Caerphilly County Borough Council told Assembly Members it is “stuck in limbo” over an anti-poverty scheme scrapped by the Welsh Government.
Tina McMahon, Senior Community Regeneration Manager at Caerphilly County Borough Council, told the Welsh Assembly’s Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee that it knows how it wants to proceed after the Communities First scheme is axed in March next year, but is waiting on guidance from the Welsh Government.
She said: “The transition plans, from our perspective, are a seamless move from Communities First into what will be next, because it has to be.
“If that’s ratified by Welsh Government, then that gives us the mandate to go out and talk to our communities.
“But at the moment, we’re sort of stuck in limbo.”
The committee of Assembly Members examined what lessons could be learned from the Communities First project as part of an inquiry and took evidence from a range of organisations.
Its report declared the scheme had a “near impossible task” to tackle poverty and that it “never had the ability” to make significant in-roads into poverty reduction on a local or national scale.”
The committee also urged the Welsh Government to “learn lessons for the future” after calling the programme’s lack of performance indicators against which it could be assessed “regrettable”.
One of the criticisms levelled at the management of the scheme was the focus on the “three E’s” – employability, early years, and empowerment.
AMs recognised the importance of those elements, but claimed that “limited view” could avoid addressing other vital issues, a belief shared by Dave Brunton, project manager at Senghennyd Youth Drop-In Centre (SYDIC).
Mr Brunton said: “The focus on the “three E’s” means target-driven services will fail, as the holistic services – like SYDIC – that feed them will disappear because they are thought irrelevant and too flaky.
“We offer a local focus on local needs, which means that when strategic decisions are made, we are left out.
“It is difficult to get our voice heard at the top table. Community services should not be service-led, but look to the local needs of people.”
Launched in 2001 to tackle poverty and support vulnerable people in deprived areas across Wales, the flagship scheme has not been without its critics, with more than £423 million spent during that time.
A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: “The Communities First programme, whilst having a positive impact on many individuals, has not had a significant impact on poverty levels in Wales which remain stubbornly high.”
Despite funding ending next March, a so-called ‘legacy fund’ of £6m per year will be made available for projects from April 2018, “which will enable some of the most effective aspects of the programme to continue”, she added.
A spokesman for CCBC said: “Communities First has had a positive impact across the county borough and the staff working on the various projects have worked hard to deliver beneficial outcomes for all those involved.
“It is disappointing that the Welsh Government had decided that Communities First is coming to end, but we are now reviewing the impact of the various initiatives across the county borough in order to prioritise the reduced funding that will be made available over the coming years.”
Another failure by Welsh Labour, £423 million spent and the only good it did was to the overpaid staff it employed, who are now rubbing their hands at the prospect of a handsome redundancy pay off. A total mismanagement of tax payers money, it would have done more good simply taking the pot of money and dividing it out to those who needed it, rather than paying lazy public sector workers a massive salary to spend most of their time on the sick with “stress”.
Communities First clearly failed in its objectives – at considerable expense to the taxpayer.
We do not need a similar scheme to replace it.