Blackburn with Darwen

Objectives

Initially to develop commonalties between unitary authorities in the North West of England. However, as the project developed it concentrated on the piloting of the Guide through a partnership group in Blackburn and Darwen alone. This group was closely related in its membership to the Blackburn with Darwen Lifelong Learning Forum and is a sub-group of the East Lancashire Learning partnership.

Most of the partners involved with the project had worked together in the commissioning of an extensive baseline research report mapping participation in education post 16. This meant that the group had already worked together on a very substantial project and had shared and detailed information about participation and opportunities in their area.

Because of their long-standing history of working together the group concentrated their work on the Performance Strand of the Guide. The project was carried out through four meetings and attendance at a joint evaluation and planning day at St. Helens. Action took place in relation to internal assessment, external comparison and evaluation of added value and included the setting in train of a benchmarking exercise that will provide the basis for an extended role for the working group beyond the life of the Pathfinder project.

The role of the Consultant in this project was to guide partners through the use of the Guide, to plan work sessions and to facilitate and record outcomes including the final report. A first, and accurate, conclusion of this group having been that the Guide was not a structured work pack, but rather a stimulus to thought and action.

Outcomes

The first meeting of the project dealt with issues of group structure and confirmed that Strand 3 was the most appropriate area for the project to focus on. This was achieved through discussion of key issues derived from the Guide. The group then spent time assessing the themes contained within it and drawing up a schedule to guide progress. The second meeting focused on an assessment of the base line position of the partnership and also began the process of preparing for external benchmarking. It was felt that the pack was convincing on the need to benchmark but sketchy on how this should be done.

The benchmarking procedure carried out by Blackburn and Darwen was one that they would recommend to other partnerships. It involved using original census data to come up with the 5% postcode areas with most resemblance to the Blackburn with Darwen area. Three possible benchmarking areas were then selected because they matched and because partners had suitable contacts to begin an exercise.

The benchmarking exchange was to involve some quantitative data but the exchange of good and innovative practice was seen to be the primary aim. The development of tools and arrangements for the benchmarking, the issue of added value and overall evaluation of the Guide, formed the agenda for the fourth meeting. Benchmarking was to be carried out through use of benchmarking sheets, examples of which are included in the project's final report. These show what has been carried out in Blackburn and Darwen and invite identification of similar initiatives, their progress and other useful developments from the benchmarking partner. The group used relevant sections of the pack to carry out a test case study demonstrating value added using the development of Community Access Points in the Authority, an initiative in which all participants had been involved. The case study revealed a lack of hard evidence of the success of a project, which had been seen, as very effective and the way that the approach used in the Guide might be used to fill the evidence vacuum.

Evaluation of the Guide took place in the fourth session of the project and jointly with St. Helens. Many of the conclusions were shared with that project. A toolkit was seen as a useful help for this kind of initiative but it was felt that the current Guide needed too much interpretation to be used in this way. More guidance would be needed to use the materials in the Guide effectively and there was a need for checklists accompanied by examples of action.

It was felt that the Guide did not resolve the difficult question of value added and the concept of a Learning Town still needs development. Case studies, flow charts, the following of prompts and questions with suggestions for action were all mentioned. In essence the project, while seeking to acknowledge local diversity as a strength, was seeking a much more structured "how to do it" document than the Guide currently provides.