington) and why, needs broad support and clarity. We will be further engaging with members and the local communities in this process in the new year.
2. Reflecting on our role
As Alan highlighted in his report, what we focus on and why is important, but just as important is how we deliver our strategy. We are seeking to answer questions about how we use and develop the spaces; how we give grants and subsidise services and organisations; and how we use our position to influence social change or lever in investment to the area.
2.1 Space use
The use of the land - who has what space, how much needs to be income generating to maintain the facilities, how much is subsidised or discounted, how spaces are developed and for what purpose - has always been a source of debate.
We are reviewing our land use strategy based on a thorough analysis of the current tenant mix of the estate; the constraints of development and land management; the opportunities presented of the unused and underdeveloped sites; the specific needs following Grenfell; and feedback we have had from different communities locally. Whatever the conclusion we will be asking all tenants, including the commercial tenants, to deliver a contribution towards our social impact goals. If they are part of the Westway family, we want them to play a full part in and contribute to community life.
The Board will be involved in workshops to discuss this and we aim to have a first draft land and spaces use strategy available for people to cross-examine in the first quarter of the year.
2.2.1 Grant giving and service support
In recent years grants and subsidises have been given in three ways:
- to over 200 one off activities per year through the festivals fund and community grants
- to nearly 20 charity tenants through subsidised rents
- to support delivery of services and programmes in adult learning, supplementary schools, apprenticeships and work experience programmes and for the crèche and nursery
With the income from the partnership with Everyone Active we will be able to increase the sums available for grants and subsidises in the years ahead. We will be seeking Board approval to increase the percentage of funding available for social impact grants, subsidises and/ or services and programmes from April next year.
Feedback from grant recipients and those seeking to access funds suggests that a portion of the grant giving budget should be made available to organisations (small socially motivated enterprises and not for profit organisations) over a longer period of time to help them become self sufficient, grow and deliver greater levels of social impact, as well as maintain one off activity grants. This is something we are considering as part of the strategy review.
2.2.2 Using our position to achieve positive outcomes
Over the last year or so the call has grown for us to be more openly aligned to local concerns about social issues impacting people in North Kensington. The Council sits between us and TfL, the freeholder. Maintaining relationships with them and those in decision making positions is important to be able to continue to be able to develop spaces and deliver services. However, we do believe there is a role for us to be influencing on issues that unify and impact everyone in North Kensington. The impact of poor air pollution is perhaps the most obvious one. We have already started working with Rap23 on this and helped to organise a successful debate with politicians on the subject. We have to be careful not to alienate ourselves from decision-makers and will often have to influence behind the scenes rather than be publicly vocal, but we will play a role and align more closely with the community on the big unifying issues that matter locally.
3. Changing culture andbehaviours
We recognise that in recent years people have felt that in some parts of the organisation our tone, decision making and behaviours have been too corporate and commercially driven. We are professional and our colleagues come with enormous technical expertise and knowledge of charitable work, development, planning, partnership work, fundraising, engagement, management and much more. While a strong core has allowed us to be in a position to respond to a crisis, we recognise that a corporate image has alienated us from some sections of the community and trust has been eroded. We want to establish a happy partnership with local people and groups that harnesses our skills and know-how with your local insight, professional skills and expertise, so that we create more positive things together. A good example of this is the new way we are seeking to build a relationship and partnership with Sarah Tuvey at the community riding stables. We will use our skills in development and planning in conjunction with Sarah’s knowledge of horses and user groups to rebuild the stables as a social enterprise in the first quarter of next year.
As well as being for, and working, with local people, we need more local people involved in the organisation. This manifests itself in a number of ways.
- We need more local people involved in our work at every level. In the last 6 months we have employed many more local people and now have 40% local employment in total. In addition, we need to demographically represent the area too and we need to reflect diversity at every level.
- We want more local people involved in governance and decision-making. Subject to Board approval, we are seeking to create a new sub-committee of the main board that will look at social impact, charitable giving, engagement and community determination of spaces. This committee will include main board members as well as a number of co-opted and advisory members who will all be from the local community.
- We need to be involving local people as much as possible in decision-making on major projects. The determination of who operates new arts, culture and civic centre in the Portobello scheme and how it is designed will be by a steering group of local expert artists in venue management and performance led- event production. One of us and a Board member will sit on the group and the group will decide how the space will run.
Finally, we are very interested in community determination and how this can be realised. We do not have a framework for how this can be done, but we are listening to ideas, looking at where it has been done well with a view to establishing a fair process. The obvious place to deliver community determination is with the African and Caribbean led-cultural space. We have offered One Voice Community Collective, as the lead organisation for the project, a space at the Portobello end of the estate next to Subterania. The space is the size of a bay (2200 square feet) and is available at the end of March. We have offered to cover the costs of a development manager (a person of OVCC’s choice) to develop a process of determination and build an alliance of people who could take the project forward. We have offered to use our position as a long-standing charity with credibility for accessing public funding to help raise money for it. We remain committed to realising this space.
4. Delivering on major projects
As well as delivering a renewed purpose, organisational strategy and land use strategy, we are committed to delivering major projects that have been in train this year. Below is an update.
Portobello scheme
Following the Grenfell Tower fire, we paused the planning application. Since then we have been asking local people what we might consider in light of the impact of the disaster. The majority of people support the view to develop functional spaces at Acklam for arts (while trying to preserve the distinctiveness of the space in Bay 58, particularly) and provide street facing shops for independent retailers, to maintain and grow the market offer, to improve the public realm and seek to turn the affordable housing into social housing, if possible. To transition the housing into social housing, we need a grant from the Council. We have put a proposal to the Council and are awaiting a response. We are using the time to refine the plans based on feedback from the last round of engagement. We will share new drawings and a timetable when we know it in the new year.
Thorpe Close
The enterprise pods for Thorpe Close are currently being built off site. We will have them in place for the spring next year. The project was delayed because the original designs were not practical and didn’t work with the market or access vehicles or feel safe. There will be six pods to start with and are most suitable for local enterprises and charities that deliver public services to take up residence in the new year.
Stables
We are committed to working with Sarah Tuvey to re-provide community riding on the estate. We have been working with Sarah to deliver riding facilities on a more compact and manageable site, as requested by Sarah herself. We are also committed to work with Sarah to deliver a larger, permanent facility if the new operations show there is good demand for a greater level of activity. Sarah wants tothe stables ready in the Spring of next year and we want to help her make that happen. We have committed £80,000 to improve the existing horse riding arena and will fundraise for the balance of the cost of the new facilities. Sarah has the support of RBKC and we are hoping they will provide the working capital that Sarah will need to start her revived operations. We have drafted a new lease that is with Sarah so she can take legal advice on it.
Fitness Club refurbishments
Works to improve the interior of the fitness club will start early in the New Year and will be complete within a matter of months. The improvements will see new changing rooms and a fully refurbished gym and studio. We have paused development of the squash courts for two years to give us time to find a new home for the squash users. Kensington Leisure Centre would like to provide a home, but the courts are currently out of use. Other alternatives are being looked at.
Bay 20
Following the Grenfell Tower fire, we were approached by the BBC DIY SOS programme about the use of Bay 20, the undeveloped space next to Maxilla Gardens, fronting on to St Marks Road, to build something that would support the community healing efforts.
We have had a consistent message from discussions with local people that there is a need for low-cost flexible community space on the Westway estate, and particularly in the Maxilla area. Nearly 40 groups to date have expressed a desire to use such a facility.
The BBC’s proposal would see a new community space and community café created in a very short period of time with all materials provided for free by companies and all labour provided by volunteers. This means there would be no upfront cost to the Trust allowing us to heavily subsidise the activity that takes place there and ensure it is economically accessible for the local community.