Community Benefits in Practice and in Policy: Lessons from the United States and the United Kingdom
Key Ingredients for Community Benefits
There are substantial differences in the way that community benefits are delivered in the U.S. and the U.K.. In the U.S., community benefits have been driven largely by community coalitions, who have entered into freestanding legal agreements with developers and sometimes governments. In contrast, in the U.K. community benefits have been delivered almost entirely by governments through procurement, with far less community involvement. Nonetheless, both systems share some key
ingredients, particularly with respect to incorporating community benefits into the realm of public policy.
This paper identifies eight core criteria for the successful implementation of
community benefits:
- Political will and an internal champion. Making change requires both political will and an internal champion with sufficient power to move efforts through the bureaucracy and act as a liaison with elected officials. This champion can be someone within contract administration, procurement, or in a city manager’s office. In the U.S., organizations also talk about the need for an “inside-outside” strategy: community coalitions and labour need to apply outside pressure for change, while working closely with elected officials and key bureaucrats on the inside.
- Clear policy basis and alignment with other policy goals and practices. Where the policy objectives of community benefits align with other public policy goals, they can effectively drive change on the ground and in the marketplace. It is important to have explicit policies requiring that community benefits be incorporated into procurement practices. These policies provide a legal basis for their inclusion, develop the commitment and understanding of the staff who must deliver them, and give notice to prospective bidders in the marketplace that the procuring organization is looking for social as well as economic value.
- Policy guidelines and procurement strategies for implementation. Detailed policy guidelines provide clarity and direction to the procuring organizations so they can create strategies and practices for implementation. Governments also need to develop guidelines and criteria for the contracting community, adapt assessment criteria for bid requests, create tools to measure success, and ensure employees understand how to embed and implement them in a systemic fashion. All of this will require resources and, more importantly, commitment.
- Clear and measurable targets for workforce development. For local or targeted hiring and apprenticeships, a number of hours to be worked should be specified. The agreement should also carefully define what constitutes a disadvantaged worker for the purposes of the target. It is important to set targets that are reasonable and can be delivered, as the contractor’s commitment
and compliance are key to achieving outcomes. - A workforce and contractor development pathway. To ensure the success of targeted hiring provisions in an agreement or policy, it is critical to have a central entity that handles recruitment, training and placement of disadvantaged workers. These entities act as a liaison between unions, employers and community organizations. They can also play a role in monitoring compliance.
- Monitoring and evaluation frameworks. Along with gathering data, this includes penalties for non-compliance and requirements for public reporting. Accountability measures, monitoring and compliance must be managed by a body with the capacity to enforce the agreement or policy. There are a variety of methodologies in use for measuring outputs. Long-term outcomes are harder to measure and therefore an area for further research.
- Enabling small, medium and social enterprises. Changes to procurement practices can ensure local economic development and increase indirect local hiring by requiring a certain percentage of work be open to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and social enterprises (SEs). Unbundling contracts can encourage participation, as can certain policy interventions. Taking steps to strengthen the capacity of SMEs and SEs to respond to such opportunities, through technical and other assistance, has proven effective in both the U.S. and the U.K.
- The value of trust. Relationships of trust between all the players — community groups, developers, contractors, labour unions and governments — underpin the capacity to move projects and policies forward. Key stakeholders should all be engaged in the design of community benefits clauses and agreements, in establishing realistic targets to which contractors will willingly commit, and in the monitoring and enforcement of agreements.
An additional element that we found in California, though not in the U.K., was the
creation of broad, effective community coalitions. Coalitions need time to build
strong relationships with authentic bases, identify community needs, develop
political leadership and create a vision together. They need to manage expectations
about the length and complexity of projects, and they need funding and support to
be effective advocates.
Read the full report on the Atkinson Foundation’s website.