By Ellen van Holstein, Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Global Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University
New research into council-run community centres has highlighted the challenges that come with these venues, as well as the important benefits they can provide in neighbourhoods around Australia.
Local governments in Australia increasingly manage community centres. This is a relatively new responsibility for local governments, as these spaces have traditionally been managed by grassroots community groups backed by state government funding.
The trend whereby councils are permanently stepping into the role of centre management is especially noticeable in Melbourne’s growth corridor, where local governments are building and managing neighbourhood centres to ensure that social infrastructure keeps up with population growth.
Councils that manage centres make a tangible difference in the lives of their constituents by creating opportunities for people to meet others who in live in the area, by organising affordable exercise and craft classes, and by supporting access to emergency food hampers, and mental health and employment support.
Talking to council employees who manage two centres in Melbourne’s growth corridor, their team leaders and the people who use the centres, revealed that councils face some key challenges when managing centres.
To ensure that staff were able to speak freely about the pressures they encounter in their work, the research on which this article is based was conducted under conditions of anonymity, and for that reason, council and staff names are withheld.
Creating affordable and inclusive activities
The two centres run by two different councils on Melbourne’s fringe create important social opportunities for people in areas where community spaces are scarce. The two centres are especially valuable to elderly people and migrants, who applaud the affordability and inclusiveness of the group activities that are organised there.
For example, one centre organises yoga for seniors that is so popular that it now runs two fully booked-out classes per week. Yogis in the class find that yoga in commercial gyms and health studios tend to be too challenging for them. Even mainstream classes that initially seem accessible often change to become too hard, too loud or too fast as soon as younger people join, they said.
Students in the class also said that at their local neighbourhood centre ‘the price is right’. Council offers this class for five dollars, and this means that people can afford to come weekly on their pensions.
This example shows that councils can make a real difference when it offers affordable activities that promote social connection, health, and wellbeing. Councils can play a role in service provision by filling gaps left by commercial providers, because councils can choose to offer programs in small groups that are tailored to specific needs in ways that commercial providers cannot.
The research uncovered many other examples of activities that were valuable for their affordability and their ability to meet niche needs and preferences related to cultural background, disability and age.
For example, the two centres host culturally specific seniors’ groups. They also both organise play groups and parenting groups that bring people with a shared experience of cultural background, homeschooling or disability together to facilitate peer-to-peer support.
In areas where meeting spaces are scarce, where people feel mortgage stress and where many residents are new to an area, these initiatives are invaluable for supporting health and wellbeing.
Running a centre with impact
While centre participants were unanimously positive about centres managed by councils, staff identified some challenges. For example, they pointed out that council bureaucracy can create access barriers for centre users. Bureaucratic complexity limits the impact that councils can make if staff spend a considerable amount of time helping community members navigate paperwork.
One centre manager said that it was not uncommon for people to seek other meeting spaces when council’s paperwork was too complicated.
“Some people might have an idea that they want to get going as quickly as possible,” she said.
“Sometimes we lose out because they’ve gone somewhere else, for example to a community-managed centre. They will say ‘I’ve found an easier way where not so many questions were asked’, or ‘I didn’t need to submit or do this or that.’”
Councils have a responsibility to conduct their business in an accountable way and some paperwork supports that accountability, but it can also form an access barrier that is most likely to affect people who are already at greater risk of experiencing isolation.
In order to run an accessible centre and to protect their reputation with residents, councils need to shield centre users from excessive administrative demands.
The complexity of how councils operate can take up much of managers’ time. At both councils, centre managers described their job as ‘admin heavy’.
Their administrative tasks include ensuring that teachers and contractors are properly onboarded and covered by insurance, and filling out program logic tables for each of the activities at their centre each semester.
When asked whether she ever works unpaid overtime, one manager said, “Definitely, especially when program logics are due. For my centre, we’ve got 25 programs and you’ve only got like a week and a bit to pull them all together. So I’ll always work overtime just to get them all done.”
Other managers added that the continuous roster of activities at a centre does not allow them to recover these hours by taking time in lieu. In addition to creating pressure on staff, an excess of administrative tasks takes staff away from important tasks such as attending to centre visitors and the wide range of sometimes pressing and distressing issues they present with. Councils that task their centre managers with administration that is redundant or that could be centralised inadvertently reduce the impact a centre can have on the ground.
Councils are large organisations and when they manage centres, these centres can be poorly understood by other council employees.
For example, one manager described council pushback against offering a room at a reduced rate to someone who runs a cooking class for autistic children.
“They’re pushing back on these kinds of agreements because they see it as a revenue thing. They’ll say things like, ‘Well, she’s charging for the class so she can afford to pay full price for the space.’ Whereas from a community point of view, we should be looking at the service what she’s offering the community.”
Managers also regretted that their colleagues in other departments do not consult them.
“They’ve built this centre with this massive reception desk. I’m not going to sit there because I can’t do my work if I sit there. Now if you’re approaching the centre for the first time, you walk up and then you’re standing at a reception desk and there’s no one there to actually help you.”
These examples show that it is important for councils to engage with centre managers because a lack of understanding of what happens in a centre can hamper council’s ability to ensure their investment in a centre leads to optimal results.
Lastly, it can be difficult for councils to act with confidence when they manage a space that is intended to be for members of the community.
One council made a blanket decision not to organise any activities themselves lest they stifle community leadership.
A team leader said, “When I first started, we used to run a lot of activities, whether that’d be a playgroup or some sort of community celebration, and over time, we’d work more and more with community. And now, if community are not starting that work, we’re not doing it.”
A hands-off approach like this limits the practical outcomes that a council can achieve, because reacting to preconceived community initiatives does not allow a centre to bring new people into a centre.
Centre management presents tremendous opportunity for a council to engage with a large variety of residents, and when councils do this with clear objectives, they can generate impacts that range from creating rapport with segments of the population that are otherwise hard to reach, creating new community leadership skills, and effecting economic, social and health related changes in people’s lives.
Where communities converge
Councils are doing positive work by taking on centre management, because centres create unique opportunities for people to be actively involved in exercise, work, education and leisure in their neighbourhood.
By managing centres, councils can curate accessible and affordable social opportunities in their local government area, especially when it focuses on programming activities that are unlikely to be facilitated by commercial parties.
Councils that consider taking on centre management can maximise impact by shielding managers and centre users from administrative burdens and by including managers in strategic decisions.
They can also maximise impact by continuously seeking engagement with new centre participants, as new visitors stand to gain most from becoming engaged in centre programs.
For more information, and to read the report in full, visit apo.org.au
