What is VOiCE?
VOiCE is a database planning and recording tool to assist individuals and organisations to design and deliver effective community engagement. It has been developed by the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) on behalf of the Scottish Government and is underpinned by the National Standards for Community Engagement.
VOiCE can be used to support a range of participation from overall area regeneration to specific concerns of users of particular services. It is designed to be relevant both for individual services and for integrated, cross disciplinary community planning. VOiCE enables all users to have a common system for analysing, planning, monitoring, evaluating and recording that provides common protocols, definition of terms and understanding of different types and purposes of engagement.
VOiCE National Conference
The VOiCE National Conference, held in May 2010 at Murrayfield, Edinburgh, marked the culmination of a two-year development programme across Scotland for the development and promotion of the VOiCE tool and supporting materials.
Minister for Housing and Communities, Alex Neil MSP, delivered a stimulating keynote address on the Government's commitment to community engagement and community empowerment. He spoke at length about the need to work closely with communities and gave examples of a range of initiatives that are contributing towards effective community empowerment.
He emphasised the need for shared responsibility among communities, workers and politicians to achieve true community empowerment. VOiCE, he said, can support efforts to build effective community engagement and work towards empowered communities and he was delighted to announce that the tool would soon be available online in response to the findings of the pilot sites and development work SCDC had carried out.
Bernadette Malone, Chief Executive of Perth and Kinross Council, gave a rousing talk on Perth and Kinross's corporate level commitment to community engagement. This culture of putting effective community engagement at the centre of service delivery has led Perth and Kinross to be among the early adopters of VOiCE, using it across a range of services and departments.
Alan Barr from SCDC gave the delegates a glimpse of the past by tracking the roots of participatory democracy and explaining how as communities, practitioners and policy-makers we must continue to seek to more effectively build community empowerment. Developments such the National Standards for Community Engagement and VOiCE help to continuously improve our practice in this area.
Paul Reilly from Audit Scotland gave the delegates a glimpse into the future on how local authorities and their community planning partners will be required to demonstrate not just their community engagement activity but also how well they are conducting this through the Best Value 2 Community Engagement Matrix. VOiCE can assist local authorities to adequately demonstrate how they plan, record, monitor and review such community engagement activity.
The day also provided opportunities for learning more about VOiCE and community engagement in general, during the workshops and roundtable discussions.
You can download the afternoon presentations below:
A full report of the conference will be available to download in the near future.
You can listen to the Minister's speech and other presentations at http://scdc.metrostreaming.com/.
VOiCE support materials
Various support materials have been developed throughout the duration of the VOiCE support programme and details of these are provided below.
Copies of the VOiCE support materials are available to download in PDF format
- Key Questions and Handy Hints - a booklet which takes you through the key questions in VOiCE and provides handy hints as you proceed through the VOiCE process
Work on the online version of VOiCE is now progressing and further details will be provided on the following websites:
An update will also be provided in the next edition of the newsletter.
Contact information
For more information on VOICE or to obtain copies of the support materials, contact David Allen or Paul Nellis at SCDC:
Scottish Community Development Centre
Suite 305
Baltic Chambers
50 Wellington Street
Glasgow
G2 6HJ
Phone: 0141 248 1924
Fax: 0141 248 4938
Email: david@scdc.org.uk or paul@scdc.org.uk
Website: www.scdc.org.uk