Sparkplug Background

The Government Office for the South West and The Centre for Public Innovation launched the Sparkplug Programme last year to encourage community involvement in four areas across the region. 

The Sparkplug Programme is a scheme which funds local people to run small new projects in their communities – to improve crime and safety problems.  It also encourages community engagement, build confidence and improve partnerships and is a great opportunity for CDRP staff to get trained in an exciting community change methodology.

Following the success of the first phase, a second round will be launched in May 2006. This allows CDRPs that did not take part last year to get involved now.  The Prince’s Trust is also taking part, to help build even more capacity for community change in the south west.

The background

The Centre for Public Innovation has run Sparkplug Programmes in areas of London for several areas with great success and a high level of sustained participation. The projects have been greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm from local residents and community groups such as recovering substance misusers in Lambeth and residents on an estate in Barnet.

How the Sparkplug Programme works

The best ideas and solutions for improvement are usually quite simple and come best from people closest to problems, and not from complicated or centrally imposed initiatives.  We find that there are energetic residents and groups in most communities who have bright ideas for ways to get to grips with the crime and safety problems in their neighbourhoods.

The programme finds people with the brightest ideas – we call them sparkplugs - and gives them grants and lots of support to help make their ideas reality. The grants are usually no more than a few thousand pounds, the application process is very easy and the projects last around six months. When several grass root projects run in a neighbourhood.  The impact can be high and the results impressive.   Evaluation of the first phase of the GOSW Sparkplug Programme has already shown the following benefits:

• Increased capacity in community safety teams
  
  
• Improved engagement between CDRPs and communities
  
  
• Reduction in anti social behaviour incidents in some areas, such as in Pewsey where these halved in six months
  
  
• Empowerment of local people
  
  
• A ‘feel-good factor’ which has motivated sparkplugs to build on their projects further
  
  
• Much safer - and stronger – communities.

One special factor contributing to this success is the amount of support given to the sparkplugs by a mentor.  This really helps keep them on track, motivated and confident in the knowledge that they are helping make a big difference.  The person mentoring them will come from a CDRP team and will receive help to do this from CPI.

Some projects from the Sparkplug Programme:

Friday L8 - £3,300
To combat the problem of underage drinking in public causing a nuisance in Pewsey, Friday L8 has been set up to offer a warm, safe, exciting and alcohol-free club for young people on a Friday night. Since opening, police figures show that incidents of anti-social behaviour have halved and underage drinking in the town centre on Fridays has declined.  Run by sparkplug Danny Draper – a young person himself – the club attracts around seventy young people each week and enjoys the highest attendance of all youth clubs in Pewsey.

Support Sport Harnham - £4,000
This was set up to provide a range of sporting activities to divert otherwise bored youngsters and cut down on the amount of vandalism and loitering in the area.  The project was launched with a Fun Run on 2 January 2006, which attracted 150 parents and young people and won lots of publicity.  Sparkplug Mike Halpin and his team have involved local primary and secondary schools, the Wiltshire Fire Service, Wiltshire Constabulary in the initiative and also have set up an informative webpage on a local business’ website.   Ten parents are volunteers on the project and it is hoped they will set up diffusion projects.

Queens Road - £8,000
The Queens Road area of Bristol suffered from problems such as litter, illegal parking and speeding drivers, poor lighting and public drinking from both adults and young people. This multi-faceted project aims to improve the area by tackling these things through a combination of diversionary activities and practical measures, such as a drink-free zone and improved lighting. Sparkplug pensioner, George Denford, has formed strong partnerships with the local council to develop existing services for free, such as street cleaning, and has gained additional funding from local agencies. The project has attracted lots of publicity, anti-social behaviour has declined dramatically - the community echoes the view of one resident who said,

ePewsey - £3,300
40% of visitors to internet café ePewsey were non-UK national migrant workers, using it to communicate with family and friends back home. Manager Lee Grafton thought wanted funding to open the café for two evenings in the week (to serve people working during office hours) and to also provide them with information about how to access other local/social services. The additional opening hours have been an overwhelming success and provide a vital service and haven. So much so that one Slovakian customer travels for thirty minutes to ePewsey as