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Below is a list of commonly used terms for the regeneration and sustainable
communities sectors. The sources for these terms come from a wide range of
publications and our own definitions.
Accountable Body: The legal entity nominated to act on behalf of the
partnership in taking responsibility for the receipt and use of grants.
Activities: The specific tasks to be undertaken during a project's life
in order to obtain outputs.
Actual Match Funding: Project expenditure financed by sources of eligible
private or public funds other than the main source of programme funding.
Money from private funds originates from private enterprise.
Additionality: Describes the benefits in addition to the planned outcomes
of a project which occur as a result of the project.
Analysis of Objectives: Checking that there is a clear means to end
relationship between the objectives.
Activity Plan: A graphic representation, similar to a Gantt chart, setting
out the timing, sequence and duration of project activities. It can also be
used to identify milestones for monitoring progress, and to assign
responsibility for achievement of milestones.
Aims and Objectives: The result a project intends to achieve, the purpose
for which it exists.
Appraisal: Analysis of a proposed project to determine its merit and
acceptability in accordance with established criteria. This is the final step
before a project is agreed for financing.
Appraisal and Commitment Stage: The fourth stage of the project cycle
during which projects are approved for financing.
Assumptions: External factors which could affect the progress or success
of the project, but over which the project manager has no direct control.
Baseline: The starting conditions for a project or study, etc. The position
against which progress is measured at the end of a project.
Benchmark: An indicator which allows you to measure the impact or
success of a project by comparing it against something similar, e.g.
comparing the number of people completing a training course with another
similar course in a similar area.
Best Value: A framework that sets out a set of indicators that are used to
appraise or evaluate performance.
BME: Black and Minority Ethnic.
Budget Plan: A description of the project costs over the length of the
planned project.
Capacity Building: A range of methods and initiatives to help groups and
individuals to gain confidence, skills, knowledge and the ability to self-help.
Capital Assets: Land and buildings (including and interest in land, and
leasehold buildings), and items of equipment and other movable and
immovable assets.
Capital Funding: Money spent on the purchase or improvement of fixed
assets such as buildings, land, equipment, etc.
Capital Projects: Projects which have the specific aim of providing a new
asset or facility or improving an existing one.
Commitment: A commitment is a formal decision taken by funders, and
other contributors, to provide resources to a project.
Community Enterprise: Combines community-led action with business
activities aimed at economic development and social gain. Community
enterprises have explicit social aims and are accountable to their
communities. They are independent but work in partnership with others.
Community Planning: Where residents, Local Authority officers and other
relevant stakeholders plan together.
Compact: A Government document and process defining and strengthening
relationships between the public and voluntary sectors.
Corporate and Social Responsibility: Making links with the community.
Cultural Diversity: Cultural mutual respect and coexistence; or cultural
interdependence.
Cultural Capital: The result of shared experiences that produce tradition,
custom, values, heritage, history and legacy. This is about learning and being
proud of one’s locality and the history to which a person belongs.
Deadweight: Expenditure and activity associated with a particular project,
which would have occurred with out assistance from external grants.
Delivery Plan: A detailed plan which sets out a programme’s intentions and
objectives, and budget.
Depreciation: The calculated losses in value of an asset due to age, wear
and tear, deterioration or obsolescence. Depreciation must be calculated
according to your organisation's depreciation policy.
Discount Rate: The annual percentage rate at which the value of money
reduces over time to give a present day value.
Displacement: The extend to which the effect of a project impacts
- positively or negatively - on the surrounding areas.
Economic Capital: A broader base of decision making about the allocation
and use of resources; and a new definition of the value system, taking into
account the other sustainable community components
Evaluation: A periodic assessment of the relevance, performance,
efficiency and impact of a project in the context of stated objectives. It is
undertaken as an independent objective examination, with a view to learning
lessons that may be more widely applicable.
Evidence: The means by which the indicators or milestones will be verified.
Factors Ensuring Sustainability: Factors that are known to have had a
significant impact on the sustainability of benefits generated by projects in
the past, and which should be taken into account in the design of future
projects.
Feasibility Study: A feasibility study, verifies whether the proposed project
is well-founded, and is likely to meet the needs of its intended users. The
study should design the project in full operational detail, taking account of all
technical, economic, financial, institutional, management, environmental and
social and cultural aspects.
Financing Agreement: The document signed between the funder and the
implementing agent. It includes a description of the particular project or
programme to be funded.
Financing Proposal: Financing proposals are draft documents, submitted by
the implementing organisation to the relevant funders for opinion and decision.
They describe the general background, nature, scope and objectives and
modalities of measures proposed and indicate the funding foreseen.
Floor Targets: Minimum requirements to be achieved or met as part of a
regional initiative.
Focus group: A participative data collection exercise for a group of stakeholders,
brought together to discuss, or work on, a particular issue.
Formulation Stage: The third stage in the project cycle. It involves the
establishment of the details of the project on the basis of a feasibility study,
followed by an examination by funders to assess the project's merits and
consistency with policies.
Forward Strategy: Arrangements to continue beyond the period of an
initiative.
Governance: Governance relates to the way partnerships, boards and
committees structure their working relations so that the process is open, fair and
accessible.
Hierarchy of Objectives: Activities, Outputs, Project Purpose, Overall
Outcome as specified in the Objectives Column of the Logical Framework as
a means to an end description of a step by step process.
Human Capital: The knowledge, skills and competencies embodied in
individuals that facilitate the creation of well being.
Identification Stage: The second stage of the project cycle, where
stakeholders, problems and objectives are identified and assessed.
Implementation Stage: The fifth stage of the project cycle during which
the project is implemented, and progress towards achieving objectives is
monitored.
Indicators: An indicator is a description of what should happen in terms of
quantity, time, quality and target group. The Indicators provide the basis for
designing an appropriate monitoring system.
In Kind Match Funding: Where an individual or organisation provides a
service or product to the project (e.g. donated time or equipment), the
actual cost of the service can be used as match funding in kind. Volunteer
time is also treated as match funding.
Integrated Approach: The consistent examination of a project throughout
all the stages of the project cycle, to ensure that issues of relevance,
feasibility and sustainability remain in focus.
Leakage: The extent to which the proposed activity effects stakeholders
outside the target area, positively or negatively.
Learning Champions: A methodology for peer learning within communities.
It is used for entry level learning and engagement.
Leverage: The additional money that an initiative attracts.
Life Cycle Costing: Is a process to determine the sum of all the costs
associated with an asset or part thereof, including acquisition, installation,
operation, maintenance, refurbishment and disposal costs. It is therefore
pivotal to the asset management process within an environmental conscious
world.
Local Strategic Partnership (LSP): Non-statutory bodies, which aim to
bring together at a local level a range of stakeholders - from the public,
private, voluntary and community sectors to ensure their co-operation in the
regeneration of deprived neighbourhoods. Local partners working through a
LSP will be expected to take many of the major decisions about priorities
and funding for their local area.
Logical Framework: The matrix in which a project's objectives,
assumptions, indicators and sources of evidence are developed to design a
project.
Mainstreaming: Transferring policy and good practice lessons learnt, into
the policy process, or to a public or private sector body that will replicate
the good practice as part of its existing services.
Means: The inputs required in order to do the work (such as personnel,
equipment and materials).
Methodology: A body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those
who work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry; a set of working methods.
Milestones: Milestones are points in the progress of a planned set of
activities.
Monitoring: The systematic and continuous collection, analysis and use
of information for the purpose of management control, decision-making and
reporting.
Multiplier: The additional or second level effects of a programme or project.
Natural Capital: Sustainable management of the natural environment and
the preservation of non-renewable resources, such as minerals and fossil fuels.
Objectives: Description of how the aim of a project or programme is to be
achieved. In its generic sense it refers to activities, outputs, project purpose,
and overall outcome.
Objectives Column: The set of objectives established in hierarchy which
describes the things the project will achieve.
Objective Assessment: A diagrammatic representation of the proposed
project interventions planned logically, following a problem analysis, showing
proposed means, resources and ends.
Optional Appraisal: Deciding which option to undertake from a number of
different approaches.
Overall Outcome: A wider objective to which the project is designed to
contribute. It is focused on programme priorities and themes.
Outputs: The outputs are the result of a set of activities. Sometimes
known as ‘results’.
Participatory Approaches: People and Participation by ’togetherwecan’ and
Participation Toolkit by Local Livelihoods are two manuals on a range of linking
participatory techniques and that can be used for community engagement and
decision making.
Partnership: A consortium of a number of organisations who have signed
up to being a partner of a formalised group.
Physical Capital: The stock of material resources available for use by a
community, and the integrated and sustainable planning of their construction,
maintenance and final recycling.
Pre-Conditions: Pre-conditions (if any) are external issues which must be
taken into account and/or dealt with prior to project commencement.
Pre-feasibility Study: The pre-feasibility study, conducted during the
identification stage, ensures that all problems are identified and alternative
solutions are appraised.
Problem Assessment: A structured investigation of the negative aspects
of a situation in order to establish causes and their effects.
Project Appraisal: The assessment of a project to make sure that it
provides value for money, and will tackle the problem to be addressed.
Project Cycle: The project cycle follows the life of a project from the initial
rationale through to its completion. It provides a structure to ensure that
stakeholders are consulted, and defines the key decisions, information
requirements and responsibilities at each stage so that informed decisions
can be made. It draws on evaluation to build experience from projects into
the design of future programmes and projects.
Project Cycle Management: A methodology for the preparation,
implementation and evaluation of projects and programmes.
Project Purpose: The central objective of the project in terms of
sustainable benefits to be delivered to the project users. It does not refer to
the services provided by the project (these are outputs), but to the benefits
which project users will derive.
Ratio Analysis: Ratio analysis is a widely used method to compare one figure
(or cost) with another, expressed as a percentage. Ratios can be used to
compare one type of cost with another, such as capital and revenue costs,
and/or compare costs over time, for example, between one year and another.
Ratios can be used to appraise best value with similar projects; evaluate the
relationship between costs at the end of the project; and to set average cost
relationships as local benchmarks that can then be used in the future to compare
similar projects.
Regeneration: The revival of something that was once in a better condition,
such as a building, employment, safety on the streets.
Result: What happens as a consequence of a set of activities. Result is
sometimes used in the same way as an ‘output’ and vice versa.
SME's: Small and medium sized enterprises.
Social Capital: The relationships, partnerships, and networks that facilitate
collective action. The communication that holds communities together.
Social Enterprise: A business that trades primarily to achieve social aims,
while making a profit. Social aims might include job creation, training and
provision of local services. They are organised along democratic lines, with
stakeholders having full say in the direction of the business. Credit unions are
examples of banking social enterprises.
STEPs: Is a method to provide basic entry level confidence building measures for local
communities.
Strategic Vision: The Strategic Vision describes what it will be like once
the programme has successfully been completed. It will provide guiding
principles when designing and appraising individual projects.
Stakeholder: An individual or institution with a financial or intellectual
interest in the outputs of a project.
Strategy Options: Critical assessment of the alternative ways of achieving
objectives, and selection of one or more for inclusion in the proposed project.
Sustainability: Sustainability is the ability to generate outputs after
external support has been discontinued. While a project is limited by time,
the benefits should continue and the activities should be developed long after
the project has ended, without the need for external inputs. A key
requirement for a successful project.
Sustainable Communities: Places where people want to live and work,
now and in the future and which do not damage the environment. SWOT
Analysis: Analysis of an organisation's Strengths and Weaknesses, and the
Opportunities and Threats that it faces. A tool used for project appraisal.
Sustainability Indicator: These are the indicators developed by a team to measure
the immediate results of an action and the future impact of that same action.
Terms of Reference: Terms of Reference define the tasks required; and
indicate project background and objectives, planned activities, expected
inputs and outputs, budget, timetables and job descriptions.
Transnational: Funded programmes that operate across a number of
countries within the European Union.