Community Rep interview
by Gaby Spinks

This month’s Partnership Board Rep interview is with Tony Hall. Tony was born and bred in Burngreave, and works for Job Link as a Guidance Officer.

Why did you stand for election to be a Rep?
I was asked a few days before the deadline, by community representatives, if I would stand for election. It was quite a surprise to be elected at such short notice.

I’ve seen dramatic changes in Burngreave over the years -some good and some bad, but the last few years have seen quite a big turn around and I hope it’s going to continue, although there’s still a lot of work to be done.

How do you feel about representing Burngreave?
I feel honoured, I take the job very seriously and I hope I can fulfil what people want, and I will strive to achieve it. I attend a lot of different Theme group meetings, though the main ones are the ‘Employment and Enterprise’ group and the ‘Crime and Safety’ group, as these are my areas of professional interest. I’ve also been heavily involved with the Summer Fund, which involves a very quick turn around of decisions.

Being a Rep is about giving people a voice at Partnership Boards, and giving people the answers. It’s about holding yourself responsible to groups and individuals.

How are you settling into the role of Partnership Board rep?
Being a Community Rep is quite time consuming. I average about 18.5 hours a week of meetings, which are extra hours on top of a full time job. The most I’ve attended was 4 meetings in one night. I didn’t get finished until 11.30 pm! When I first started no one was really certain of the rules of play, but that rapidly moved on. The more you offer yourself to the Board, the more they’ll take you up. You have to balance yourself a little bit, you don’t want to over stretch yourself, and just take on what’s comfortable. I haven’t had any problems learning the language of New Deal as my work as a Job Net officer is very similar, plus I’ve been involved with New Deal since the beginning.

What would you like to see change/happen while you are on the Board?
Because of my specialist area I’m very committed to helping to improve the employment opportunities with local employers and with local residents. I’ve just been promoted to Job Net Co-ordinator based at the new office on Spital Hill, so I will be even more locally based.

Do you feel you now have the power to make a difference?
As an example of how it can work, as part of my work I attend conferences throughout the Country with all the statutory groups. To discuss working in local communities and the positives and negatives of it, I was asked to do a presentation. Some of the things we put forward, at national level, have been implemented on local levels, so that shows we do have that power to make a change. By putting a case forward and arguing that case in a proper way and it will happen. I’ve seen it happen in a couple of instances, and that makes everyone feel much more positive about things and what they’re doing. It’s easy to feel sceptical about things. When you’re dealing at high level people say ‘Oh, that sounds good’, but then they go away and you never hear about it again, but as a Rep I can use my position to influence those decisions.

What would make being a Rep easier?
A lot of the earlier problems with New Deal were down to lack of communication. Things weren’t getting passed down to street level. There’s a lot going off in the background. Initially things did go wrong and people lost interest, but now things get turned around a lot quicker.

The Reps have got to be available to residents to listen to what they say and pass those messages on to the right person. A local base would really make everyone’s lives easier, people will know how to get hold of Reps and New Deal personnel, like the councillors do now, have local surgeries every week or month. There would be better facilities to record comments, and not all people can attend theme groups meetings.

Another idea would be for mobile road-shows that travel round to different parts of Burngreave to speak to everyone.

Other Community Rep interviews:

Issue 32, June 2003: Aisha Special K
Issue 33, August 2003: Adam Jones
Issue 34, September 2003: Natasha MacFarlane
Issue 36, November 2003: Dorrett Buckley-Greaves
Issue 37, December 2003: Kelvin Pine