What are neighbourhood forums?

Neighbourhood forums are a means for active citizens to raise issues, start campaigns and make positive changes in their locality. Forum members should be available to hear the concerns of the neighbourhood, and to respond or otherwise react to them where necessary, but should also be prepared to themselves identify issues worth responding to.

The latest study of neighbourhood forums in Birmingham by Chamberlain Forum identified around 50 neighbourhood forums, which cover about a third of the city’s households. If you want to form a new neighbourhood forums your area, you can get support from Birmingham City Council, which is keen to see more neighbourhood forums (or community groups/networks that perform the functions of neighbourhood forums) set up across the city.

Setting up a neighbourhood forum

The structure, aims and objectives of a neighbourhood forum should be contained in its constitution. Not every neighbourhood forum has a constitution, but having one is recommended, for the protection of its members, and to ensure that the overall structure of the group is clear, transparent and democratic. The constitution will normally contain the following areas:

  • Name and Area:

In starting a neighbourhood forum, the new management committee and members will decide on its name and boundaries. Both of these will generally align with a neighbourhood that those people identify with. The areas covered vary in size, just as neighbourhoods do. For example, Moseley Neighbourhood Forum covers about 9000 households, whereas the nearby Selly Park South Neighbourhood Forum covers considerably less at around 700. There is no ‘correct’ size for a neighbourhood to be, but people generally consider their locality to be a relatively small area.

It is best to define the boundaries of your area in your constitution – in words using road names, and marked on a map in the appendix. This will allow you to deal with issues and causes that are relevant to your locality.

  • Aims and Objectives:

In broad terms, neighbourhood forums will generally pledge to be open to the community, to represent its views, and to generally improve the area for those people. In reality, how they go about achieving this is (rightly) wide open to interpretation.

Birmingham’s neighbourhood forums have worked on a wide array of campaigns, and achieved myriad goals. Some work exclusively with the maintenance and upkeep of the local area – ensuring that litter is picked up, floral displays present, street furniture correct and in good condition, etc. Others will also tackle issues that are affecting the community: bus routes; parking issues; and planning issues, to name but a few. Others start initiatives to enhance their area – for example, a farmers’ market, community development trust, or a youth group.

  • Membership:

The constitutions of most existing neighbourhood forums state that every resident of the outlined area aged 16 and above is automatically a member of the forum. But this is problematic. For neighbourhood forum meetings to be valid, a certain percentage of members need to attend (around 0.5%) – so if you consider the adult population of an area to constitute membership, the number of people required to achieve that (known as a ‘quorum’), is prohibitively high. As such, keeping a membership list, of people who sign up at meetings, online, etc. will ensure that meetings of your neighbourhood forum are legal.

It will also ensure that you have a go-to list of people to contact, and will broaden the array of skills and contacts afforded to your neighbourhood forum. Ultimately, the more people that are kept in direct contact, the more effective your neighbourhood forum can be in representing the views of the area.

  • Management:

A neighbourhood forum should be run by an elected management committee of at least four residents, including a Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. Most constitutions allow for a management committee of 15, and the current average among Birmingham’s neighbourhood forums is about 10. The benefit of having a slightly larger management committee comes down to sustainability – if a couple of people stand down, it is a much bigger issue if the management committee is only four strong to begin with. Other than that, there is nothing to suggest that larger management committees are more effective than smaller ones.

  • Meetings:

The management committee will generally meet once a month. Forums around Birmingham differ on whether other people from the neighbourhood should be invited to these meetings.  But by keeping them open, people from the area can drop by if they have a concern to raise, much like a Councillor or MP’s surgery. It also helps with the sustainability issue – if the meeting piques the interest of a visitor, they may want to get more involved.

The constitution will also outline how many full public meetings (which often centre on a local theme) should be held a year. These generally total three or four.

This will include the Annual General Meeting (AGM) where existing members of the management committee can stand for re-election, other people can put themselves forward for election, and the constitution can be amended, if required. However, do not feel that you cannot take on new management committee members throughout the year – new members can be co-opted, and then elected fully at the next AGM.

As a general rule, there should be no more than 18 months between AGMs, but you can decide on the best period of time when establishing your forum.

  • Procedures:

This refers to the structure of meetings – the taking of minutes, voting, speaking rights, and quorum. You will find that, in general, minutes and quorum will be the most relevant to ordinary meeting – that is, the need to have someone taking notes, and, as explained before, a certain percentage of the members should be present at any given meeting.

  • Fundraising and finance:

Neighbourhood forums are funded centrally by Birmingham City Council, but neighbourhood forums are encouraged to seek other sources of income to supplement that grant.

For reference, a complete constitution can be found here.

Conclusion

In summary, the most effective neighbourhood forums:

  • Ensure that they are reaching out to their community: the people to whom your neighbourhood forum relates will be based in physical spaces (homes; shopping centres; and other ‘community hubs’), but also online. This means that not only should have a physical presence in the neighbourhood (informative posters on community noticeboards; a newsletter; forum members actively promoting projects, etc.) but also an online presence in the form of an up-to-date, accessible website. In order to be open and inclusive, the people of your locality should know that you exist, what you are doing, and how they can reach you.
  • Are ambitious, but realistic: voluntary groups such as neighbourhood forums can achieve a great deal, but you need to know your limits with regards to time and money. So use both effectively: for example, three well-conceived, publicised and attended public meetings per year is a much better use of your collective time than 6 that are rushed and poorly-attended.