Economics with People
Volume 2: Chapter 6: Setting the scene for success
In this chapter, we talk about how we set up the Economies for Healthier Lives project for success in Salford. This includes how we:
· obtained the buy-in of partners and supporters
· engaged both economic development and public health in community wealth building
· used co-production with local people to ultimately tackle economic and health inequalities
Framing the case
Economics is an area over which many people feel they have no control, cannot engage with and should leave to those with relevant qualifications. We wanted to change this feeling, help people to see how they could participate in the economy, and increase chances of a more stable and secure future.
Framing is a useful tool to aid understanding of a topic for multiple audiences and to create a starting point for engagement. We thought about how to frame the issue we faced and how we could ensure that local people and local anchor institutions would want to work together.
Frameworks UK is a great place to start. It has many useful tools and resources to help with framing theory and your particular issue.
Considering language, narratives and messages to use as well as motivations and barriers of each group you want to engage can be a helpful starting point. It is important to reflect and adapt this for each group in order to engage multiple audiences. For example, our messages about the work we are doing would look different for local people and for local anchor institutions as they will have different roles, but with a collaborative vision to co-produce solutions to address inequalities together. Understanding the drivers for each group, or how community wealth building could benefit them, will help to develop a message that is likely to resonate with each particular group. We looked at existing messaging around inequalities directed at local people and local anchor institutions respectively, which tended to place blame on inaction by either or both groups and agreed on reframing to where opportunities for both groups could be.
The longer-term ambition of Economies for Healthier Lives in Salford is explained via the Three Horizons framework that we adopted.
Three Horizons is a simple and intuitive framework for thinking about the future. At its simplest, it describes three patterns of activity and how their interactions play out over time. The framework maps a shift from the established patterns of the first horizon to the emergence of new patterns in the third, via the transition activity of the second.
Consider if a framework or model would be a useful tool to describe, explain or position your work to aid understanding for others. We found the Three Horizons framework worked well to describe where Economies for Healthier Lives in Salford can act as a vehicle for system change, but also allowed space for other work, with a similar vision of achieving an inclusive economy, to run alongside (that is, the activity positioned in Horizon 2). This framing suited external audiences as well as used internally with the project team and partners, as it demonstrates where the current system is failing and provides hope and a solution to a new, inclusive economy.
Other frameworks or models that you might want to consider include: Doughnut Economics; Multi-level Perspective; or The Systems Sanctuary.
Getting buy-in from partners and supporters
A partnership approach underpins all of our work on Economies for Healthier Lives in Salford. It was to work with those who not only had the power and leverage to change our economic system, but also the motivations to do so.
As a starting point, Salford is fortunately a very collaborative city. There is a general willingness to work together, even when there are barriers in place. This ethos has helped in convening partners and supporters on economic change as it is a familiar approach, encouraged throughout the city. Examples of previous successful collaboration can be sued as a means to create buy-in from different partners and stakeholders.
Building relationships is one of the most important elements of both sustainable partnerships and co-production. We spent time with partners, building rapport, aligning values and testing the most effective forms of communication. Providing time and space to build trusted and genuine relationships from mutual understanding aids a collective approach to system change. It is important to consistently nurture all relationships as the work progresses.
Engagement and participation from partners and stakeholders can vary throughout the process. This is not necessarily a failure, but can be an opportunity to assess the enablers of or barriers to engagement. Some enablers we identified were: a dedicated person within the organisation who understood social value and/or it was a part of their role; a drive internally to embed social value measures to address organisational challenges; and an interest in creating partnerships for other work alongside this. Barriers included: time commitment; a lack of understanding of their role in community wealth building; and, at times, an apprehension to try a completely new idea that can come with risks and challenges.
We used this knowledge to create strategies to address some of these to increase frequent and continual engagement. Some examples included: dedicating time to speak to each member individually to discuss any concerns or provide additional explanation of process or plans; connecting plans to work already taking place; incorporating mitigating features that will reduce any risk. In our case, this was the support surrounding the new social businesses and flexible contracting processes for the local anchor institutions.
This can look different for everyone, but if you think you would benefit from hearing about ours in more detail, please connect with us.
Finally, reflection on what has worked well and what could change from past work is powerful in making improvements to how we work in future. Being able to extract and assess learning can provide many useful ideas to use with new projects. A simple reflection method can be to review each planned or significant activity by asking: what worked well; what could have been better or different; and what are the key lessons for the future? Recording these reflections can be valuable to compile and compare answers at a later point.
What does this mean for you?
· Do you have connections from previous work or projects that would be a useful starting point?
· Can you identify strategies that were successful with previous work at engaging partners, supporters or local people?
· Are there others doing similar work you could learn from?
Engaging public health and economic development
Salford has the fastest growing economy in north-west England, with many economic and regeneration plans in the works. This presents plenty of opportunities to create a happy and healthy city.
Using economic measures to reduce health inequalities meant that higher quality collaboration between economic development and public health was needed. To truly embed determinants of health and well-being into plans for economic regeneration, the two fields required mutual understanding, close working relationships and effective communication in planning and delivery. The Economies for Healthier Lives project in Salford has become a valuable environment for connection and to create a shared vision.
Practical actions have ranged from introducing teams and people, hosting joint meetings, increasing understanding of priorities and challenges of each area, and finding common ground to pursue together. An example of this is unemployment due to poor health and well-being, especially in adults under 40. Addressing an issue such this together would improve not only health outcomes, but also potential for people to become more economically active.
We recommend working together on long-standing issues. They do not need to be particularly radical. They might, however, benefit from a completely different approach to what has been tried previously, which was the case for our particular issue. Reframing such an issue to think about creating new economic opportunities and focusing on wealth and ownership, rather than only providing jobs and incomes, shifts how the issue presents and therefore opens up new possible solutions.
A key concern from colleagues was the potential to duplicate work and to use vital capacity unproductively. Using time and resources effectively and in a mutually beneficial way was vital. It was therefore important to focus on agreed challenges and on where the greatest impact could be. To best determine what priorities would be the focus, we held an in-person workshop. This helped to strengthen relationships, discuss universal challenges and agree to where our collective resource was best directed. In our case, it was agreed that a focus on embedding community wealth building into regeneration already planned for Salford would make the most sense and make best use of the connection made between public health and economic development.
Key learning in this process is to consider determinants of health and well-being impacts at the beginning of economic development plans, when it is easiest to implement measures that enhance health and well-being. The risk of not embedding health and well-being considerations into regeneration is that it will not benefit everyone and even exclude those without the means to participate. This is more difficult to amend retrospectively. Co-production with local people works well to explore new ideas and different ways of working for both economic development and public health. Solutions created together with local people are more likely to be successful and sustainable.
If you are interested in this topic and would like to explore further how you can engage partners, supporters and other stakeholders in your work, please get in touch by leaving a comment below or emailing us at ehl@unlimitedpotential.org.uk
Next time:
How did we identify £10 million of recurrent annual expenditure that could be redirected locally, and start to create real market opportunities?
Next chapter here:
