What’s different about the Fair Share Trust?

Fair Share Trust is different from other funding programmes because…

1. It’s about local empowerment through local panels

By involving local people throughout the processes FST is showing that community led regeneration through local decision making panels works and is achieving a real sense of:

Local community ownership, buy-in, and empowerment, or in the words of a FST panel member in Northern Ireland “it doesn’t feel like lottery money.” This is a clear indication that local people really feel that FST funding is theirs – for them to prioritise, decide on and monitor the funding, which is one of the main things FST set out to achieve.
Involving people who have not previously been included in decision making affecting their neighbourhood - “letting people use their existing skills and expertise to best effect,”
Accountability and transparency to rival some of the most robust paper-only monitoring systems – funding is getting down to grassroots and being checked not only by Local Agents but also by Local Panels. As one panel member from Rotherham put it on a recent visit by the Protector: “Having a group like this [panel] means you know the money’s being spent in the right area and not frittered away.”

2. It relies on locally based, independent grant making bodies – Community Foundations and other local partners – to deliver the grants.

These local facilitators are committed locally but sufficiently objective. Delegation to a local level means there is a strong local funding presence, offered by Community Foundations and other CFN identified local delivery partners. The Local Agents play a key role because they are: cause/approach neutral; technically competent grant makers; sympathetic to the values of FST; locally committed and engaged but sufficiently outside the specifics of community politics to be objective facilitators.

The qualities that we see in the best Local Agents are:

independent and committed to the area - not “captured” by vested interests
Community led work must be part of their DNA
Assertive and proactive
Consultative and inclusive in approach
Can confer legitimacy on lower capacity panels
They must have the organisational capacity to sustain work over time.

3. It’s developed and built effective Strategic Local Relationships.

FST puts power in the hands of local people (they have the budget) but requires them to set a local strategy that is consistent with analysis provided by the LSP. This has proved to be an effective framework within joined up working is fostered locally and by extension nationally (Local Authorities, BIG, Third Sector and the local community sector).

These relationships pay dividends because the trust built between CFN’s members and other local partners means that while adequate checks and measures are adhered to and risk managed, in the words of a local panel member, FST “doesn’t appear to have all the red tape…feels more human.”

4. There’s a clear focus on sustainability.

The ten year programme term and the focus on local people setting strategy (and not just funding projects) have engendered a focus on sustainability. We are struck by how many local agents and panellists talk of the “legacy” of FST. CFN has commissioned a Sustainability Planning Guide to support Local Agents that we think will have wide relevance.

5. FST has been incredibly successful at attracting additional funding.

With nearly £30m of the original £50m BIG funding spent across FST neighbourhoods, Local Agents noting a further £18m leveraged into neighbourhoods.