CFP - People Spaces Places

Welcome the new look CFP!

As a company we have updated the entire CFP brand to reflect our passion for what we do and the way we do it. Please read on to get a feel for who we are, our broad range of services and our key successes. Our case studies show that you can add CFP to all sorts of contexts - from small projects such as assessing greenspace performance to multimillion pound lottery bids or the production of a greenspace strategy. You can also find out more about our understanding, experience and insight of greenspace matters within our website.

Business News

As well as updating our brand, we have also been working on our business processes and will be making significant investment in the personal development and training of our team. In fact, our team has now increased to 6 after the recruitment of Hilary Le Geyt as Business Manager, who will play a key role in delivering these business improvements.

To add further value to our training and facilitation service offering, 2 of our team have become members of the Institute of Training and Occupational Learning. Both Ian Baggott and Mike Smith have become Licentiate Fellows.

Finally, our director, Ian Baggott, was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in recognition for his national work with the Green Flag Award.

HACO

CFP were commissioned by the Hertfordshire Association of Cultural Officers (HACO) Environment Sub-group to provide support and training to member authorities to increase the number of Green Flag Award winning sites within the county. The HACO Environment Sub-group is a partnership of the 10 authorities within Hertfordshire and the county council who collectively entered into a Local Area Agreement to achieved 15 Green Flag Awards by 2009.

CFP started working with the HACO partnership in 2007 when there were 7 Green Flag Awards held in the county and by 2008 this had increased to 11. The partnership are well on the way to achieving the target of 15 with five of these awards in the most deprived parts of the county.

CFP have developed and run a number of training courses for participants around management planning, an introduction to the requirements of Green Flag and also how to prepare and manage the judging process as applicants to the Award. We have also developed and run more detailed training around specific Green Flag criteria such as marketing and promotion, environmental management and community involvement.

One of the key benefits from the programme has been that local networks have been expanded and better relationships between participating authorities have been developed and strengthened. Through the programme all authorities are now participating within the network and sharing of skills and experiences has increased.

Green Flag Award

The Green Flag Award 2009 application round is now open and more than a thousand parks and green spaces have been signed on to the register of interest.

There are currently 743 award winning parks and green spaces in England and Wales, with nearly two thirds of all local authorities having at least one Green Flag, and we have been instrumental in helping quite a few of them achieve this prestigious quality standard. Our involvement in the Green Flag Award scheme is second to no other consultancy in the country and our work has included:

Designing the Green Pennant Award
Designing the national Judges training programme
Representation on the former steering group and the Green Flag Advisory Board.

In addition to this, three of our staff give their time freely as part of the independent team of judges who assess the applications. With so much experience and knowledge of the scheme it is little wonder that we work with clients on such diverse projects.

CFP is also the market leader in developing and delivering training programmes about the Green Flag Award. From marketing your green space to managing your judging day, we can provide a tailored proposal for just one applicant or a whole consortium.

Heritage Lottery Fund

New guidance is due out this month on the next phase of the Parks for People grant programme and CFP are already working on a submission. The new phase 1 application is expected to be a simplified version of the current stage 1 and we will be making sure that we are fully prepared to advise current and future clients on the scheme.

CFP have a great track record from audience development to management and maintenance plans, from training and skills audits to project management. We have worked on over £50m worth of projects to date with a high success rate.

Our director, Ian Baggott, has been on HLF’s National Directory of Expert advisors and has recently been re-appointed to the new Register of Support Services. Ian also co-authored HLF’s guidance on management plans.

Community Spaces

You may already be aware of this national £50 million open grants programme that is managed by Groundwork UK. The programme helps community groups create or improve green and open spaces so that the quality of life in neighbourhoods across England is enhanced. More details can be found on the Community Spaces website.

CFP have been working alongside Groundwork UK and the Civic Trust on various aspects of the programme to date. Each project will be assigned a facilitator to help the community group through the application process and CFP have helped to recruit and train these key people. We have also produced a guidance manual for facilitators and are currently producing a resource directory, an on line facility for sourcing information. We have also worked on designing part of the application process along with guidance notes for applicants.

Adrian Spray and Mike Anderson from our team have both been appointed as facilitators to the programme and have already worked on eight projects.