Glossary

Added Value
Producing additional benefits beyond the quantifiable and measured terms of a contract often gained as a by-product of a service/project which would not have occurred had the service or project not gone ahead.

Best Value
A framework, based on a set of nationally determined indicators, to help local authorities measure, manage and improve their performance. It involves consultation with the service users, agencies best placed to deliver services, comparing performance and open up services to competition.

Best Value is seen as a means of ensuring services are based on the priorities in the community strategy and expected to result in more diverse service provision with the private, voluntary and community sectors taking a greater role.

Capacity Building
Activities, resources, techniques and support that develops and strengthen the skills and abilities of people and community groups to influence or take decisions that affect the regeneration of their areas, enabling them to become directly involved in service delivery and/ or the implementation of projects, and to engage with public bodies and contribute effectively to regeneration projects.

Community Development
The process of developing active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. It is about influencing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the issues that affect their lives.

Community Enterprise
Combines community-led action with business activities aimed at economic development and social gain, within a community.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
An agenda that involves businesses attempting to improve their social and environmental impact.

European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
An EU Structural Fund which aims to reduce inequalities in socio-economic development between the regions within the EU, by supporting infrastructure projects, job-creation investments, local development and aid for SMEs.

European Social Fund (ESF)
EU Structural Fund that supports activities to develop employability and human resources in five key areas: active labour market policies; equal opportunities; improving training and education and promoting lifelong learning; adaptability and entrepreneurship; improving the participation of women in the labour market. In general the fund aims to help people into work, promote lifelong learning and develop the skills of employed people.

EU
European Union

Evaluation
The assessment of a project, programme or initiative in order to determine the extent to which objectives have been achieved, how efficiently they have been achieved, and whether there are any lessons to be learned for the future.

Feasibility Study
A study to consider whether a proposed plan can feasibly be enacted and may assess which of various options is most practical, realistically achievable or most likely to be effective.

Joint Venture
A legal entity formed between two or more parties to undertake particular business. All parties agree to contribute equity and split revenues, expenses, and management. JVs can be created for one specific project or as a permanent business relationship.

Leverage
The process of using initial funding to secure further funds in order to complete a programme or support. The additional money that a programme causes others to contribute.

Local Area Agreement (LAA)
A 3 year agreement between Central Government and a local area. The agreement sets out priority issues for local action and what partners will deliver.

Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI)
A government initiative designed to improve levels of enterprise and entrepreneurship by releasing the economic and productivity potential in the most deprived areas of England and building sustainable communities.

Local Strategic Partnership (LSP)
A Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) is a single non-statutory, multi-agency body, which matches local authority boundaries, and aims to bring together at a local level the different public sector agencies, private businesses, and the community and voluntary sectors in order to deliver services more effectively. LSPs rationalise other local partnership arrangements and work closely with neighbourhood based partnerships. They are expected to prepare and implement the community strategy and develop targets where there is to be a public service agreement.

Mainstream Services
Services that are provided from main or core budgets of local authorities or agencies.

Mainstreaming Service Provision
Realigning the allocation of mainstream resources (such as the police and health services) to improve services in deprived areas so that these areas are not dependent on short term grant-led regeneration programmes. Regeneration funds such as SRB and NRF supplement mainstream funds.

Mainstreaming is the process of transferring policy, good practice or activity from area-based initiatives or special programmes into the core of mainstream service provision.

Neighbourhood Renewal
A national strategy to improve outcomes on worklessness, crime, health, education, housing and the physical environment, as well as narrowing the gap between the poorest neighbourhoods in England and the rest of the country.

Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF)
A Government fund that aims to enable England's local authorities in the most deprived areas to improve public services and tackle deprivation.

Not for Profit Organisation
A term used to describe an organisation or company where any surpluses/ profits generated by its activities are reinvested back into the organisation and used to further the organisation's purpose or used to benefit the wider community. The profits are not distributed amongst the members or shareholders of the company.

Outsourcing
The practice of buying goods and services from another person or company instead of producing them inside the company. Outsourcing is done to save money, create greater economies of scale, improve quality, provide specific expertise, or free company resources for other activities.

Procurement
The process involved in requesting, ordering, auditing and paying for goods and services from an external provider.

Public Private Partnership
A partnership between the public sector and private sector for the purpose of delivering a project or service traditionally provided by the public sector. Covers private finance initiative schemes (schools, hospital buildings), contract for a business to deliver a service(s).

Regeneration
The process of upgrading an area's social, economic and physical environment through infrastructure investment and improvements.

Registered Social Landlord (RSL)
Landlords of social housing that are registered with the Housing Corporation. Most are housing associations but they also include trusts, co-operatives and companies.

Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME)
Businesses that employ fewer than 250 persons and which have an annual turnover not exceeding 50 million Euros, and/ or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding 43 million Euro.

Enterprise category	Number of staff	Turnover	Balance sheet total
Medium-sized	< 250	≤ € 50 million	≤ € 43 million
Small	< 50	≤ € 10 million	≤ € 10 million
Micro	< 10	≤ € 2 million	≤ € 2 million

Social Enterprise
A business that trades for a social purpose.

DTI definition - A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.

Social Exclusion
When individuals or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown. It can also have a wider meaning which encompasses the exclusion of people from the normal exchanges, practices and rights of society.

Social Inclusion
Policies, projects or initiatives that draw people into the mainstream of a society and all the associated opportunities.

Single Regeneration Budget (SRB)
Funds from several Government Departments that aimed at enhancing the employment prospects, education and the skills of local people and tackle the needs of communities in the most deprived areas. SRB commitment ended in 2007.

Stakeholder Engagement
A stakeholder is a group or individual that has an interest in a particular initiative, project or activity and its outcomes.

Street Scene
Incorporates a number of services such as street cleansing, highways and verge maintenance, street lighting that have an important impact on the street and public open spaces in terms of their appearance and condition. It is one of the few services that in some way or other affects all of the population living, working and visiting the area.

Sustainability
The process which ensures the long term survival of an organisation or programme.

Sustainable Development
Development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the future generations to meet their own.

Third Sector
Non-governmental organisations with cultural, social and environmental objectives. It includes voluntary and community organisations, charities, social enterprises, cooperatives and mutuals, and housing associations.

Waste Management
The management of the collection, recovery and disposal of wastes, including options for waste reduction and environmental impact.

Products, systems and services for the collection, handling, transport, processing or disposal, treatment (including recycling) and disposal of municipal, commercial and industrial waste materials.

Worklessness
An expanded definition of unemployment that also includes those who are economically inactive as well as unemployed claimants and those who are actively out of work and looking for a job.

The economically inactive are people of working age who are not working, are not in full-time education or training and are not actively seeking work. Many are outside the labour market voluntarily because of family responsibilities or early retirement for example. There is evidence that many people want a job and would work if they had the right opportunity, incentive or path back into employment.